A New Song

Dear all readers alike,

I've started another blog 'project' (for want of a better term) to get me through the next three years - I think that's a good enough length for a cycle.  I'm still wrestling with the same kind of problems I always have been, while trying to improve myself bit by bit.

I'm still ill, but still in employment and actually have a girlfriend (!) that things are going very well with.  I don't really know what else to say - I'm at a strange point in my life really where I have time outside of work and money to spare but don't really seem to be doing very much constructive otherwise... Or is that enough?  I am, after all, an adult living with Aspergers.

Maybe I'm trying too hard to be normal (like always) and I should be happy that I've gotten this far and have this level of independence.  Some things are good, but I suppose that some things could be better.  Anyway, find me once more, if you like this kind of thing, at www.speck-synder.blogspot.co.uk and I suppose we'll go from there...

Pastures New

It finally happened.  I finally started a new blog.  It feels like it's been longer than it actually has been, I mean two months is two months... But anyway.  I guess I made the first step in moving on.  

Obviously I'm leaving this all here, unedited (for now), because that will never come back to haunt me at an inappropriate time in my future career.  In the meantime, update your bookmarks and swing by my new pad at http://asylumsouthwest.blogspot.co.uk/ for the next step in the master plan as I follow one three year project with another!  

Tune in already as I've published even at this early stage.  See you next time.

All's well that ends well...?

This is it.  I was never really sure when I started how or when this would end, but I think we're here.  Complex, not complicated.

I haven't written for a long time, really.  Things have gone off the boil recently, not to mention a certain state of emotional volatility that has come from trying to find my place in this Brave New World of Lay-Vicarship.  Turns out that actually, being a Lay-Vicar is almost just exactly but not quite the same as being a choral scholar.  Boozy Friday nights giving out to hung-over Saturdays, the weekly responsorial psalm roulette (altos not included, of course), Sunday nights spiraling wildly out of control and ending (almost inevitably) in the Qdos Karaoke...



The thing is, things have changed.  The tagline at the top, "Love, life, and the poor end of the stall" are no longer really... Appropriate.  Let's deconstruct:

I consider myself formally retired from actively pursuing any sort of love life.  Isn't that sad?  Isn't that dreadful?  What a woeful cry for help!  No.  Sorry.  I know it looks stupid but after how miserable the last break up made me, and how, well...bad I've been at being attracted to people who are either already attached or have no interest in me.  Or seem to but are having some sort of mental crisis... Or even might just be but like to insult me on a continual basis.  Basically...yeah, terrible.  Also, I have no real idea with how to engage with the whole business of successfully showing any sort of romantic interest, and even less with how to successfully interpret it, so I'm out, you guys.  Sometimes I do get dreadfully lonely, and it isn't helped by the feeling that I couldn't actually do anything about it.  This is the no-win situation though, and there isn't a get out, as far as I can see.  Maybe my priorities are all wrong at the moment, witless navel gazing aside.  I do catch myself suddenly caught by the sight of some gorgeous vision... Before remembering that I have no idea what I would actually do.

My life... Well, yes, my life.  I suppose things are going well, actually!  I am pleased to report how well my domestic arrangements have continued to improve, to the point where I naturally refer to the gentleman whose house I lodge in and pay rent to as my house mate, rather than land lord.  Lessons in Verdi, Don't Tell the Bride, tech support and sharing bottles of Budweiser at the start of a weekend have proved far superior to well... Almost everything in fact.  Now a mere 7 minutes away from the outer Crypt door rather than 2, things are very fine in the Georgian terrace I now call home.  I may not have found any permanent work, but bits and bobs here and there keep the wolf from the door, and socially I've been doing much better, hosting a few dinners here and there, including a triumphal roast beef supper for Swedish guests particularly.  But life with the magnificent Dr. N suits me exceptionally well.

And the Stall?  Things could hardly have gone better this year!  Not only have I fulfilled my aim of joining the back row of a Cathedral Choir once again as a full member of the foundation, but I have been accepted by choir, congregation, and most importantly, the Director.  Somehow, my excellent boss seems to have grown to put up with my... Eccentricities, including but not limited to singing all the Christmas descants, and a constant hum of chatter and giggling from the Decani altos.  While I don't get every solo on the books, I don't feel there's anything to complain about, and I've found a real niche being the mainstay of the Alto line - still no days off!  Although I was forty minutes late for rehearsal one Sunday, in a freak occurrence that has both never happened since and left me deeply paranoid about my alarm system.  Thankfully, I was forgiven.  I fit in well with "The Team", I'm sure there are aspects of my game I can pick up on, and the opportunity to develop my skills in a safe environment that I can misbehave in occasionally is nigh-on perfect.


And perhaps this is another reason that writing has gone off the boil - it's like I've ticked it all off.  Basically, the true and original purpose of this blog was to distract me from just how depressed I really was, and thinking back it was certainly one of my darkest hours.  I managed to hide almost everything, but at least I had this to use as a vent when things became particularly overwhelming... Many people have said over the years how admirable a coping method this has been, but let me raise the iron curtain on that one for you folks - I've never been able to cope, and probably never will.  It's all about managing, getting by.  If I can succeed at that then I'm a step ahead really.  Or at least I feel as if I am.

So?  What now?  As the house lights slowly dim, I've already considered that I'd like the show to go on, but on a different stage.  There are a lot of things, personal things, that make me dreadfully angry.  In fact, I tell people that I am almost permanently angry - but mostly with myself; as soon as you understand that, things fall into place a little better.  There are beginnings of long form articles bouncing around in my head, and really the Songman's Rest is no place for a lot of them: video game theory, Historically Informed Performance discussion and that piece I've always wanted to write about Truro Cathedral's Father Willis Organ.  For context, the heading picture is the west end organ of Derby Cathedral, one of the most surprisingly versatile and impressive organs I have had the fortune to serve under.  Short form, be it a weekly bulletin style, or maybe really bad poetry that was scribbled out on some screwed up napkin, or even some thoughts on that film I went to see also don't really belong here... And these are the things that I want to write now!  I also really, really want to get stuck into a thesis on the Orgelbewegung... Actually it's probably for the best that I keep that to myself.

 So, as the curtains finally close, I feel almost close to tears.  Such sentimentality!  Such melodrama!  It's certainly been a journey, and it even looks like my writing has improved, if even a little.  I even managed to crap out at least 1000 words a day last May!  When I set my new page up, I'll post links in the appropriate places.  I do still enjoy writing, after all.

Such fun.

At time of posting, this is the 230th post, and the 163rd to be published, with 13,087 page views  After three years, eight months and twenty days, and a couple of hundred thousand words, it's time to lay this to rest.  Thanks for sticking by me through all the dross and dour sentiment.  

And of course, I'll be back soon enough.  May you be sealed and inscribed for a good year!

Tabula Rasa

See, the thing about having a block when you're me, is that flashes of inspiration come and go, making their arrival unannounced and often unwelcome, perhaps in the middle of putting a knot in a necktie, or perhaps waiting for tea to brew to the optimum point, or even (most annoyingly), the fine mean-tempering of my Tenor Banjo.

This is not one of those times.

This is one of those times that I think that actually I just need to sit down and actually get something out and published because Jesus Christ I am supposed to be writing a regular blog and did you know I managed to set out at least a thousand words a day in May, and it's been all quiet for a month.  A month!  Terrible.
The short answer is that a hell of a lot has happened, and actually, I don't really know where to pick up.  Where could I even begin?  I've moved house, received promotion, welcomed a new cohort of scholars, installed a harsh yet justified financial regime... But what's really interesting about that?  Obviously a lack of interest in even reviewing my own situation, let alone anything else, is indicative of some kind of... primordial unhappiness, and to be honest, having only moved in a month ago to my new lodgings I'm actually hardly surprised.  Things are still deeply chaotic, and compared to previous moves, much more stressful.  I bloody hate moving, and I will not move from that platform.

However.  Why not try something... New age?  Dip into the pot of pop psychology and focus on the positive HA HA but no, actually things are pretty okay.  Although things are...less than ideal at my new lodging (household animal companion allergy and hit and miss with the hot water), I am very happy with my new domestic lodging.  I am looking to expand the ancient feast of the Thursday night curry, with the help of a small subscription fee and the dining room to bring new levels of culinary excellence and the fellowship of having a good meal together.  Hmm.  What else is good?  The new Scholars!  Yes. 

