http://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/My blog is really just an opportunity for me to let off steam. Living in Surrey as a middle-class 30 something is more challenging than I could have ever expected. As Ben Folds said 'You don't know what it's like, being male, middle-class and white' ......en-EUMokoFeed10http://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/http://data5.blog.de/design/preview/36/feea8238e29585951bf8c15b28f08a_160x200.jpghttp://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2009/10/26/copenhagen-mini-blog-7250018/tag:lastromantic.blog.co.uk,2009-10-26:/2009/10/26/copenhagen-mini-blog-7250018/Mon, 26 Oct 2009 23:10:37 +0100 <p><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3513/4020425658_f262c43d2a.jpg" alt="" title="The Little Mermaid"></p> <p>Last week I went wandering on a plane out of Gatwick over to Denmark. Copenhagen played host to 4 days of tourism that acted as a rest from work that was desperately needed. Travelling with FJB, we spent much of the time milling about the city, in and out of museums and galleries - eating at various swanky and expensive restaurants and filling time when it rained by seeing Disney's 'UP' in 3D and the Julie/Julia film.</p> <p>I like Copenhagen. I like it a lot. It's rare to go to a city that you feel very at home in and apart from Edinburgh and Newcastle, I would rate Copenhagen as the third most likely place I've been that I'd seriously consider living in. The ambience of the place is refreshingly sober for a major city and the people are hospitable, speak perfect English and the women are beautiful!</p> <p>Travelling is a bug I only recently caught. Before 13 months ago (aged 30), I had only ever been to Amsterdam and Calais. Infact, it was only a few years ago to the day that I flew for the first time (I think I was 28). Since last September, I've made up for that and have moved around more widely visiting Poland, China, France, Italy, Sweden and Denmark in the last year. These experiences showed me a multitude of things but above all it removed my fear of travelling and flying almost overnight. So where to go next? I've fancied Austria for a long time and one day I'll do Japan, Australia, USA and Brazil but maybe not yet.</p> <p>I'd appreciate recommendations from anyone who passes this by. Copenhagen was great and I'll be going back I'm sure. But where next?</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2009/10/26/copenhagen-mini-blog-7250018/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>copenhagenhttp://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2009/10/26/copenhagen-mini-blog-7250018/#commentshttp://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2009/10/12/kate-walsh-light-dark-7155281/tag:lastromantic.blog.co.uk,2009-10-12:/2009/10/12/kate-walsh-light-dark-7155281/Mon, 12 Oct 2009 18:39:29 +0200 <p>It's Monday 16th October and I realised that I've already not been keeping up with the blogging on the new site. I think that's mainly because I'm struggling to work out what to put on this blog as opposed to the private blog I write so I'll post this on both and be done with it. I'm off to Copenhagen tomorrow and feeling ill today - however, I really do need to take the time to write up a gig that I went to on Wednesday with Fiona, Tony and Matt.</p> <p>The Cellar Bar in Portsmouth wouldn't appear to the passing motorist to be a likely place for hosting a personally spiritual experience (those of you who know it will know what I mean from the outside) but last Wednesday, I think I came as close to a spiritual experience as I've had in the last few years through music.</p> <p>Being a songwriter (and also being known in your life as the only person you know that has persistently held that dubious reputation) it's rare to find yourself connecting with the emotional content of someones character in music quite as much as the handful of selected musical deities you feel society obliges you to admire. The likes of Lennon/McCartney, Sting, Stevie Wonder, Tori Amos, Alanis M, Sheryl Crow etc are all people I grew up admiring because they were globally accepted as the best in their genre - each having a quality beyond your average churned out chart-pop that made them popular to mostly everyone you knew. To someone like me they were all equally as great musically as they were/are wordsmiths.</p> <p>And then you grow up a bit and start to learn that you need a new fix. You look for independence or consolidation of 'self' and you rebel a little. You fall in love for the first time(s), meet people you start to class as proper friends rather than school mates and things begin pissing you off more than you ever thought possible with the littlest amount of provocation and you realise your adolescence is in full swing. That's when Ben Folds entered my life - as an 18 year old geeky music student at Uni looking for someone who'd take me into 'f*ck you too, give me my money back you bitch' territory. No one upholds the middle class white man ethic quite as well as Ben and he continues to write the songs that I wish I could, symptomatic of the fact his life turned out interesting and so far mine has struggled to get out of second gear.</p> <p>Writing about your life is something that is the mainstay of a soulful songwriter and having turned away from writing for 'entertainment' following the four Housewife years spent playing gigs full of comedy and self deprecation with Alex Edwards, Simon Heeley and Andy Baker idolising the likes of Matt Hales [Aqualung] when he was in his original band Ruth, Manson, Bennett, Dean Friedman, Dodgy, Divine Comedy and Ben Folds Five for their geek-riddled nerdiness, at 23 I seemed to completely lose sight of music and got stuck in a vacuum of chart pop, MTV, VH1, Smash Hits and slowly dating music from my time at University. During this period I could neither write nor listen to anything with passion and so began the most barren 5 years of my existence - working far too hard, playing very softly and living in a bubble of capitalism.</p> <p>During this time, only one new face made its name in my hall of talent, that person being John Mayer - whose first album I heard prerelease on Yahoo Music over the internet in the early 2000's before he was famous and immediately he struck a chord. Mayer, now up there with BF as a major hero was matched only by the influence of the 'Oh Brother Where Art Thou' soundtrack and the emergence of Alison Krauss & Union Station who took my understanding of songwriting off down a well beaten track that I knew little or nothing about. But still, void of anything truly fresh on the singer/songwriter front. Even Thom Yorke seemed incapable of really sounding engaging. Only the glorious sound that was The Sunday's could enchant me during this time and the voice of Harriet Wheeler (which still makes me shiver) was pretty much all I was left with.</p> <p>Then, about 2.5 years ago - due to a whole variety of reasons, I woke up as a person. I started taking risks, losing anxieties, travelling and challenging self-perceptions of who and what I was all about and had to cope with some pretty disgusting challenges both personally and professionally. This was a key to realising that my lack of personal experience in life had meant that I had never listened to a single song in my life properly. The meanings of some of the songs I'd held in such high regard were brand new again and everything from the Beatles upwards took on a whole new perspective.</p> <p>Around this time, I drove to Manchester and had been given a copy of Imogen Heap's first album. I listened to it over and over from Surrey to Manchester and back and realised that something brand new was available, finally. 'Hide and Seek' is probably one of the greatest songs I've heard in the last decade and following on from that I started embracing the singer/songwriter in me once more. Finally I began writing again and things escalated from there culminating in the EP that's now on iTunes. I'd already written about 200 songs in my life til that point but it felt less important to impress listeners and more important to write for myself for a change and about the people I value.</p> <p>Then, during a journey that saw me speculate on many new CD's to add to my 400 CD collection (bringing about the early adoption of an Ipod - now on my my friend Ruth. After an immediate trip to Amazon to buy both Tim's House and Clocktower Park - Kate Walsh arrived, pitched up and camped out on my car stereo and iPod for the best part of 6 months alongside messers Folds, Heap, Mayer and a mix of 1000's of random songs. There amongst the mist of the darkest days of my life came a voice that dialled in to me like a modem. And it was from Essex - daring to sing shamelessly about personal love and loss without compromise as if it was the first time humanity had ever felt such things. </p> <p>For those of you who don't know who Kate Walsh is (I'm posting this on both the new blog with no followers and the old blog with lots of followers) from what I know, she started off in Burnham-on-Crouch in Essex before she settled in Brighton where she graduated from Brighton College Of Music. Clearly a gifted musician all round and like me, brought up with classical music as the fabric of her daily cosmos, Kate's first album 'Clocktower Park' was released through an established label and achieved reasonable acclaim. Having heard various accounts of what happened as a result of the aftermath of the album - none of which I can quite remember now, Kate teamed up with producer Tim Bidwell to record an album at his house to be released independently through the label Blueberry Pie. 'Tim's House' managed to knock Take That off the number 1 spot in iTunes following its release and as a result, Kate was rated highly for her success not only as a new singer / songwriter - but also in releasing the album on her own independent label. 'Your Song' - probably her best known track to date, has made its way into public conciousness in a variety of ways, surprising me when I heard it unexpectedly appear in the film adaption of Angus, Thongs & Perfect Snogging to give just one example. (I was bored when I watched it on Sky Box Office and it was actually pretty good if you accept the genre). 'Your Song' is, quite frankly, a suburban masterpiece.</p> <p>So, where is all this leading... Kate released her third album 'Light & Dark' on 31st August 09 and a few days later, realising I'd not even known she was recording another album, I downloaded it following a link on iTunes at 11pm having been out with friends and with my wife away for work. Between 11:20 and midnight that night I sat in the dark with headphones on and listened to the album straight through from start to finish without stopping. Perfect silence between each track and a cooling September passing through the open window. At 12pm I texted friends to tell them they had to immediately go and buy it the next morning and sat for 20 mins in stunned silence at how moved I felt at having just listened to the inside of a young womans mind and felt a kinship that only music manages to build as a language.</p> <p>To say that the album has had a profound effect on me would be an understatement. If I had been encouraged to feel in life rather than to think - maybe I could have produced something in the language of music that needed no explanation in the way Kate Walsh manages. I don't need to know who the people in her songs are but in my life, I've met them embodied in those I've loved myself. I don't need to know where the scenes they are but I know that I've been there and smelt the same salt air in my life. In this album, unlike any other, I learnt something about myself and how I feel about love, life and relationship. And how?</p> <p>Kate can articulate the truth in ways I've spent two decades trying to find. It's almost as if she found words and notes that didn't exist in my vocabulary and filled the blanks for me despite the gender gap. I've paid several well qualified people good money per hour over several years to find out why there is a gap between the light and dark in my life. Their conclusion: I'm not ill, depressed or damaged but I've experienced things that mean I see the world differently. Part of my truth it would seem is also written firmly in between the lyrics and undulating melodies that lie in Kate Walsh's head. I've always assumed that the stuff I hold in me was unexpressable, that the light and dark sides to my character were figmanent of my imagination and that writing songs was just a method of recording my personal history in a factual way like a diary. But a guitar and voice with that much theraputic value, insight and honesty is worth waiting 32 years to listen to when you know its the coroborating evidence you needed to show that out there - there are others who in their lives use music as the tool to keep between the light and the dark.</p> <p>With both my parents having been qualified at the Royal College of Music and having an honours music degree myself - I know good music when I hear it. But when you hear it recorded these days, thanks to ProTools and Logic you're never quite sure how much is real performance and how much is production. Anyone who ever heard Kula Shaker play live will know precisely the difference between studio and live performance capability. So it was a risk when I decided that I would buy 4 tickets to see Kate play in Portsmouth this October as part of the promotional tour for her album. They say you should never meet your hereos or heroines as you'll only be disappointed and baring in mind that you build up a mental picture of someone from a single picture on an album cover and the words in a lyric - arriving at an intimate venue like The Cellar Bar was an interesting proposition.</p> <p>Fortunately, we all had to sit right down the front / side of the tiny stage area with an audience of no more than 100 people packing the tiny venue as all the room in front was taken following our journey down from Surrey. With the great and the good of previous acts plastered over the walls at the pub, Mick Flannery as the warm up act (good album too) and a curbside seat next to my brother - Kate took to the stage and sang almost every song from both Tim' House and Light & Dark with as much character and honesty as the recordings, note perfect and even with a moment of corpsing with laughter with Jocasta Whippey (cellist) half way through - the ambience of the night was never broken.</p> <p>And so, as you might guess, I wasn't going to waste the opportunity to meet someone who, thanks to the people at iTunes, I felt I'd known something of since 1996/7 yet standing and watching her, you realise that writing and performing isn't just her job, Kate Walsh isn't just a character on a CD cover and the things she's written about aren't just literal translations of actual events - probably inspired by rather than melodic recreations of truths. Kate Walsh is a real person. An actual bonafide woman. She's shorter than me by some way and despite what you might gleem from the porthole of tempered promotional photography that one inevitably uses to build a mental picture - she smiles. A lot.</p> <p>And then we met - her signing a limited edition EP for me and we briefly chatted. I'd mentioned that we'd exchanged a tweet on Twitter following a night where I'd been to see Tori Amos and then travelled straight from London to Brighton at 1am to my sister-in-laws wedding and got stuck in horrendus traffic on the M4 - turning to her album for company and it absorbing the traffic, the mileage and the night into what is now a wonderful memory dueting in harmony with her and Olly from Turin Brakes on Greatest Love in an Audi in the rain.</p> <p>She didn't remember the exchange and I didn't expect her to - but she was talking with me and the others she met before and afterwards in a way that let you know she's no longer hiding behind something in her life.</p> <p>We had parting words and she unexpectedly gave me a hug and said it was nice to meet me. I said thank you. It was nice to meet her too. I walked away back over to my brother, wife and long time friend Tony (husband of Ruth who had introduced me to Kate's music several years back) and we ambled out into the night rain to drive home. </p> <p>It's rare these days to say thank you and really really mean it. I really really meant it.</p> <p>I found out later that week that Kate had recently given up alcohol having struggled with it and has gone public in sharing the problems she has had keeping it at bay. I was right to think she is a girl who has just come out from behind something. Most of my problems as a person stem from the alcholism suffered by my father - a multi-talented professional musician who was the youngest person to get in to the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain in the early 60's and who has spent his life balancing his passion for classical music with his passion for people and never quite finding the equilibrium to bring him happiness without using drink as a social lubricant that became the dark in his life.</p> <p>Since learning this little bit of her story and having met Kate Walsh face to face, I'm glad that the mental picture I had created is now gone and the 20 seconds of meeting someone I admire so much left me feel 100% justified in knowing in the first 10 seconds of ever hearing her that she was facing life in a way I was too frightened to do for myself at the time. Two albums on, a twitter exchange and a single hug and I will never again write a song to cover up the way I feel. From here on in, I'm writing to tell it how it is and I look forward to a time when I next get to say thank you to someone as genuinely and wholeheartedly as I could when I parted company from the only other person I've met who can articulate what goes on between the light and dark through music in the way I want it spoken.