I am fond of telling people that things are different this year.  All sorts of things taken for granted in former years have fallen away: the frequency of curries, which bars we visit post-evo, even down to the fact that there's no television in The Scholary!  Everything changes, I suppose, even we who hate change.  I am now, as previously stated, a Lay Vicar of the Cathedral Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Truro... but to be perfectly honest spend almost every evening with the Scholars.  Things are different this year, with the Scholars being much younger on the whole, with only one member being incumbent of his post.  We have a new, slightly international flavour to this year, with scholars coming from as far afield as Sweden, Canada and most notably, Oxford. The house has seen some improvement, and while the current denizens are still working out the kitchen, the atmosphere is much clearer generally (which may or may not have something to do with the use of air freshener in the toilet...).  On the whole, voices are quieter than they have been the last two years, but the blend hasn't suffered for it; if anything, the back row's tuning has improved across the board, even if the front row is still raising blood pressures all round.  Of course, my behaviour as a probationer was dreadful as well, and there's no point from shying away from that... But I do remember being clipped round the ear, which is somewhat unfashionable these days.  Or illegal.  I don't know.

I'm looking forward to how this year pans out.  All six of the new scholars, including (or should that be especially?) the Organ Scholar, have their own strengths to bring to the table.  This is my third year in Truro after all, and who even knows where I'll end up (will it be here just like my forebears?), perhaps I'll manage to get back to England one day or just maybe I'll make it across the Atlantic.  If I'm ever going to get anywhere, I really need to address this utterly fatal lack of confidence that I have.  It's almost as if I never quite manage to catch a break and really get everything back together before the next wave comes along or I need to put my social face on and go and do the Lay Vicar thing or even go and work in the Office all day... I dunno.  Finding a balance is difficult.  More difficult than you think.  But... That's my life.

So!  This hasn't been too bad.  Perhaps a month hiatus is what I needed to pass the birth pangs of the new age.  One thing that I did think about as I was buttering toast last week was that I can't really write because I have no idea what I am, or what I'm doing.  Last year I was a Scholar who hung around with the Lay Vicars, and this year I'm a Lay Vicar who hangs around with the Scholars.  Living off a pittance, but this time so I can actually pay off my overdraft and not spend the rest of my life languishing in student debt.  Hopefully, I might find more chance to actually flex my writing muscles.  One of the biggest issues in my life is having to acknowledge my disability, which is something I am taking a huge amount of time to come to terms with.  Even elementary social cues still escape me, after all this time and all this effort I'm sure you could understand how frustrating that could be.  

Back to the grindstone though, as once again I must awake the first Cello Suite and get back to preparing the second for Lent.  I would much rather prepare Banjo recitals than sing, because anybody can go hear some Countertenor hoot through some hit parade of classics... But Bach suites on a Banjo?  You heard it here first, folks.

Comfortably Disturbed

“Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comforted”.  Discuss.

What a great phrase, huh?  An excellent tent pole for discussion about what art really is, and what its purpose may be.  More and more I feel that art should have the capacity to challenge, an opinion I have discovered not so much by sitting and thinking that it ought to be that way, but more as a retrospective of what art I prefer, and how I engage with it.

My shelves are full of dystopian fiction, be that in print or on film (well, DVD) and I champion the works of George Orwell and Philip K. Dick.  While the latter author may not be strictly dystopian per se, his neatly written and sharply witty science fiction is far more preferable than the reams of ponderous teen-fiction trilogies that are cropping up in response to the sudden boom created by the wild success of the Hunger Games trilogy, itself seeming to borrow heavily from the genre-defining Battle Royale.  In truth, it seems that it’s a case of convergent evolution rather than direct imitation, but for the record I prefer BR.  The premise seems more intriguing to me; rather than being set in some sort of near future post-apocalyptic world where society has been restructured to a kind of neo-feudalism with televised death matches (cf. The Running Man), but where the death game is actually part of a contemporary society (although in an alternate timeline) in 1997.  There are slight cultural barriers (although the fine translations make light work of these), and I suppose that the fact that names in the Hunger Games being in English (if deliberately slightly unfamiliar to heighten the sense of societal breakdown as we know it) makes it easier for the general trilogy reading public to engage with.  Hot on the heels of Hunger Games races the Divergent trilogy, or whatever its series’ name will eventually become, on course for a film adaption of its own (and also another source of my constant gripes about everything having to be a trilogy these days).  Books of this particular genre all continue an underlying theme of current and familiar societal rules and regulations breaking down as we join our cast in the aftermath of the apocalypse.  In all truth and honesty, I’m not particularly excited by this genre.  I know plenty of you are, and God forbid I should express any sort of alternative.  There’s a sort of “identikit” feel to these: not too far in the future, modern democratic practice has ceased as we know it, with teenaged protagonists who are the agents of change.  I doubt that there would have been much to say about this particular style a decade ago: BR is almost 15 years old now, and we’re almost at the stage now (and not then) where these dystopias are becoming believable.

I much prefer the political fables of 1984 and Animal Farm by George Orwell, while we’re still on the subject of dystopias, and I’m sure Philip K. Dick will feature sooner rather than later.  Another issue I take with the previously discussed trilogies and their ilk (although not with BR, but also 1984) is their ‘after-the-fact’ settings.  The revolution has already been and gone, but it still hangs heavy in the air.  Star Trek, even though it is utopian fiction, is set many years into the future after their universe’s revolution, where war ravaged the planet (particularly the Eugenics Wars in the 1990s with my good chum Khan Noonien Singh) before humanity pulled together out of the ashes, the dust having settled.  Here, Orwell differs with Animal Farm, which has the reader follow the action of the ‘revolutionaries’ and the creation and degradation of a new regime.  In fact, when you look at the two together from a slightly side on angle, Animal Farm shows a precursory environment that could indeed lead to a 1984 situation, mostly in the use of propaganda to keep the other farm animals from asking too many questions, and the ‘vaporisation’ of animals within the farm who have become considered dangerous by the Farmer’s dogs as raised by Napoleon. 

Dick’s work, on the other hand, feels much more contemporary.  As I’ve said before, A Scanner Darkly is one of my favourite films, and in comparison to the text is almost page for page just put on screen, a refreshingly excellent production.  The peculiar rotoscoping used gives the film a unique aesthetic.  Perhaps the familiarity is due to it being semi-autobiographical, and relatable to almost anyone who lives in shared accommodation at any time in their lives (although particularly student accommodation in the UK), and the particularly dystopian aspect found in the relationship between “Substance D” and the “New Path” clinics.  Over the course of the narrative, not much is as it seems, and Robert Downey Jnr.’s casting as a substance addict surprising nobody (truly, the world’s greatest method actor) particularly gifted delivery as Barris being a true highlight of the film.  The death of Charles Freck is completely the same in both book and motion picture, which is something that pleased me greatly.  Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said, with a plot too complicated to reduce to a few pithy lines is worth a read.  It encapsulates one of my favourite things about dystopian fiction – a lack of a typically ‘happy’ ending.

Another thing that I enjoy about dystopian fiction that works so well for me is the lack of hope.  On a day to day basis I often genuinely feel that there sometimes... there is no way anything can improve, and having lived through dreadful times where there has been little to no resolution, it’s nice to see that there are fictional characters saddled with much the same yoke as well.  Let’s put another favourite piece of dystopia under the spotlight: V for Vendetta, by Alan Moore and illustrated by David Lloyd.  All we know about the title character is that he dresses up as Guy Fawkes in order to maintain his anonymity, and performs acts that undermine, destabilise and expose the nature of a Government that subjugates the people by fear and brutality, and also having run genetic experiments in concentration camps known as “resettlement camps” after a brief nuclear war.  The themes presented by this work are vast, and are a reflection of the political environment they came from, but the fascist government sets a stage for racial segregation, institutionalised sexual discrimination, the manipulation of populace through media control... You know, the usual sort of dystopian checklist.  As we reach the conclusion of the story, sacrifices are made, allegiances questioned and chaos embraced – not a traditional happy ending by any standard; in fact; the last few frames of the book show just one man walking down a darkened motorway, having turned his back on everything that has gone before.  I don’t want to put any sort of spoilers in, because it’s so bloody good and if you’re remotely interested in reading it (and I do mean reading it, because while the film is good it just doesn’t quite measure up in the same way, even though it is rather good), just do.  The anti-heroic protagonist’s intellectualism and cultural knowledge stands in stark opposition to the fascist Government’s strict control on art and any form of self-expression.  When we reach the end, the country is in total chaos.  Rather than reach a resolution, we witness the next step in the journey.

Finally, the catalyst for all this: Fight Club.  The film adaption of Chuck Palahniuk’s 1997 novel has had all sorts of labels slapped on to it: neo-noir, slumming tragedy, black comedy... It’s even been analysed as what happens when Bill Watterson’s Calvin and Hobbes grows up – the comparative points are both very amusing and worryingly believable.  I love Fight Club though.  It’s dark, it’s funny, it’s completely ridiculous, and the final revelation is a real stunner that lets you know just how steeped in madness the whole operation really is.  The unreliable narrator struggles with his own identity in a culture given over more and more to consumerism, surrounded by the deeper issue of masculine identity in the service trade (blue or ‘gray’ collar workers).  Tyler Durden, the dark reflection of, well, almost all of us, pontificates wildly on the subject of what freedom really is in this day and age, where the American Dream became a nightmare, where economic status is the real measure of class and from which people now draw their self-worth.  Conforming to society for the sake of acceptance is completely worthless.  Tyler’s Devil may Cry attitude is something I particularly enjoy – nihilistic yet engaging.  My anarchist tendencies tell me that there is always another way, always, and here is one, portrayed by Brad Pitt.  His continual popping up and witty monologues remind me of another force of cynicism in fiction: Travis Bell.  While Travis’s role in Killer7 is ever so slightly different that Tyler’s, they serve a similar purpose in showing the audience that there is something else happening behind the main players, and both exhibit a keen knowledge of the fourth wall (cf. Tyler’s Cigarette burns and Travis’s intimate knowledge of the Smiths’ abilities).  Tyler also bears resemblance to Travis Touchdown of No More Heroes fame, and although it’s widely publicised that Touchdown’s appearance is based on Johnny Knoxville, you can’t help but feel that SUDA51 is inspired by more things than first thought. 

What really got me about Fight Club was how it relates to one of my more worrying catchphrases, “I only find validation in self-destruction”.  It’s simple.  Direct.  I like to say it to point out the hopelessness of trying to play by the rules of a social environment that doesn’t work out for me.  Why bother seeking group acceptance if the effort makes me feel ill when I can just have a drink?  Maybe some answers are found at the end of a bottle, but you have to ask the right questions.  The original version of one of Tyler’s most Travis-esque statements “Self-improvement is masturbation.  Now, self-destruction...” bears an even more fatal resemblance to my outlook, after a year of trying to fit in and work with attitudes and approaches so violently removed from my own, faced by total ignorance and apathy, manipulation and more commonly, excuses... I mean honestly, “Maybe self-improvement isn’t the answer.  Maybe self-destruction is the answer.”  I can’t help but draw parallels between SUDA51’s ‘Kill the Past’ movement, where the protagonists must leave their pasts behind in order to move forward.  After all, “it’s only after we’ve lost everything are we free to do anything”, right?  Even our identities?  That’s quite enough to leave you with for the weekend, isn’t it?

Oh well.  We’re all mad here, Smith.  Straight up.

Week 52

I was trying to write a post over the weekend, I really was, but life got so busy and there was so much drink that I mostly forgot, but also found that I was boring myself, which is possibly the least favourable place to write from.  It was another post about a video game, specifically the contraversial masterpiece The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, and how much I like it because it is one of the weirdest things in the world.  Like the aborted effort about Killer7, it was too close to an absolute description, even to the point of picking up the controller.  I have an abiding love for these strange and odd games, even though they belong to out-dated systems (I have the Gold cartridge for MM, not the disc), and I think it's because they are about altered perceptions and are set in realities that challenge.  Of course, I must feel some sort of 'kindred spirit' kind of thing for the characters therein, as I constantly find reality a challenge, mentally and physically taxing beyond the pale.  And indeed, no more so than now!  What with the end of the year, everyone else moving on and whatnot, where I need to find a job and somewhere to live and Jesus Christ I can barely cope!

This summer's main event is the Choir tour to Sweden!  Oh yes.  As I do love telling people, it'll only be my fourth flight, and the first such journey that won't end in Germany.  There are plans afoot to go to a water park, a zoo, possible opportunities for lake swimming... with the odd concert thrown in here and there (but we wouldn't want anything to be too taxing now would we!).  It promises to be an interesting week, although the fact that booze is punishingly expensive (somehow worse than Truro?) may lead to any sort of poverty, madness and desperation, and so on.  What am I saying?  Of course it'll be great!  It will also be the last time that I see certain members of the current Truro Cathedral Choir team, being this year's Scholar's last hurrah.  End of an era, huh?  Another chapter done and dusted, but at least I'm staying here.  I vacillate wildly about my appointment actually: sometimes I do wonder whether it was made out of convenience, but mostly I fret about the fact that...well, it doesn't seem terribly exciting.  I get the feeling I've written this before, but with people off to the Royal Northern, the Royal Academy, Collegiate choirs... What am I doing?  Staying in Truro?  Putting myself into the firing line for a life of financial hardship?  Actually having a job and being like, a... Grown up?  We're back to the end of the first paragraph again though, where I reach the very end of my limited (but still effective) set of coping skills. 

At least the weather's picked up!  Although I haven't really made much foray to the coasts (unlike my housemates, strong swimmers and keen surfers that they are), I do find it a rather enjoyable climate and will often take to just walking through town of an afternoon, deciding what I will spend my money on this time.  I find myself quite bored a lot of the time, so most of the time I'm thinking about what I'd like to eat.  I am the worst comfort eater in the world, I used to bank roll the local Chinese take out place at the end of my road in Norwich coming home from... well, anything really: choir, uni, also my home... Anything that had disturbed my delicate temperament that day would be answered with Roast Chicken Chinese style and Egg Fried Rice.  I spent a lot of money there, I can tell you.  Anyway.  I wear short trousers now.  Even under my cassock!  The secret's out, good lord.  Neither delighteth he in any man's legs.  I'm still really warm at night, obviously now because of the environment, not the central heating.  Thank GOD.

I guess now it's almost all over (again), things are a bit sad.  I've had a couple of really bad episodes and have come to the conclusion that I have almost no power over my mood, but at least I'm on a bit of an upswing currently.  The difference between one day and another can often be nothing short of staggering, and indeed, even catastrophic some times.  I do try though.  I hate being a shut in, and try to make some sort of positive difference, usually rescuing my items left for dead in that biohazardous desert that is the Scholary Kitchen.  Nothing can live in its disgusting mire.  Or having a cup of tea.  I will force myself to leave the house sometimes because I will not allow myself to be trapped in my own home. Sometimes, especially when my mood is particularly poor, I even feel as if I'm trapped in my own head.  It's awful, and it's terrible and sometimes there just isn't anything I can do about it, like I have to sort out a mask so people don't ask me questions I'm to anxious to even begin to consider answering and get out the house... And we're back to Majora's Mask!  

Oh well.  Things have a habit of evening out, I suppose.  A major factor to my poor moods is exactly because we are at the end of the year: everything must change and if there's one thing I hate it's change.  I mean, I hate everything, right?  Change is the worst though you guys I mean seriously it is.  Because change is unexpected, I am often ill-prepared to deal with whatever happens, and of course that gets me worked up as well.  It certainly isn't easy being me sometimes.  But then again... If it was easy, it'd be boring.  And I really can't stand being bored.

Slow News

Looking at the date on my watch, it's been a full 12 13 days since the last time I published anything.  How awful!  I have been alternately depressed and busy over the preceding fortnight, so there's that.  I have been thinking about what I should write about, but not really hitting any bulls eyes:

• I have a new phone now and I have no idea what I'm doing
• How the hell did a Bejeweled clone take over Facebook
• What I'm going to do with The Scholary when everybody else leaves
• How much I hate everything and what that actually means

I think you get the point.  It's been a dry fortnight, shall we say, with very little exciting happening and then DESPAIR and then A NEW PHONE and then back to absolutely nothing again.  And now we're here!