</p> <p>Grey, it is not. Living a real life, without shame, takes place in the space between the lighest and darkest days. </p> <p>-------------------</p> <p>Kate Walsh's 'Light & Dark' album is released on Blueberry Pie and available both on the High Street as well as on iTunes </p> <p>Kate also continues her tour into the autumn. Find out more at <a href="http://www.katewalsh.co.uk">www.katewalsh.co.uk</a></p> <p> <small> <a href="http://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2009/10/12/kate-walsh-light-dark-7155281/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>kate-walsh-light-and-darkhttp://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2009/10/12/kate-walsh-light-dark-7155281/#commentshttp://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2009/08/19/a-life-ambition-fulfilled-6755660/tag:lastromantic.blog.co.uk,2009-08-19:/2009/08/19/a-life-ambition-fulfilled-6755660/Wed, 19 Aug 2009 01:32:21 +0200 <p>After nearly 32 years, I've managed to achieve a life ambition. </p> <p>I have always held the ambition to write, record and release for purchase a song or songs so that people can choose whether to part with their hard earned money to buy it. </p> <p>My EP 'Alison' is available now on Amazon, Napster, Rhapsody and EMusic and later in the month it will be on iTunes. For any of you who might be interested feel free to visit <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_ss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Andy+Blair&x=0&y=0">http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_ss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Andy+Blair&x=0&y=0</a> You'll find the EP 4th or 5th on the list and available to buy. </p> <p>I can't tell you how satisfying it is to know that I've managed to do this. Very proud and hope it will be the first of several. </p> <p>Hoorah. Night all. </p> <p>Andy </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2009/08/19/a-life-ambition-fulfilled-6755660/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>ambition-fullfilled-alison-ep-amazonhttp://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2009/08/19/a-life-ambition-fulfilled-6755660/#commentshttp://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2009/08/09/time-out-6684596/tag:lastromantic.blog.co.uk,2009-08-09:/2009/08/09/time-out-6684596/Sun, 09 Aug 2009 13:00:29 +0200 <p>Its been several months since I've written anything at all. Blogs, music, poetry, prose..... anything. </p> <p>In that time I've scaled by the self inquisition of my life just a little by stopping seeing my therapist. I've been going to a therapist for over two years - infact I've seen 6 different people in that time from counsellors to therapists of different types and spent a lot of cash trying to just make myself a more content, less complicated person. </p> <p>Its strange that in that time I've fought so hard to admit that I might suffer with depression. I'm naturally an upbeat, positive person who revels in providing others with opportunities, ideas and ways forward. I've made a career of it. However, after an incident involving a friend a week or so ago where we fiercely disagreed with each other about something to do with my family, I recognised that all that I had been fighting to prove was in vein. There's no doubt that my relationships are at the centre of my sense of wellbeing - but actually there's something that runs deeper in me that how I relate to other people. </p> <p>I've been reading a book about the depression that plagued Spike Milligan during his life and for the first time saw the parallels independent of any one particular relationship in my life between how I feel much of the time and how he is described as feeling. </p> <p>Stepping out of the theraputic process gives you just enough chance to start feeling rather than thinking. In that time - recogniaing that I may have suffered with depression as an illness is something that I've come to try to allow myself the chance of expressing. I went to see the GP last week and said as much to him. I'm going back on Thursday and he's going to have reviewed my notes. </p> <p>After all this time, it could be that I'm making some headway into understanding how I feel.....</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2009/08/09/time-out-6684596/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>depressionhttp://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2009/08/09/time-out-6684596/#commentshttp://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2009/06/14/a-blog-of-biblical-proportions-ish-6299920/tag:lastromantic.blog.co.uk,2009-06-14:/2009/06/14/a-blog-of-biblical-proportions-ish-6299920/Sun, 14 Jun 2009 10:50:54 +0200 <p>Last night I wrote an email to a friend of mine who I have spent the last year contemplating religion with. He is a Christian and runs a Bible study group that I attend with a friend. I was however pretty rattled by Thursday’s meeting and it’s been nagging at me since. Below is the core of what I wrote to him about how I was feeling. It was in itself a blog........</p> <p>------------------</p> <p>I'm feeling unsettled. At the heart of it is, I think, a rumbling in me that The Bible doesn’t tell the whole story. The Dead Sea Scrolls, The Gnostic Gospels, the original meanings lost in translation, the things left out or needing ‘interpretation’ leave me wondering whether Christ’s story has been manipulated, testimony edited and interpretation increasingly more influenced by generational telling and retelling and I can’t seem to get over it. Maybe I just don’t trust humanity not to manipulate the greatest questions in life ‘where did we come from – how will it end’ to the advantage of a few to control the masses.</p> <p>Thursday’s session brought me to several things in my head:</p> <p>· You have to believe that Jesus died on the cross despite all the evidence that he was seen by many for 40 days after his death. I find that harder to believe than the idea that he came back from the dead. That’s a huge issue in my mind because so much rides on it. Every element of the idea of him being seen after and moving amongst the disciples says he didn’t die in the first place, not that he came back to life. As Sarah rightly points out, the obvious evidence is that his side was pierced and split liquid came flooding out. But we only know that because someone wrote it on to a piece of papyrus decades later.</p> <p>If the disciples can tell elements of the story of Christ’s life differently through the gospels from different angles and create inconsistencies in the process, as source material – does it really seem plausible that one man writing that his side was pierced and he was put in a tomb was indisputable evidence that he died when there is so much evidence to the contrary. The fact that it was recorded that he’d died also doesn’t offer up enough evidence because no doubt he did die at somepoint (and I believe that he did live) but is it more than possible that the handful of people who wanted to believe his teachings so badly that they wrote things that would convince people using elements born as much of imagination as of fact. I know it sounds sceptical but just stop for 30 seconds and think about it again because its not meant as scepticism – it tears me in two because of how important it is.</p> <p>· The other thing about Thursdays study was that the premise of the resurrection’s message is the idea that Jesus died on the cross, self sacrificing, in order to take away our sins. Jesus was without doubt a martyr and I believe enough of the story of his life to believe he was crucified. The circumstances of that crucifixion trouble me however. If Jesus was aware all along that he was going to be sacrificed by God and that it was his fate - was it really a self made sacrifice? Did Jesus give his life or did God create Jesus as the ONLY human to exist that did not have free will as it was his preordained destiny to be collateral in God’s quest to prove his love for humanity. </p> <p>And why does this bother me so much? Because again you have to believe that Jesus knew that Pilate would not release Barabbas that the Jews would call for him to be crucified and that all the circumstances that led to his crucifixion were all fixed in place to his knowledge. The role of Judas denying him 3 times and the last supper etc, written down long after the event documents Jesus as seemingly knowing all the pieces in the game with the wonder of hindsight tying events together thanks to the author. I’m less inclined to believe that Jesus knew the outcome and its details than I am to believe that he was crucified for his beliefs and the impact of his teachings. So in this case, you have to believe he was destined for death from the beginning and that he did not have the free will to alter events to save himself rather than the idea that he had free will and chose to sacrifice himself in the knowledge that the series of events that would lead to his crucifixion and prove his point.