There's little new to report, and that's the problem.  Another week of unsuccessful job applications and aborted attempts at asking people on dates, and then last Thursday I had the closest I've come to a complete breakdown when I lost my wallet and basically just lost it and ended up rocking backwards and forwards in the Cathedral Office and stammering so badly that I legitimately had to reassess my vocabulary and restart sentences so I could avoid whatever syllable I was stuck on it was awful I wanted to die.  I mean honestly, how can one little tiny thing that goes wrong like that upset me so much?  I think I apologised to everybody about ten bloody times after I found the offending item in the interior side of the reclining sofa (who no longer reclines).  Vomit.  I mean seriously...

Okay, but the next day, excitingly enough, I finally sorted out a new mobile telephone.  Instead of upgrading to a Windows 8 handset (which actually I rather fear I should have), I now have a top-of-the-line Android handset, the Sony Xperia Z.  And I almost have absolutely no idea what I'm doing.  It's been...what?  5 days already, so I'm blundering my way through, although it is one hell of a fag getting all my contacts over (and I'm sure that there's some that have been missed out anyway).  Of course, the Sony has two things that I really wanted out of a phone and that's a good camera and the option of expandable storage... The only Windows 8 phone with anything approaching both is the expensive and difficult to find Samsung Ativ S.  One thing I've noticed is this insane hardware arms race with phones nowadays, even more so that home videogames consoles - I'm pretty sure my phone now has more RAM than my laptop, the HD touchscreen, 13.1 Megapixel camera blah blah... Of course, there isn't anything that has Windows 8 in it that can come close, hardware-wise, let alone when you get to the whole waterproof thing.  It's early days. 

Maybe Android will grow on me, much like black mold grows on anything left alone for too long in the Scholary Kitchen.  It's a shame I have swapped out really, as Windows Phone is a pretty good mobile OS.  Microsoft really need to get their finger out and actually get the more popular applications like Instagram and more app support across the board generally.  Too many websites have links to iTunes and Google Play alone, without the Windows Marketplace alongside.  As for the hardware race?  One of the things I noticed about the running speeds of my old and new handsets is that I can hardly notice anything at all.  What Windows did was great, press the back arrow enough times and the apps shut down, they're not shuffled to the back like on the Xperia and have to be closed manually, which may well be the cause for Android getting beefier hardware.  The Windows desktop is tiles that rotate, not up to 7 homescreens with widgets that rotate in 3D.  It doesn't need to have huge amounts of power to run, because it's optimised down.  Although at this rate I'll be on course to pick up a Windows Phone 9 handset once this contract is over... I'll be talking about phones again later this week.  I know how exciting that must be.

Something else I've been puzzled with recently is the appearance and the supposed "addictiveness" of 'Candy Crush Saga', a Bejeweled clone that has taken over Facebook, phones, people's lives, taken their children away &c &c... And I just don't get it!  Sure, it's a fine game to burn a half hour on, but other than that I don't really see it.  I am only truly addicted to one game, and I have to be careful when I choose to play it - this year's tour to Sweden will see hours stacked away YES BECAUSE I MEAN TETRIS.  I actually have to limit myself because it's just too easy to get sucked in to beating my score all the time.  I don't go by the string of numbers, I go by line count, and I currently stand at 192.  I swear to God, and you as my witness that by September 2013, I will have broken the 200 barrier.  I may have to sacrifice higher brain function, but whatever, I don't care.  Where was I?  Oh yes, Candy Crush Saga.  Where a cheap story line has been wrapped around some colourful graphics laid over the top of the 12 year old Bejeweled engine.  Okay, maybe it isn't the same on before any sort of copyright action takes place, but the process is exactly the same.  Match three of the same symbols to blast them off the board, BUT WAIT WIKIPEDIA HAS MORE TO SAY ON THE MATTER where in fact this concept comes from a Russian game, Shariki, programmed in 1994.  That's older than this generation of school leavers.  So that's why it's so addictive.  Another great game from the frozen north! 

So, almost 20 years of colour-matching later and it's finally taking over Facebook.  I wonder what message lies therein?  If you want a good game that's simple and eats up your every living second, call Russia, circa 1984 to 1994?  In a world where the hardware war between console generations is reaching simply ridiculous heights of power and realistic, High Definition graphics rendering, it doesn't half amuse me that things like Candy Crush and even Temple Run are so popular and addictive - perhaps a necessary tonic to the sheer power of console and PC gaming.  As for me, I'm playing my way through the Legend Of Zelda: The Wind Waker again, and bar the ridiculous sea journey aspect of it (which is roughly half the game), it's just great fun.  The actual dungeon design and combat improvements over the legendary Ocarina of Time and the brain-bending Majora's Mask are really well done.  Not bad for a game over 10 years old.  It may well be showing its age, but it's still really just a fun game.  It's a Nintendo thing, really.  They got out of the hardware arms race with the launch of the Wii, and have continued on their business plan with the WiiU. 

Maybe I did have a lot to say after all?  Don't worry folks, I still haven't forgotten about how much I hate everything (and what that really means), which will form the core of a future post, probably alongside the fate of The Scholary.  For now though, I shall retire... But not for too long.  Honest.

Meta thoughts

I've just been talking about my blog, you know, in real life.  It still feels odd doing so, actually!  I've also been reading the wikipedia article on blogging too, specifically the 'Legal and Social consequences' part, which as I'm sure you can imagine, is very interesting...

I do not use a nom de plume, I self-promote all the time, of course, and I do talk freely about the things that happen in the places that I go, the people that I meet and work for and with.  In Norwich, it was easier to...project an air of anonimity to the people I was writing about.  On a University campus with any number of thousands of staff and students on-site at any one time, it was simple, coming up with names that reflected a person's character, or who they were to me rather than name names (although I'm sure the post about best friends in particular was almost completely transparent to those of you who have known me for a long, long time), that could have been interpreted in many ways.  The titles become symbolic.

However, that was Norwich, and this is Truro.  It's almost the case that everybody knows everybody round here, and a certain...bravery, perhaps straight up foolhardiness comes of commenting directly on the actions of other people (especially if it happens to be a derogatory light), because well... I'm sure it'll get back to them not just somehow, but probably quite soon.  But having a personal blog like this, almost a diary (except for the #BEDM rush), an identity published into the anonymity of the internet (I'm sure that I know most of my readership, especially you who text, tweet or engage me in public...but who could I know in Hungary who's reading?  Is it you?  Say hello!), I mean, there has to be a percentage of my audience that I may never meet, so none of the names or titles here will mean anything except for the association the reader themselves build thereon.   

Even though I've moved on from my formative diaries, there's still some cringeworthy stuff hidden deep away in the distant past; not just content but also in style.  I guess having to write daily instead of the weekly schedule I was clinging on to (barely at that) has forced me to practice.  It's still the same sort of stuff, but I find that hitting my stride in the post has become a little easier - it's not just what I write but the vocabulary and syntax of how I do it that matters, not just in media res, as well as the finished product.  If it isn't remotely enjooyable to read, even for me, it's scrapped.  31% of all my posts I've ever written are still in the draft stage.  There are a few that are complete: finished but not published, usually due to some nagging doubt in the back of my head, then left overnight, re-read and abandoned.  Sometimes I have stuck with my original title and completely changed the content, other times a retitle halfway through the process has served far better than a whole reset. 

Blogging every day in May has been quite hard.  Sometimes, coming home from perhaps Evensong and having to get the dinner ready, or considering going out (or even coming back half cut), thinking about having to write has sometimes been... a responsibility I have sometimes chosen to neglect.  Woah!  The 'r' word?  Sure, it's totally my choice to write to whatever schedule the hell I want it to be, but if I'm supposed to be writing every day then I should be writing.  I chose to take this challenge on.  Just like I chose to move out and go to University, and yeah sure there was the odd day where I was just paralysed by depression, but I didn't give up on that.  I had people who wouldn't give up on me as well, and more triumph has come out of those friendships than I could ever have guessed.  What about if it was my job to write though?  I definitely enjoy writing (or I wouldn't be doing so three years on) but I'm sure there are many journalists and copywriters out there who would love to swap out and be a Cathedral musician instead, I mean, the grass is greener on the other side after all. 

I don't really do pictures, either in my posts as a post in and of themselves, because writing in an extended fashion is how I engage with the blog.  I guess this is an opinion column, as much as a personal lifestyle web log, and while I do attempt to portray events that happen in quite a factual manner, I am aware that authorial intent is different to audience interpretation.  Thankfully, one's professional engagements so far have not brought any real consequences.  Like my personal Twitter account, these are my views and my views alone; sometimes incendiary, often controversial, but without the aid of another...unless explicitly stated.  Perhaps I should have a disclaimer page. 

As we race towards the end of the schema so kindly written by Elizabeth, I wonder how I will progress?  It has been exciting watching my pageviews ramp up to almost 10,000, I mean, even almost 8,000 at three years is quite good.  I don't do much other than write, but then again I hope that the daily schedule has attracted a further audience to those of you already established, who might like to stick around once it all calms down again.  This is the second post of the day though, and writing what's going to end up as over 2000 words on different subjects can be a bit draining.  I'll finish work soon though, get home, hang m ysuit up and slap an LP on, and not have to think about dinner until way later this evening.  The weather has picked up, and the chance to just go home and not have to worry about Evensong or the Men's rehearsal that follows on a typical Wednesday evening is the blessing of half term.  Still, I could only ever have one week off.




Author's Note: I think that's enough for today.  The #BEDM title passed down was "Bad Advice", for which I have even less answer than the contents of my fridge.  I can't really remember serious bad advice, that is, bad advice couched seriously rather than sarcastically.  I only seem to recall good advice that I haven't taken notice to, like..."never mix your drinks", receiving almost weekly ignorance.  Maybe I've never really had bad advice: I can't remember a single episode off the top of my head,so I suppose that makes me very lucky.  But obviously, very foolish for not taking the good advice.  Anyway.  Tune in tomorrow for wha should have been today's post about... the morning ritual.  Good good

That's all.  For now.

Author's Note

Just a quick aside - I don't expect many people to take too much notice of this actually, but I feel much better already even just typing.

Eagle-eyed readers and fellow bloggers following the Blog Every Day in May challenge will notice that not only am I quite behind, but I now seem to have missed a post entirely!  "Walk to Work" has fallen rather by the wayside for the simple reason that there was no work today - time off for good behaviour after four evening sessions for the new CD that Truro Cathedral Choir have recorded, featuring yours truly with a bar's worth of solo... As important it is to keep singing (a somewhat obvious choice for my profession), having a Friday (or sometimes Monday) evening off from Evensong can be extremely welcome - not least to the Lay Vicars who have to drive in from further out: Cubert, Penryn and Penzance immediately springing to mind.

I may actually break the habits of a life time, and present a video or picture blog instead of a huge and long winded description of my journey, unscripted and unprepared and with several unsuspecting guest stars.  Actually, the more I think about it, the more attractive it sounds... But there won't be much in the way of spare time on Sunday morning, that's for sure, and the attitude at Evensong is far more sociable.

While I may have had issues of unfamiliarity with alien titles, I'm really enjoying writing (almost) every day.  I really appreciate having to think about different issues, especially Life's a Lesson, without becoming overly bitter or too personal - I think I came out okay from that one.  Truthfully, I'll miss it, so I'll have to re-evaluate my writing schedule, and how I plan.  Perhaps I'll become even more like a writer rather than a performing musician, especially as I grapple with the issues surrounding my inevitable employment outside of the trade, and how things will change in September. 

It's the 18th of May now though, and I'm rather looking forward to getting to grips with the title ahead of me on today's schedule - Best Friends.  I have many who are in lots of different places; not only geographically but professionally, educationally, financially &c &c... There'll be a lot to write about, not that writing a lot seems to be a problem!  There will be the customary stat attack at the end of the month detailing just how many words I have written, and all sorts of other similar, facetious numbers.

Keep tuning in though, fans.  I will complete this month's titles, and I will continue to write upwards of 1000 words, because that is how I blog.  I got told today that I should think about writing a novel.  I wouldn't even have a clue where to begin with fiction, but as I was told/reminded, half of what I write anyway is partially fictional anyway... I'll definitely need to think about taking writing classes, but that wouldn't be a shame in the slightest, would it?

That's all.  For now.

Writer's Block

Right.  

I have got awful writer's block, like, I had a good five hundred words going on and then just deleted all of it because it's just all dross and I can't actually say what I mean at all.  Let's look at this fortnight in review for now though, and see all the things that I could have written about instead:

MY MOTHER CAME TO VISIT which was brilliant and hilarious.  I totally wasn't expecting her to visit at all, never mind appearing in evensong last Wednesday.  We have gone hither and yon to the beach and back with the world's stupidest (but arguably nicest) dog, argued, made up, but mostly just had a great laugh.  I miss my mother more than I will admit to because NOW I AM AN ADULT (I pay my own phonebill yah) and this is about the fifth year I've lived away from home (although I have never lived on my own properly, not that I will be able to afford such a luxury in Cornwall...).

I SPENT £100 IN A WEEK that wasn't solely on alcohol or curry.  Suit cleaning, singing lessons, mobile telephone bill and jewellery repair.  I finally got my Hardie Amies suit sorted out, splashing out an a ridiculous "Executive Service" from Johnsons the cleaners complete with the utterly decadent option of having the creases put back in my trousers.  What a pervert.  I also got my little gold ring soldered back together which now once more adorns my right 4th finger where it belongs, after its mysterious disappearance waaaaaay back in... October?  I dunno.  That whole Michaelmas term was pretty dark.  But anyway!  It's back, back I say.  I have three rings and now three wooden bracelets, alongside my two silver chains, so I can safely say I regularly wear the most in decorative items in probably the whole choir.

I HELPED PAINT A WALL for my friends who are trying to establish a new Bar on the end of Old Bridge Street.  After a less than satisfactory Friday night, I resigned myself to wandering around Truro in some sort of lost and aimless fashion, thinking that perhaps some retail therapy could aid my ailing spirits...but no, not this week so I instead reported to the site of the Nightjar in my appointed paint gear, and got stuck in getting paint on walls, myself.  It was a distinctly enjoyable way to spend a Saturday, actually, a lot of laughs and a lot got done.  I enjoy helping people.

I'M PREPARING FOR A CONCERT in front of the general public not  in the Cathedral, although I can't exactly remember who for... It's some sort of fundraiser for one of the opera troupes that operates round here, I'm not terribly bothered about the whys and wherefores (unsurprisingly), more the fact that I'm going to get to sing Charles Ives' setting of feldeinsamkeit in public again.  It's all good experience, and I'm sure once I get through this period of lacking my usual creative spirit, I'll be able to write about just why this is so important in the face of my current choice of becoming a more permanent part of Truro Cathedral Choir. 

This has gone through about three working drafts, and two total deletions (META WRITING), and I'm still not happy with it.  I feel... that I should write, that it is my duty to keep publishing - of course there will be those of you who will argue that it stifles creativity, but I'm disappointed that the first thing I'm going to publish in a fortnight is this weak effort!  I suppose I will be judging it far more harshly than you might, but all the same, the last time I went through that many redrafts, it was my dissertation and we all remember how much fun I had trying to write THAT at 3am on the 8th of April, 2011.  Of course my plans for ink move at about the same pace, being rather reliant on being able to afford the stuff at the moment.  And seriously guys, don't you worry out there.  I'm okay, it's still me: I can't get a date.  I'm sure I'll be able to look back on these years with some amusement... but now is not that time.  I'm perfectly prepared to be bitter and angry about the last five years of romantic near-misses for the duration.  Thanks.

But that's enough for now.  If I write any more, I shall only delete it, try to start over and then just give up for another week.  My spelling has been awful for the duration as well, to an infuriating level.  I'm still writing that piece about Killer7, so that'll go up at some point in the future, if I ever edit it to a satisfactory level. 

For now though... Oy.

Happy Birthday!

On the 11th of April, 2010, the first entry of this new blog was published.  Several hiatuses (hiati?) and breaks down the line, sure, but I've been writing and publishing basically at least once a month for three years.  Three years!  I've got friends who are leaving for degree courses that last as long.  I've already done mine!