</p> <p>So this leaves me thinking that I can believe Jesus of Nazareth was crucified because the Jews predominantly believed he was a false prophet and trouble maker and that during the crucifixion Jesus lost the will to live but not his life and either never made it to the tomb and was nursed enough to sustain his life further by some time until infection or fatigue finally saw him die (explaining the sightings) or that he was removed from the tomb under secrecy in order that several days later his miracle could be witnessed by a larger number of people in order to confirm him as the prophet he was exclaiming himself to be. </p> <p>Every bone in my body was brought up to believe the ethics and morality of Christ’s story and being both Christened and Confirmed I feel that I will always have an empathy for all things that proclaim God’s existence and Jesus’ story. But I get stuck on the things that seem to be completely against every rational thing I’ve been taught in every other element of my life. The idea that the bible is in places ‘picture language’ leads me to fear that gaps have been filled, stories told and truths left unspoken. The fact that other publications have surfaced through history that were written around the same time but tell other parts of the story from other points of view but are excluded from the canonic texts leads you to ask – why are these stories told with such strict editorial control.</p> <p>The bible quotes Jesus word for word in so many cases. If these things were written days, weeks, months, years or decades after the event – how certain can we be that they are the words Jesus spoke and that they were not a faithful biblical blogger recounting their memories of teachings of someone they admired. If I watch the news on TV, the editor has the power to show me recorded footage of someone saying ‘Saddam Hussein is harbouring weapons of mass destruction’ but because that editor has chosen to recount that information out of context – I miss the rest of the sentence that started ‘I cannot say with any degree of certainty that .....’ This is the stuff that wars are made of. When people start editing, embellishing stories with picture language and quoting someone decades later out of the context of his literal words – interpretation, fallibility and desire to share ones belief’s can and do amass into truths becoming stories, becoming myths, becoming fantasies, becoming religions and matters of faith.</p> <p>I do believe that the subtext of the teachings of both the old and new testament are valuable and that it is the greatest story ever told, inspiring the greatest art ever made and that it is a story that defines the human condition. I don’t however yet have the courage to disregard all else I know about life, the Universe and everything and take it on faith that it is the truth.</p> <p>That is why I’m doing a bible study and also did the Alpha course and weekend and also why I want to debate and discuss it with other people. I do appreciate though that I’m the only one in the group (possibly apart from Kate) that truly wants to break apart all I was brought up to believe in order to start again and work out what I believe now that no one is forcing me to believe in anything anymore. There are times however when I do end up feeling that trying to do that inside a group of people who want to deepen their faith in order to question less rather than question it more is possibly the wrong way of achieving that. The Alpha course was more inclined to open the debate up where as Bible study is more inclined to close the debate down (for obvious reasons and quite rightly!).</p> <p>I am very aware that we’re not getting through the sessions as quickly as we should, mainly because I probably hold things up by wanting to get underneath some of the assumptions many of the leading questions in the books hint at. I guess its really born of wanting to share with others the experience I have in coming face to face with all I was brought up to believe despite so much of real life being to the contrary.</p> <p>Someone once said to me when I was looking up at the clouds whilst lying back on the grass one summer in Guildford – ‘when people see faces in the clouds, do you think they just see what they want to see?’. I remember being struck by it as I didn’t really know the answer. I’ve seen faces in the clouds but does that mean they are faces or just clouds?. For those people who want to see truth in Christianity, do they see what they want to see – faces in the heavens, the truths they want to see?. And just because they see truths – does that make it THE truth or just letters on a page?</p> <p>If I could prove to you that a cloud is not a face yet you still see it, is that faith or imagination in you? If I could prove to you that Jesus was not the son of God and the bible was a story made of some fact and some fiction, would you see it as truth or imagination in someone else?</p> <p>At the end of the day, I do NOT want to try and stop people from coming to God through Christ or to slow people in the group down from accepting more and more of the bible as truth. As I was trying to point out unsuccessfully on Thursday (with probably a poor analogy) – the Waco event was so tragic because the people that died with the man we have deemed to be a false prophet, believed in him whole heartedly and clearly utterly loved God through him. To them he was the truth – to us he was a complete c*nt. Isn’t this exactly the premise the Jews took with Christ? Isn’t this precisely the scenario that religions are made of. Isn’t it the case that some of those people found total and utter peace with God through him, enough to follow him to the end of their world. To them he was as much the truth as Jesus was for the disciples. To us he was a man, flawed, vindictive and praying on people’s fears. More people have died due to the conflicts caused by belief in who Jesus was than died at Waco. To me, religion still seems a fickle thing and its the consequences of it being the truth that really keep me questioning it I guess.<br> ----------------</p> <p>Thoughts welcomed..... </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2009/06/14/a-blog-of-biblical-proportions-ish-6299920/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>religionatheismbibleresurrectionlifewacohttp://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2009/06/14/a-blog-of-biblical-proportions-ish-6299920/#commentshttp://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2009/05/27/champions-6188186/tag:lastromantic.blog.co.uk,2009-05-27:/2009/05/27/champions-6188186/Wed, 27 May 2009 21:09:37 +0200 <p>I'm watching the Champion's League Final on ITV. (Immediate apology for watching ITV, but hey....). </p> <p>22 men are currently being watched by a billion people trying to get the ball in one anothers net. Barcelona are leading 1 - 0 against Man United and its the first time I've been bothered enough to watch a football match for a long time. </p> <p>On Saturday I played football for the first time in about 8 years. Against a 3 year old. In the park. For fun. </p> <p>I was so much better than him. I could run faster, dribble better, tackle the ball of him every time. I'm 31, he's 3. But despite my obvious silky skills and being regimentally beaten by me ( <img src="/img/smilies/icon_wink.gif" alt=";)" class="middle" border="0"> ) he loved every minute of it. </p> <p>Sometimes in life it's really easy to forget the things that gave you pleasure when you were a kid. I grew up hugely enjoying playing and watching football but was denied the opportunity to play due to other commitments enforced by my family that took me down the musical route rather than the sporty life. </p> <p>You can see that, despite the fact they get paid a huge amount, the look on these players faces is no different than the 3 year old I played football with on Saturday. I think we need to keep playing in life. Forgetting how to enjoy yourself and how to play with and against each other is a skill many of us forget as we get older. </p> <p>Shame really. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2009/05/27/champions-6188186/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>footballlifesporthttp://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2009/05/27/champions-6188186/#commentshttp://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2009/05/25/the-great-indoors-6175035/tag:lastromantic.blog.co.uk,2009-05-25:/2009/05/25/the-great-indoors-6175035/Mon, 25 May 2009 16:59:59 +0200 <p>I took a risk today. Probably continues to signify my mood a little. </p> <p>I stayed in bed till 11am today asleep, then almost an hour lounging about. Got up and had a bath. Then lounged some more on the bed followed by a sleep on the sofa until 4pm. That was my risk. Sums up the way I feel. </p> <p>We're got two friends coming over tonight. They are good fun on most occasions although I manage one of them at work and she causes me to continue to have the divide between work and home up when we meet. This will be the highlight of my day. My other half has spent the whole of this weekend up stairs decorating our smallest room. This room, albeit quite tired in the decoration department, is supposedly the room I'm able to keep all my musical equipment. (For those of you who don't know, once upon a time I used to be a professional musician and have a BMus Honours degree in Music from at UK University). </p> <p>These days, I mainly play only for my own benefit although I remain in a very successful soul band who play every weekend (apart from this) throughout the summer). The whole weekend therefore, all my instruments have been unplayable as they're shacked up in the other room next door unplugged and unable to be reached. </p> <p>So, I've been bored. Shitless. Something that comes in waves to me at times like this and brings me so far down I almost hit the deck. No conversation about the world at large, no questioning the greater good in life, no pondering a rich and varied future, no creativity or inspiration. Just me, sat on the sofa, killing time before going back to work - wondering how my life can be so dull, especially when I've taken so much responsibility for trying to enrich it in the last two years through learning, talking and trying to overcome many issues I've had that have potentially held me back. </p> <p>Why aren't I standing shoulder to shoulder, painting the room? Cos quite frankly I'd rather tear my own eyes out than paint a room from one colour to the next for the sake of it. Precisely I guess what I'm doing.</p> <p>2 years ago almost to the week, I publically questioned whether I wanted to remain in the current life I've been living with the person I've been with for 9 years, married for 5 of them. It sent the shit flying to the fan. I took the opportunity to believe that it was my fault that I felt the way I did and embarked on two long years of therapy, counselling and couples counselling. I remember that the straw that broke the camels back was sitting in exactly this position having spent a bank holiday weekend 'tiling the bathroom' for 'fun'. After a few hours of initial fun, I realised I could tile and that the other 2500 tiles were not going to be pleasant to place on the wall. It got me thinking that this wasn't the way I wanted to spend my life, my free time caring more about what colour the walls were than what I was going to do with said rooms once they were complete. In the end, the proposition seemed always the same. .... 'then we can invite so and so over for dinner'. Great. Just like the last time and the time before that. It seems our life together consists of feeding ourselves and other people and slightly bettering the environment in order to do exactly the same thing again apart from in slightly nicer surroundings. </p> <p>I was 11.5 stone when I met my current partner. I'm now 16 stone if not more. I don't need to eat any more dinners. I don't need to sit inside my house for the sake of sitting inside my house. I need the only relationship I am allowed to have in life to inspire me and the person I'm with to leave the house and traverse the world, gorging our minds on the rich experiences of art, culture, philosophy, music, nature and politics not sit in a detached house in cosy Surrey, worrying whether the walls are blue or beige. If I genuinely felt that once the house had been sorted, tidied and coloured that we'd embark on a psychological mele of attuned sexual and philosophical discovery together - the place would be as immaculate as Dr Gillian McKeith's lower intestines. Sadly, here I am, another bank holiday passed, fatter than when I started having added nothing to the world outside my four walls. </p> <p>In my work life I'm a Director of Marketing & Communications running a team of 55 people on a £4m budget. In my home life I'm a retired old man, with no capacity to seemingly provide enough money, surroundings, incentive for my other half to join me in a quest for the unknown. </p> <p>I'm tired of the Great Indoors. 19 year olds across the world are travelling as we speak to New Zealand, Australia, America to experience the world and become rich and vibrant people. I chose someone who most enjoys the art of home making. Cooking, putting things in their right place, entertaining guests. </p> <p>What I would give for one heart felt moment where we both stood back together and said 'you know what, none of this matters - people might judge us on whether the bathroom is green or beige, black or blue - but by the time we die, we actually want people to judge us by the contribution we made with what God / or whatever / has given us in our minds to create new things, change lives, do things differently'. </p> <p>Lets swap the fuss about the colour of our own back garden and start marvelling at the colour of everything else. You never know, we might fall in love with each other again on the journey....</p> <p>Maybe its just me. I don't know. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2009/05/25/the-great-indoors-6175035/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>life-boredomhttp://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2009/05/25/the-great-indoors-6175035/#commentshttp://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2009/05/24/frustrated-boredom-6169222/tag:lastromantic.blog.co.uk,2009-05-24:/2009/05/24/frustrated-boredom-6169222/Sun, 24 May 2009 19:28:08 +0200 <p>Clearly there is something wrong with my life. It's a bank holiday weekend and so far I've been for a picnic with two friends and their young kids (3 and 0.5), been to Westfield Shopping centre, had lamb shanks, watched the Grand Prix, gutted my music room, including pulling up the carpet, listened to the last football of the season and heard Newcastle go down and scanned every DVD I own into my computer via my iSight to catalogue them and now......I'm bored. </p> <p>It's only 7ish on Sunday. That's no longer than a normal weekend. But clearly something is wrong with my life that I should be this bored so quickly. I really worry at times that I"m just turning into to some kind of maniac. I can't switch off. When I'm at work I'm always switched on, even if I'm not stretching myself to 100%. But at home, I'm just fat and lazy - however there seems so little of any interest to do. </p> <p>Why do I get so bored. Fair enough, I've had a cold and cough + antibiotics (for the first time since I was 17) in the last week and as such I've been unable to sing. I've also had to clear out my music room in order for it to be decorated, although decorating is not a pleasurable experience for me - so no ability to play instruments. I could scratch my own face off with frustration that this is how good my bank holidays are. </p> <p>What can I do to change all this. Surely I shouldn't have to resort to taking myself out for a walk on my own away from my other half just to get some kind of peace of mind. </p> <p>Grrr. I fucking hate my head at times. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2009/05/24/frustrated-boredom-6169222/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>boredomhttp://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2009/05/24/frustrated-boredom-6169222/#commentshttp://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2009/05/21/revelation-6155120/tag:lastromantic.blog.co.uk,2009-05-21:/2009/05/21/revelation-6155120/Thu, 21 May 2009 23:56:55 +0200 <p>I've just come back from my weekly philosophy/religion discussion group, something I do because I enjoy questioning and was invited by a friend to participate in at a time when I needed something additional in my life. </p> <p>After two years of going, I've found myself now at the stage of having to ponder the question of 'the end time', the end of the world, 'revelations' and the found myself lost in a maze of disbelief and frustration that I cannot see through spectacles tinted with faith in the same way my peers can. </p> <p>I know little so far of 'Revelations' despite having grown up with it as a child and as such am a layman in the actual written words describing the time when the world ends and things get really quite bad. For my associates that have reached a point in their lives where the bible seems to 'make sense' without them needing to think about it and brings them a huge amount of peace, I feel the grandest sense of envy and jealousy. The way in which the content of a book authored by so many individuals can harbour the truth of our past and our future and followed unquestionably as having the literal truth impressed into its translation from Hebrew to English fills me with awe and dread at the same time. </p> <p>I genuinely want to believe and to a degree I feel that I have a sense that the mysteries of the world, though many have been answered by science, still remain beyond our grasp for a reason. The space between you and I, the atomic substructure that has been created by the laws of the Universe are so fantastical that I shudder in trying to comprehend an explanation for its majesty and how I as a concious being am meant to relate to everything that I am not - the Universe and all it contains. But God? In having a relationship to the God of the two testaments, would I truly be able to equate all the bible says as the true word of God, despite the fact that I know all humans to be fallible in someway and therefore the editing of the 'good book' has to be flawed in some way or another. </p> <p>At a time when I don't trust myself or any motivation that anyone around me may have in life, why or how could the contents of a book written by people whose agenda was so desperate to fulfill a long standing prophecy become for me a certainty? The singular rock of my core?