When you think about it, like I'm doing now sat in one of the coldest parts of the Scholary (my room, duh), this is pretty amazing.  Usually each post is at least a thousand words, (last week's was two thousand), done in a whole continual draft and re-edit process.  I've only ever redrafted one piece from scratch, and I don't delete my abandoned posts...merely leave them as they are.  Maybe, one day when I'm rich and famous I'll get the whole thing printed in volumes, bound in real leather and lined with gold leaf, printed and bound in it's completeness...ahhh.  Yeah right.  Since that first post, I've moved house no less than three times,had three short term relationships, three part time jobs, almost £2000 worth of private instrumental and vocal teaching under four different teachers, two different laptops and an almost infinite number of other arbitrary statistics.  As I log in to my blogger homepage, I've had 7,700 pageviews, which is no small potatoes for a slice-of-life blog, which mainly focuses on how miserable I am and how difficult everything can be!  I know I have a core audience of supporters who fall upon each and every post that gets linked, several of whom let me know how much they enjoy reading my work.  To you, thanks and praise.  I know it can't be easy sometimes when it's not all sweetness and light...but my intention is to present a true account of how I feel and what's happening.  I know that what I've written sometimes has been... interpreted differently though, a dangerous journey into the limited power of authorial intent versus what people actually read into.  I try not to use people's real names as well, which sometimes works out well, but I'm sure it isn't too difficult to work out who I'm talking about all the time.  I remember coming up with all sorts of nicknames for people in Norwich, like The Chief, Sensei, The Philanderer, The Maestro, and of course The Loser... The Loser like no other. 

This will be my 109th published post by the time I get round to finishing it.  It doesn't take me especially long to write either, so in retrospect the fact that I managed to hash out a 12,021 word dissertation (with full colour pictures) in 8 days is actually less surprising the more I think about it.  I usually make this stuff up off the top of my head, no research material or drafting, rather than having stacks of prepared sources.  I still write my blog for the same reasons that I started it: I enjoy writing and it makes getting things off my chest a lot easier, like some sort of spleen vent valve.  Delving through the beginning of the archive, it's interesting to see how much my writing has changed.  It's quite like a number of other first-time writers without formal training.  Of course, all this practice later and well... I dunno.  At least I've learned to be less grandstanding.  It's still the same ponderous dross, from the same ponderous old git, but I'd like to think it's become more readable since I began.

At this point in my life, things are less than exciting.  I'm still unemployed, still with no immediate place to go once I leave the Scholary.  Arrangements in Truro aren't especially geared towards those without disposable income.  I've been living off the least amount possible, which has been a surprising journey into boring meal solutions, not even going into shops for fear of spending money, and drying my liver out.  My dear mother, the greatest Jewess on the soil, sent my Nintendo Gamecube down via courier, which has been installed next to the television in the living room, co-existing peacefully with the resident Xbox 360, jacked in to the scart on the side leaving the usual HDMI well alone.  This is shades of Bury street all over again, because everything really does just roll around and it's all exactly the same.  The only thing left is for a stray cat to enter the house and we're almost done.  It's business as usual as far as my gaming habits are concerned as well, as one of my most important pieces of software is here too: KILLER7.  Anybody who follows me on Twitter will know that I am ever so slightly obsessed with this insane thing, which I usually describe as a work of art before I say it's a videogame.  I've started all over again on not only that, but Metroid Prime (what the hell is with that control system anyway), Super Smash Brothers Melee and Soul Calibur II.  I've also got Metal Gear Solid, Fire Emblem and The Legend of Zelda; The Wind Waker too, but I haven't deleted my precious saves for them.  I'm unemployed, single and have little funds: I'm very interested in staying in at the moment, so I'm going to do it properly.  I might just get hold of a cheap telly with a scart port in the back after I get paid so I can take the 'Cube up to my room so there's definitely no chance of conflicting with my fellow Housemates' desires for on demand television services or FIFA/Burnout party &c &c.  This isn't about having arguments with people, this is just about making everything as easy as possible for all parties.  Sometimes it's possible to please most of the people most of the time. 

Staying in because I'm poor has actually been an enjoyable experience.  Brain-bending odysseys and arcade fighting games make a wonderful panacea when coupled with an almost constant intake of tea, a worthy distraction from NOT going out and NOT drinking.  The past couple of times I've been out have actually been hilariously enjoyable experiences - a week ago I managed to reach my physical limit for beer and survived and at the weekend saw Chippie, a really good and honest friend I met at that home from home from home, The City Inn, Truro.  The Playhouse Bar it certainly ain't, but a real pub that's far enough away from the Cathedral to matter makes all the difference.  The 'clientele', (or patrons as they're usually known) are pretty nice guys, and coming from hard-drinking stock, I find being in a pub a familiar and relaxing experience.  The fact that they serve alcohol in large and satisfying doses is... well, just an added bonus! (haha yeah right).  The weekend also brought its share of awkward social politics and answers to a lot of unspoken questions about the social state of play.  It's all good fun after all.

So, what next for the Songman's Rest?  I don't really know, to be quite honest!  I'm at an intermediary point in my life still, what with all this employment and accommodation still in the air.  I'm still really quite scared about basically not being able to afford to live in Cornwall: being brutally honest, I could be unemployed, unsure of the future and playing videogames and obsessing about washing up literally anywhere else in the country.  I do not need to be here, worrying about the ridiculous cost of housing, when I could be somewhere else.  I could be back in Norwich for God's sake.  But... I don't want to be anywhere else.  I want to be a Lay Vicar of Truro Cathedral Choir.  I am proud that I have been asked to join the full time team, and I will make a difference and I will succeed here...somehow.  I'm not going to let anybody down, especially not myself, or indeed the Big Man.  You'll be pleased to hear that I still haven't had a date since... Oh like, the summer now, or indeed that I even have the courage or confidence in order to ask.  Of course there is somebody I kind of like, have a crush on I guess, but we'll see how that goes.  Maybe I will ask.  But probably I won't.

The tagline still stands.  This is a tale of love, of life, and the end of the stall (being Decani Alto 1 puts you at the end anyway) which is poor only in a financial sense now.  Gone are the days where I am bullied by the senior, or at odds with the director.  I am joining a respectable team of good-humoured and skilled semi-professional singers.  It's only semi (careful) because the pay is... vocational more than a wage.  The attitude brought and the skill and musicality of these people is maybe not quite as high as say, Westminster Cathedral, but is without question the best musical environment I have been in so far.  I am fortunate and incredibly grateful to be a part of it not only last year, or this year, but for years to come.  


I think I'll be keeping to the almost-weekly schedule.  I wouldn't keep writing if I didn't enjoy it, and the weeks where I haven't written anything have been those weeks where I've either been too down to consider it, or very busy; times where writing just hasn't fit into the schedule of either my life or my mood.  I will continue to write exactly what I want to, and boo hoo if you don't like it.  I've made and lost friends over what's been published before, and I would hate for that to change either.  Maybe one day I'll be fortunate enough to take some writing classes, and really improve my form, but until then, I'll keep blithering on, and I'll see you on the other side.

"Reach into the Bag"

In which I spend the past weekend drinking and waiting on tables, and rediscover the joy of rage.

The newest conversation replacement in the house has arrived; no longer one of the near-identical iterations of the best-selling brain-disabling world-takeover that is the Electronic Art's FIFA series, it is in the online multiplayer for Halo 3, a game that I have some modicum of ability with.  I may not be terribly good, as I have quite a low affinity for dual-analogue controls (yes, the leading method of FPS controls, whatever), but it's good fun at least, if a million miles away from both the pixel-perfect sniping of the N64's Goldeneye or the Gamecube's genre defying masterpiece Metroid Prime.  This advent of online gaming in the Scholary will ensure that the race for both sofa and controller has become more desperate than ever.

But the weekend!  Yes, this glorious weekend past that seems to mark a turning in the tides, not around the coast of damp old Cornwall but in my life.  I am also slightly terrified, but on to that in a moment.  Friday night was composed of a booze-infused house party hosted by friends from dyvers other lands.  There seem to be several different stories as to how exactly the night ended and who went home at what time, but what we all agree on is that we were deeply inebriated and even though there were some stupid arguments, we all had a rollicking good time, and nobody got alcohol poisoning.  Hooray!

However.  I awoke on Saturday of my own accord and my own volition.  At half past eight in the morning.  I'll give you a minute to think about that clearly, and I can wait because it's not the easiest thing to process. 
As I said last week, I had managed to shift my body clock back a whole five hours, which is no mean feat in itself, which was still pretty problematic by the time I got to last Friday... and then it just flipped.  My metabolism can look after itself, regardless of what my conscious mind wants to do, which is ever so slightly terrifying.  Although like I always say, my subconscious is far more intelligent than I can ever hope to be.