</p> <p>The way I feel at the moment is bitter. Bitter that the bible can be so ambiguous as to not allow an average man such as me to come to peace due to the simple fact that man has interfered with God through religion. In humanising the 'end of the world', the wrath and rapture, the fractured earth that will see humanity decline into those who have and those who have not got 'faith', I find myself angry at the Universe or God or both for burdening us with such a weapon of mass ambiguity as the bible. </p> <p>When the world outside my window can test the foundations of religion to such a fundamental level on a daily basis - to what should I attach my life's purpose, sense of direction and beliefs for my future and the rationale behind my past. </p> <p>I don't want to be one of those people who can only explain the world away through ancient scripture. The wisdom of my forefathers should surely not be greater than the combined wisdom they have left for me to interpret and add to. If the bible is 'it', prohibiting additions to itself or not allow for its core philosophy to benefit from human progress, then on what grounds did humanity deserve to be stifled 2000 years ago by a book that claims the past and future as its own on one thread - Jesus. If the old testament was superceded by the new, when can the new be superceded again. Why can wikipedia not be the third gospel, the facts of Universe - warning us to heed what we were told by revelations - that the end of the world will come and we shuld prepare ourselves to escape this planet and evolve to leave the worst of our species behind. Our self-righteousness as human authors of a allegedly 'godly' work have set us up to forever debate the truth. </p> <p>If there is any truth in the phrase 'nothing worth knowing can ever be taught', surely the teachings of the bible are not worth knowing because they distract us from marvelling at the Universe and its structure, beauty and elegance - not to allow us to suppose that it was designed by an intelligence beyond our own but God is everything else, no need to reduce it to human terms - God is everything, everything is God. Lets not simplify it to a time bound existence on one planet in the solar system over a few thousands of years. </p> <p>At what point did having 'faith' become more virtuous than helping people, compassion, the giving of joy, selflessness and the like. Why should having faith give you such greater rewards and why should those who claim to have act in ways less virtuous than many who have been unable to accept it on the terms laid down in the bible?</p> <p>Our understanding of the passage of time seems hugely limited by language and comprehensibility. I struggle to believe that we're any more in command of things with a bible than we are without it. And the threat of damnation does little to inspire me to thinking that organised religion has any greater credibility in bringing people to harmony with the Universe and its contents than the disorganised agnosticism I seem to have acquired at this point in life. </p> <p>Rant over.</p> <p>Night world.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2009/05/21/revelation-6155120/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2009/05/21/revelation-6155120/#commentshttp://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2009/05/11/email-post-update-6095854/tag:lastromantic.blog.co.uk,2009-05-11:/2009/05/11/email-post-update-6095854/Mon, 11 May 2009 11:24:01 +0200Hi all, just a very quick update to say thanks to all those who have<br> commented on my blog in the last few weeks. It's great to get such a<br> wide range of feedback on my thoughts and I value it greatly. <br> <br> Many thanks!<br> <br> Ps. If you'd like to follow me on Audioboo, you'll find my profile at<br> http://audioboo.fm/profile/thelastromantic<br> <br> Laters...<p> <small> <a href="http://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2009/05/11/email-post-update-6095854/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>email-blog-mobile-lifehttp://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2009/05/11/email-post-update-6095854/#commentshttp://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2009/05/08/faith-6081713/tag:lastromantic.blog.co.uk,2009-05-08:/2009/05/08/faith-6081713/Fri, 08 May 2009 14:50:35 +0200 <p>I grew up in the Church of England. </p> <p>Most people I know did in one way or another, be that through school assemblies, church going, sunday school or having to attend services at Christmas etc. None of them seemed to want to be there at the time and certainly there are very few (if any) people who I know who still actually go to church or practice their faith regularly. At the time, predominantly between the ages of 7-17, I was in church for 3 reasons:</p> <p>1) My parents told me I was going / took me there / had no choice<br> 2) I was in the church choir, as was my brother and father<br> 3) I went to a CofE school and it was named after the church we went to as it was in the parish. </p> <p>Of late, I've been reflecting a lot on what I'm made of and how I've come to be, questioning how probable it is that I could have escaped the first 20 years of my life that was attached to the church and moved on and away from it now that I'm in my 30's. </p> <p>The truth is for a long while - probably nearly 15 years, I've hated the church. I resented the fact that it left my weekends bound to the church building and the choir for over a decade and that when everyone else was out doing cool stuff, day tripping and playing in football clubs - I was in church, wearing robes and singing like a prize pillock. </p> <p>Thing is, I was good at it. I was head boy, a very competent soloist and south east finalist for choirboy of the year. But why was I doing it? On reflection (despite being forced) it was because I wanted my parents to be proud of me. And proud of me they were in the context of music and church life. </p> <p>So, was the whole thing just a load of bollocks? I mean, I resented it all so much that surely I must have hated the whole thing. Wasting my childhood in services with the old grannies at the back who liked the old skool Jesus hits. </p> <p>To be frank, I think as time has gone by - for all I learnt about music, I also took in more than I'd been able to be aware of from those preaching the liturgy and from the words in the hymns, anthems and motets. How do I know that? Mainly because I seem to have an inherent belief in having a soul and I think I'm pretty much assured of the fact I have a sense of spirituality. Is there a God - be that a being, entity, or reason for everything being without any linked personification? My thoughts are only just crystalising but in short hand, yes. I reckon there are things at work that I don't understand and that things do happen for a reason. That's not to say God is up there pulling strings, but I do genuinely feel like there are things out of our control that we've not been able to explain. </p> <p>And what of Christianity. I could write for hours. To me, religion is a side tracking away from a direct relationship with the universe. A true relationship to everything 'else' than you seems to me to be something we all strive for, living our lives both inside our selve and outside ourselves. I've never met anyone who doesn't understand what it means to have faith in something other than themselves (be that friends, situations, jobs, hopes, dreams, wishes) even if they won't class it as God. And due to the fact that every religion on the planet can be right, the only thing I'm sure of is that in trusting that we don't know it all yet and that no calculation has been able to provide us with any better moral codes or traditions to pass on than the religions have (as maths can be wrong as frequently as religions are when you add in a new variable), I find myself at 31 looking back on my 13 year old self and realising that the church at least gave me an objectifying eye - where analogous stories help tell truths in life despite their factual unlikeliness. </p> <p>Do I have faith - yes. I think I do because the opposite of faith (as I overhead last night) is certainty. I am not certain of ANYTHING in life which means I must have faith in it and with that comes the premise that God may exist and in having faith in the world I must also have room for a faith in the idea of God even though I believe religion is a distracting analogy for those who need a simple real world explanation for almost everything. </p> <p>No doubt I will think more about this over time and having been part of a philosophical/religious discussion group once a week for the last year - I think I'm only now being able to join the dots. </p> <p>So finally, I leave you with something that someone said to me yesterday. 