Hiatus

Sorry about the delay.  I woke up at about half past five in the morning today feeling like one of those roast in the bag chickens.  Feh.

But as I was saying.  Saturday night was composed not of becoming excruciatingly wasted as these things often are, but instead consisted of running around the Cathedral Restaurant waiting on tables with the Cathedral Restaurant staff in an event known only as Dine Opera, where patrons are assaulted by various Operatic numbers sung by local artistes in between the three courses served to them and lashings of expensive alcohol, all in the name of raising money for the choir tour.  One of the major ground rules of this evening is no Countertenors.  Anyway.  Having worked in the Restaurant as a table waiter in the summer which I still refer to as utterly dreadful, I know the staff and they know me.  As usual, a lack of clear and detailed instruction before the evening drove me to meet with the Restaurant manager and ask her what was going off... which ended up with me basically doing same work with the rest of the staff, which was absolutely shattering.  Hands down.  I did, for my troubles however, receive a plate of lamb chops and vegetables (one of the courses on offer to the patrons) for free as payment, and also a chocolate mousse dessert, which was just totally excellent.  I look back on that time when I worked there, and regret not being able to control my depression to the extent that it became something that stopped me from working there.  There was no ill feeling all night from either me or them about me working, I volunteered to wait on because I enjoy working with them, and I thought the help would be both needed and appreciated, which it was.  It was also quite damaging towards my mobility, and it's taken me a good four or five days to recover.

Sunday was extremely painful, but on balance a good day.  The Vierne Messe Solennelle was graced by my high-pressure top octave, giving the Kyrie's treble high A's the punch they needed.  The evening, graced by local legend Russell Pascoe's Magnificat & Nunc Dimittis, then became a slaughter of my liver once again, by reporting to the Rising Sun Inn after Evensong to celebrate the birthday of one of it's proprietors.  I returned home to the dreaded Scholary at about... well, I don;t really remember what time in the morning per se, but let's say after 1am.  I discovered that the others had eaten all the dinner (under the assumption that I had gone to St. Ives with the Boss), and that also they had the intelligence to pick my carving knife from the grab and use it...and the courtesy to leave it covered in Pork fat lying on the side.  This of course, immediately made me wrathful, and I set about to the washing up.  Inebriated.  At half past one in the morning.  That's all true.

I have once again become the angriest yid on the soil.  Something obviously tripped in my head for that brief period that I was asleep in the early hours of Saturday morning and I now remember how much I actually enjoy being angry.  I feel that I have wasted my life trying as hard as I can to keep an even temper and be as forgiving as possible... Yes, all admirable character traits but somehow... Fruitless.  Although this is still some sort of progress, I mean, it's better to be angry all the time than be depressed, right?

I need to make more effective and positive progress than this though.  I'm even considering a return to Physiotherapy because really when you get down to it, being crippled is painful and disappointing and terrible.  Getting a job is becoming more and more of a priority, as not only do I have the tour to Sweden in August to consider, but funding myself and accommodation are arguably even more important.  

There is no rest for the wicked, after all.  But the lazy seem to get by just fine.

"Dereliction of Duty"

So... Sorry about the drop in the schedule last week.  To be perfectly honest I was too depressed to write about anything other than being depressed and really... we've all had enough of that.  The sporadic posting behaviour I fell into over the past summer is really all we need to remember about that little chestnut.  Even thinking about it is making me less and less inclined to keep writing.  OY VEY.

A week previous, I had survived the Three Spires Charity Ball at the Headland Hotel, Newquay.  I feel like I'm still tired from only having got back to Truro at 5:30am, and having to sing Zoltan Kodaly's from 9am that particular Sunday morning.  There was also a lot of Gin.  A huge amount of Gin that I put inside my body.  And then the mud fountain that we made by pushing a car out of the filthy ground.  To be completely honest, it was still a fun night, with the singing and the fabulous venue and the delicious meal and the conversations I remember with a lady called Wendy about bread makers...  Being still actually drunk and in fact, late for rehearsal (because I got up at 8:59 and managed to forget my robe was hanging on the back of my room door) left me feeling horrifically embarrassed and definitely like I let the side down.  Turns out I didn't actually do half as badly as I thought, I mean, I could have sacked it off and then lied about feeling ill now THAT would have been letting everyone down but you know I just don't do that sort of thing.  Subsequently working through one of the worst Gin hangovers ever led to an host of advice, from the usual take aspirin...(or was it paracetamol?) to laying in a steaming bath of salt all afternoon.  I will be trying the bath...probably tomorrow, in all seriousness.  The ultimate mid-term afternoon treat, right?  My clothes have come back from the dry cleaners spick and span, in which having a hand made dinner suit makes all the difference. 

Ah yes, we're now in half term, to use the more familiar term.  This is the famed 'halfway point of the year' (so sayeth the boss), with the comparatively slow journey through Lent, before the freefall to the end that is Trinity.  Recently, as I said at the top, I've been feeling pretty down.  I've gone a little off message, and really doubted what I'm doing here.  I don't have the greatest self-esteem in the world even at the the best and most high-functioning of days: I am more likely to question myself and my own motives before anybody else...and I know that I am far and away in the minority in doing so.  I look to myself and usually end up with more questions and doubts, and send myself into a vicious circle.  Fun times!  Yeah.

Funnily enough, last Thursday (the 14th no less), I woke up and remembered that I was in actual fact a human being (it's not often that I do that, so mark it down guys).  I don't even know why or how, but I did and I am doing pretty well so far okay you guys!  My sleep pattern is still shifted from last Saturday, especially after having gone clubbing to the local, uh, club venue for the last three nights in a row.  I like to think I can still cane it with the best of them, what with my ultimate remedy of literally two pints of tea and a hot shower... I tell you what though, I am never going out until three in the morning on a work night (that's a Saturday, folks!) again.  Okay, give me like three or four weeks to break that but seriously.  While I finally seem to have found my clubbing legs (as it were), it's still deeply expensive, massively tiring and ultimately, a waste of good sleeping/practice/cleaning time.  YES I SAID CLEANING TIME.  I am rapidly moving towards finding less ironic and more genuine joy in cleaning up.  Obviously I'm one step closer to becoming a homeowner, and several steps closer towards insanity.

Right now though, things are calm.  The house is quiet, with only two of us here, and I feel pretty relaxed overall.  Sat here writing into the early hours after a pretty up and down week seems so much easier having talked out the major issues with my furthest but still dearest.  The future's still terrifying and doing nothing but getting closer.  Trying to find employment is...difficult, and for one primary reason: I have no confidence.  I've added a page to this very site, you'll find it right there at the side, where I'm forcing myself to talk about...myself!  I find it a real test, because everything I do is... what I do.  So what I've sang here, done that solo, met this artiste... I don't really see any great glory in it because that's what I do, it's my daily bread and I don't really believe in shouting it from the rooftops (or, more accurately putting it on my CV or similar)... but actually maybe it's time I considered the alternative.  I'll add to the page (which will become the ultimate jumped-up autobiography) as and when I can/see fit.  I'll be looking forward to a quiet week, where I can support local business and get back to some practice.  I will also be detoxing the tiniest bit.  Reprioritising, and of course... Making a difference.

I am becoming more aware of my differences, and indeed the other Scholars.  Our career paths are moving in different directions, and as I often return to, perhaps that makes more difference than I am aware of consciously.  But then again, variety (or indeed, viarety) is the spice of life; it'd sure be dull any other way...

"Constitutionally incapable."

Another week rolls on round, start and finish all in one.  I tell you what, watching my statistics has been very interesting; my American readership seems to have skyrocketed, as has the audience in Taiwan?  I can't exactly do anything about it, even if I'd want to... It's just very curious!

I've received a few personal responses from my last post, all of them complimentary!  What a winner I'm onto here, eh?  Thinking back, I'm not even sure what made it such a success, but I guess the new pattern will tell.  This week's been...slightly different.  I managed to survive an extremely extended panic attack which peaked on Tuesday, I guess it lasted for about three days.  The only time I do episodes really are upon meeting my number one phobia head on and having my blood taken (these are two totally different things, I hate both but I'm not scared of blood weird huh).

So I'm writing this totally in the grip of possible insomnia and definite body clock shifting, vaguely considering what I have to do when the sun shines upon Monday in old Truro town.  Squinting dimly around the room offers no clues, except for the Banjo hanging on the wall: I'll be playing in the Rotary club's Victorian Evening, fusing historical facial hair with an anachronistic instrument (the Tenor wasn't standardised until the early 1920's) and the repertoire of the solo baroque Violoncello.  WHATEVER.  It gives me an excuse to roll out the barrel once more dear friends, and god damn it do I really love that Banjo sound.  The strings are a bit worn, but we're coming up to the annual clean down and restring date anyway, even if it is after tomorrow...

In between panicking and avoiding dairy products... Oh yeah.  I'm suddenly lactose intolerant.  Like, violently.  I'll leave it at that, but identifying potential sources of illness in my diet has composed a surprisingly large percentage of this week's mental activity (the physical partner was of course, avoiding such produce).  I went to the Doctor to just check it with him that I was allowed to be sick after cheese, to which I was told I'd need to get a new set of bloods done juuuuuust to be sure.  You can forget that chummy!  I can quite happily spend the rest of my life avoiding cooked dairy produce (although I'm even beginning to suspect that my milk is plotting against me...) without having to go for another set of panic-inducing blood tests!  But where was I?  Oh yes!  In between panicking and avoiding dairy products, I have started to feel the squeeze of a lack of financial resources.

Of course I'm moaning about not having any money, but it is really my fault and nobody else's.  I went out and spent it all, so it's my fault!  Finally, a mature attitude to money!  HA HA.  I did my week's shopping spend and then paid my phone bill within days, which basically took a hundred pounds from me straightaway.  The rest, as usual, has gone on going out.  Almost every weekend since coming back from the magical island kingdom of Derbados I've been out til all hours (even on a Saturday, foolishly enough), pushing myself socially and alcoholically to almost breaking point, and somehow coming out of it alive.  Alone, perhaps, but alive.  Don't worry folks, I've gone back to the good old days of being unable to pull in clubs (after the brief flowering in the LCR, late 2011), or indeed unable to get anything approaching a date at all.  Funnily enough, I have been trying as well.

Obviously I don't understand this whole romance game - I proved that over the past twelve months really, going through two relationships that struggled over the 12 week mark.  If this were still at university, a semester's worth of dating would be a legit turning point, I suppose.  Three months is actually a long time, especially when the days tend to stretch on forever and ever and ev... Sorry.
Last term, I was in a funk and didn't know what I wanted; it wasn't until Christmas that my head really leveled out and I felt that I was in a position that I could be sincere with not only others but myself.  I like to know what's going off.

Finally, I led a workshop with an after school group as part of the Cathedral Choir's outreach programme this term.  This really did fill me with dread, especially after finding myself frightened to leave my room in case I saw anybody else at one point on Tuesday.  Turns out that I made the right choice leading this hour, as it was actually quite life-affirming: a necessary boost for my dreadfully low self-esteem.  Having no formal training in planning a rehearsal, warm-ups for young voices, leading choirs or other handy tools, I was justifiably nervous to begin with.  I also refuse to demonstrate anything not in falsetto, because God Damn it that's who I am and there's no way I ever want that to be muted. 

Haitus

Things seem to be leveling out into one permanently cental-heated, washing-up centric way of being.  After last night's Victorinian evening and the short sojourn to the Rising Sun, I'm not sure if anything exciting lies ahead of me.  Life can't be all go all of the time, I suppose, but a week is a long time after all and a lot can change!

"Seems Legit."

So.  The first post with the new schedule... Late!  Start as you mean to go on, eh?  Turns out that this in the 100th post I'll have published (YAY MILESTONE), so perhaps there'll be some sort of nostalgic retrospective... Oh wait I already did that.


Last week itself averaged out as brilliant, due to the high impact of the weekend, the memory of most of which is hidden behind clouds of laughter.  I can't really remember the most part of the week itself...probably because nothing noteworthy happened; the curse of the unemployed.  All I have to do really is evensong, and that's only a two hour portion of the day.  Actually, secretly, I'm looking for a job.  Don't tell anyone else because then they'll just go and apply for all the jobs and I'll be unemployed FOREVER.

I think there needs to be a change in the format of how I write these.  One of the main reasons that posting ground to a square halt is I lost all confidence in what I was writing - classic writer's block.  I didn't feel that anything I was typing out was informative or amusing, that nobody would have any interest in reading.  It's kind of my root problem in socialising as well... It's the same sort of sudden panic that sets in when faced with the answerphone, and of course, attractive women.  HA HA.  I almost feel like I'm leaving myself open to ridicule, but I guess this is what happens if you write from a personal angle and publish it on the internet I guess it's all part of the deal.

Actually, in all seriousness, I think I've been doing pretty well socialising these days.  Having plans to live in Truro for a good while (say at least a few years), my priorities are ever so slightly different to the other scholars who will be moving on at the end of this year (well, July (well, September really because of the tour in August)).  Although I mostly meet people in pubs (come on I'm a member of a Cathedral Choir, there's always the post-evensong pint), Truro's a small city, you can't help but run into people.  It's nice though!  I feel like I'm beginning to make friends as an adult, unconnected to a study course or my choir, on the strength of character and conversation.  I should think that my reputation as quite a heavyweight drinker has earned me a few fans (especially at a particular establishment), but obviously I could do with avoiding alcoholism.  A few heavy nights in a row has robbed me of much of this month's honorarium, so it really is time to start becoming more responsible with my money.  Buying drinks, not just for myself but also for other people (and finding there is no return...) is just getting too expensive down here.  As much as I enjoy a drink, I far prefer being sober to being hungry, so there's a real cornerstone.  Also, I'm on the Council Housing list, and I've made some personal inquiries into renting costs, although I really ought to start looking into utilities as well.  You know, boring life things.  Things that extend to adult responsibilities.  Anybody worried out there with all this crazy talk?

I've already done this once at Bury Street to various degrees of success and/or failure.  It's all experience, right?  Paying rent and bills sure is a hell of a fag, though.  Living in rent, utility and tax free accommodation (anybody else think that looks wrong?) as a legitimate part of the contract of the Choral Scholarship, that cannot be any more than 300 yards away from the outer crypt door of the Cathedral is an amazing boon, and one that having been through University and back appreciate very much.  The house may be damp and end up feeling a little cramped living with three other guys in what is ostensibly a two bedroom property (the downstairs parlour has been converted into a bedroom as usual and there's a small third room upstairs which would probably used to have been an study or similar), but you know it's a nice place!  If I didn't want to live in a damp place, I wouldn't live in Cornwall.  As a note to anybody who isn't in Truro reading this right now, it is absolutely throwing it down outside (or it was when I started, because now it's just wet and cold and generally miserable).


Of course, outside of my immediate concerns in Cornwall, I find that my thoughts have turned to America, of all places.  Right now, as we live, breathe (and I type), some of my most treasured friends are over in the states: Grasshopper, G, and one of the best writers I ever met and danced with (AMS Ball 2011, still one of the best nights of my life).  I still miss Mike from Marin County, San Fransisco from BH28, but I guess the community fostered in Nelson Court still has a great deal of impact on my life.  I finally restocked my picture frames and I have one of my Grasshopper and one from the AMS Ball on permanent display.  Of course I miss those carefree, post-dissertation days... but I miss the people even more.  I even did a huge roast dinner on Thanksgiving last November in memoriam!  The principal guests, funnily enough, were non-natives to British soil (two German, one French and one Irish), my housemates instead having attended the Youth Choir and then subsequently a local pub, only stayed around long enough to eat, before going out into the night.  

I might try and move away after a while.  Sure, things are good here while I mature and grow into the post of Lay-Vicar, but I wouldn't ever want to get set in one place through lack of choice.  If I'm good enough for Truro now, then I can certainly be good enough for other places (and definitely in the future).  Perhaps I will move far, far away?  Who's to say.  

Postscriptum

You know, I've actually enjoyed this.  I deleted a good 200 or so words earlier, and then started all over again and I think it's okay!  I think I might hash a few more out this week, commenting more specifically on the weekend's hilarity, and maybe I'll push a few hundred words out about that Indie Rock band I can't get enough of.