'Many people want to treat religion as a dip in dip out excercise, where they want to jump from one dot to the next in no sense of order, not understanding the mean behind analogies - assuming they are factual things to be disputed or that come across as non-sensicle.' Like most join the dot puzzles, you have to join the dots in the right order to be able to see the picture at the end and only at the end will be able to appreciate the whole.' </p> <p>In my first 30 years I do feel like I've been jumping around from dot to dot, trying to draw my own life out without stepping back allowing myself to be guided from the heart more than the head. As Sting said 'Let Your Soul Be Your Pilot (he'll guide you well)'. </p> <p>I wonder what picture the dots will bring to me in the long run if I just have a little more faith ..... </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2009/05/08/faith-6081713/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2009/05/08/faith-6081713/#commentshttp://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2009/05/06/face-transplant-6072502/tag:lastromantic.blog.co.uk,2009-05-06:/2009/05/06/face-transplant-6072502/Wed, 06 May 2009 23:22:40 +0200 <p>Just watching the news and they've just shown the footage of the US woman who's had the face transplant recently. </p> <p>My god. What a hell of a situation. They showed three pictures - 1) Her as she was in her early 40's, 2) her just after she had recovered from being shot in the face by 'her husband' who then turned the gun on himself and 3) her new 70% transplanted face 5 months after the surgery. </p> <p>In this time of mobile communication and an increase in people citing loss of identity in modern life, I can't think of anything more disconcerting than imaging what that woman has been through. Not only has she clearly been shot in the face by a man she married and loved but then she's heard / seen / known that he then shot himself dead and in a split second became unrecognisable to society for the rest of her life. In the last few years she will have had 3 faces, her birth face, damaged face and transplanted face. </p> <p>What must that do to your brain. I can't even begin to compare my wobbles in identity in comparison to the inner strength she must have simply in order to have survived without going mad. </p> <p>There are people in the world who shock me, surprise me and overwhelm me with courage on a daily basis. As I get older I'm humbled by those who really know what it means to live when the should by all accounts not be living. </p> <p>If my biggest worry in life is who I'm living with and who I think I am, I've got nothing to worry about. Will it stop me being introspective - no probably not. But being humbled by real life is a good thing every now and again. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2009/05/06/face-transplant-6072502/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>face-transplanthttp://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2009/05/06/face-transplant-6072502/#commentshttp://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2009/04/30/survival-of-the-fittest-6037005/tag:lastromantic.blog.co.uk,2009-04-30:/2009/04/30/survival-of-the-fittest-6037005/Thu, 30 Apr 2009 20:11:49 +0200 <p>Every now and again I get this overwhelming feeling of sadness about my life. </p> <p>For some people, growing up in a family environment where you are supported, nurtured, praised and comforted is the norm and to a degree I always thought that I didn't have it that bad. It's only been in my late 20's and early 30's that I've started to realise that all the times I said to myself 'at least I'm not in <em>so & so's </em>situation' or 'i'm making all this up just to get attention' that actually, I was learning to control myself in ways that would later prove to be potentially damaging. </p> <p>Now before readers think of this as yet another person seeking to bare their soul on blog as a white, middle class male from Surrey - I'd like to point out that my natural disposition is not one of self destruction. Infact on the whole I'm a very positive and progressive and successful person for my age. But more recently, as this blog shows in it's past - I have been on a quest for self knowledge, self love and a sense of composed truth in my life. </p> <p>For two years flat I've had therapy to try to draw out my inner demons and to dispel them and having over come the fact that therapy and self reflection is not just a tool for the weird, damaged or violated, it's shown me a lot about myself that I knew but didn't know how to objectify over. The long on short of me can be distilled down to this:</p> <p>" I have never felt part of a loving family, nor was I taught how loving families operated. As such I've always searched for being part of a family that reflect my inner nature only to find that when I get there I'm unable to feel part of it "</p> <p>So what does this mean in practice? To me, in surviving my childhood unscarred physically but bigger on the inside than on the out, I've become fit for one purpose only - longing. And boy does longing make a prick of me at times as with longing comes a desire in yourself to mislead your life in search of a fantastical heaven-like place known as true relationship. </p> <p>For someone who is desperate to love, hold, care for and desire - I have to ask myself why I am so totally incapable of it in a way that really works. Both me and my brother suffer from what can only be described as 'Emotional Depravation Syndrome' - an extreme case of being emotionally malnourished as child which wreaks havoc on our abilities to orientate the world in a way that doesn't lead to over investment, disappointment, a sense of duty and detachment from feelings. </p> <p>I have a highly sensitive emotional capacity - its just not geared towards dealing with the positive things in life, on the negative. I survived my youth by being fit in terms of mind and soul, at least fit enough to withstand the torture of adolescent bullying, maliciousness and under-engagement. </p> <p>And all of this makes me sad at a level that seems inexpressible. I've always been a big romantic, a writer of songs and poetry to gain self expression, attention or empathy yet to some people they can't see it even if they're looking at it in the face. </p> <p>As I get nearer 32 and ultimately have to think about Kids, I'm at a loss to know how to survive the march of time and have children without getting it fundamentally wrong on multiple levels. You tend to find the harder you run away from things, the closer you end up coming to repeating the same mistakes. </p> <p>One day, I hope to wake up and realise that I've come to terms with my past and can look at my future objectively. To love and to be loved. To have and be had. To know and to be known. </p> <p>Fingers crossed for some peace of mind in my lifetime... </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2009/04/30/survival-of-the-fittest-6037005/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>lovethoughtslifehttp://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2009/04/30/survival-of-the-fittest-6037005/#commentshttp://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2009/04/26/i-m-sat-in-a-field-in-the-outskirts-of-6012666/tag:lastromantic.blog.co.uk,2009-04-26:/2009/04/26/i-m-sat-in-a-field-in-the-outskirts-of-6012666/Sun, 26 Apr 2009 20:20:01 +0200 <p>I'm sat in a field in the outskirts of Norwich with about 45 mind to<br> go before playing a gig in a massive tipi.</p> <p>Taking this time out I've decided to see if I can get email blog <br> updates to work. So by way of this post, I'll soon see if I've set it <br> up right.</p> <p>Short but sweet.</p> <p>Sent from my iPhone </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2009/04/26/i-m-sat-in-a-field-in-the-outskirts-of-6012666/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2009/04/26/i-m-sat-in-a-field-in-the-outskirts-of-6012666/#commentshttp://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2009/04/21/the-six-wives-of-henry-viii-5984619/tag:lastromantic.blog.co.uk,2009-04-21:/2009/04/21/the-six-wives-of-henry-viii-5984619/Tue, 21 Apr 2009 22:41:56 +0200 <p>Now I'm quite a fan of history and the like and this year is the 500th anniversary of Henry VIII's arrival on the throne of England. </p> <p>Henry was the pin up boy of awe inspiring majesty and a prize bastard. However, you have to ask yourself quite how people in the past managed to get away with having 6 wives. In times gone by, men had wives coming out of their ears. These days, famous actresses regularly have 4 or more husbands. Some people just go through partners like water, others settle for the same person their whole lives. </p> <p>I have a philosophy that says that humans historically used to live in many cases until their 40's. Now we're living till our 90's. I wonder whether its possible that actually, in life we need to have different people, partners, friends and romances in order to continue to grow as individuals. Who we are at 20 is not the same as 40 , 60 or 80. Could it be that now we have lives that last so much longer, there's an increased need to shed our skin and allow ourselves the chance to have different relationships and become different people or should we continue to have relationships that number only 1. </p> <p>In generations past, it was normal in parts of the world to marry at 14-16 years old and be dead by 35. Now, its unusual for people to get married before their late 20's and in some cases not even until late 30's if at all. </p> <p>When is a man a man these days? in the 19th Century boys were going out to work from 10. Now few are working before 16-18. I'm 31 and fully believe that only in the last two years have I started to have my own philosophy on life and grown up. How many partners does it take before you've learnt enough about love to consider yourself mature at it. </p> <p>There are not many people who would be prepared to go through the ordeal of 6 wives and sanctioning two of their deaths these days. Over the thousands of years humanity has developed its interesting how relationships and styles of relationships have differed so greatly from multiple partners in the middle east to only 1 person from teens to 90's in strong christian communities. </p> <p>What am I getting at? I guess I just wonder how many close relationships it takes to really satisfy the learning experience that relationship can bring to life. Is it possible to achieve all you can be in relationship to another in only one person or is it right to learn about relating by having multiple partners in a life time. Children aside, it would seem there are benefits and draw backs to both. 6 wives, not for me but 6 lovers in a lifetime sounds more the piece. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2009/04/21/the-six-wives-of-henry-viii-5984619/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>henry-viii-relationship-life-lovehttp://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2009/04/21/the-six-wives-of-henry-viii-5984619/#commentshttp://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2009/04/20/invisible-5977162/tag:lastromantic.blog.co.uk,2009-04-20:/2009/04/20/invisible-5977162/Mon, 20 Apr 2009 17:38:07 +0200 <p><a href="http://www.thesixtyone.com/sandersonpitch/song/18810/"> Clear hear the soundtrack to this blog </a></p> <p>In a world where we're all constantly connected to each other it strikes me that I'm actually disillusioned with quite how disconnected some people can be. </p> <p>There's no doubt that over time, people can change and grow into things they never started out as. I've read a good many books in the last two years since starting this blog and to a degree I believe it has prohibited me from finding truths of my own. Reading and writing are things that have always come in pairs and I think that for many people, when we leave the comfort and focus of school days behind, we forget that actually writing and expressing ourselves is just as desirable as reading and watching others' matters of opinion. </p> <p>Facebook, Twitter, blogging, texting - the great mediums of our time invariably lose something of the human condition along the way. The great novels, the considered pieces, the philosophical treatise is slowly become a method of dialogue between the generations that seems redundant in the age of instant communication. No one gets the time to revise and hone their thoughts any more. No one compiles there story over years to tell them well. </p> <p>We all tell our stories quickly, instantly, leaving room for interpretation that others can take in the blink of an eye. So if opinions are formed of who someone is, what their motivations are and what they are in the world so easily - do we risk becoming truly invisible, silenced by the noise of 162 character 'status updates' and text messages?</p> <p>And what of all this for a song writer who has packaged his life into 3:30 mins since 13 years old? Parts of me kept in a language that cannot easily be shared with people who treat music in different ways with different meanings dependent on mood. </p> <p>Comparing our connected world where instant judgements are made to music almost proves for me that the cliched 'bigger picture' may be being forgotten. If the great composers, Mozart, Stravinsky, Bach, Elgar, Wagner, Tchaikovsky, Williams had all released their greatest works in 164 characters a time via status updates, would some of the greatest melodys and harmonies of our time have gone unnoticed. Note by note, the sounds of our lives can be heard - but in trading in the text message for a chapter or a status update for a true story, do we not get closer to telling the stories as well as they can be told, edited, refined and learned. </p> <p>Despite 2 short years of constant, effortless communication with all those around me and (in some cases) paying people to hear what I have to say, I have slowly come to realise that I have fallen foul of modernity in a way I could not have conceived of when I picked up my first mobile phone in 1996 and begun an instant message revolution with an alter ego on the fledgling 'Yahoo' chat in 1997. </p> <p>12 years on, I've broken myself and my story down and tried telling it in 164 characters at a time. There's a reason that people for time immemorial have written on walls, paper, papyrus and parchment unrestricted. These are the stories that have stood the test of time, hidden in diaries, books, notepads and tangible formats not lost the the flick of a delete key or server error. </p> <p>Come back paper. All is forgiven. </p> <p>Love</p> <p>The Invisibles. </p> <p>(Music by The Sanderson Pitch) </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2009/04/20/invisible-5977162/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>lovethoughtsartlifehttp://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2009/04/20/invisible-5977162/#commentshttp://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2009/01/03/gaming-for-old-boys-5314484/tag:lastromantic.blog.co.uk,2009-01-03:/2009/01/03/gaming-for-old-boys-5314484/Sat, 03 Jan 2009 01:31:33 +0100 <p>So at 31, am I too old for online gaming on an Xbox 360. </p> <p>Tonight, I spent a good 2 hours gaming with a reasonably recent addition to my circle of friends who, like me, was brought up on football and racing games on the Amiga and SNES. We played together on the most expensive ornament I've ever bought (seeing as I've only turned it on about 10 times in 2 years as I have no one to play with). </p> <p>We had fun and tomorrow I will go and get the game we played so I can play it online. The disturbing thing is that I now find myself being absolutely shite at computer games. Call of Duty 4 - absolutely rubbish. There were kids of no more than 13 literally blowing my virtual brains out every time I entered the game. </p> <p>Most interesting of all however is the fact that games leave nothing to the imagination any more. The realism of the games and their virtual environement means that you're wowed by the graphics and realistic motion capture animation of the characters etc however you don't have to imagine yourself into the world of the game in the same way as when the graphics took a sense of imagination to make them good. </p> <p>I'm getting old. I'm definitely getting old. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2009/01/03/gaming-for-old-boys-5314484/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>gaminghttp://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2009/01/03/gaming-for-old-boys-5314484/#commentshttp://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2009/01/02/the-boy-is-back-in-town-5311728/tag:lastromantic.blog.co.uk,2009-01-02:/2009/01/02/the-boy-is-back-in-town-5311728/Fri, 02 Jan 2009 13:30:26 +0100 <p>Hello 2009. </p> <p>I've decided that I need to get better at writing again and as such have decided to begin recording my thoughts in to a blog. </p> <p>Having written a blog for a short period of time in 2007 with a little overspill into 2008, it's been a long time since I've had the time (or to be frank the inclination) to write again. So why start now? </p> <p>Well I guess the long and short of it comes down to boredom. The funny thing about boredom is how it creeps up on you and penetrates not only your general mood but also your physical reactions to things. Irritability kicks in and makes for a thoroughly annoying feeling - feet waggling with impatience, fingers ruffling on one's lap with annoyance. Christmas holidays for me tend to be almost exclusively a time of boredom - lack of purpose being the key element in my discomfort.</p> <p>Why you ask? Put simply it's down to purpose - or infact a lack of it. Outside my working life I feel like I'm purposeless and struggle massively to comprehend what to do with my time. Yes, I have plenty of likes and interests. There's lots of DIY I could be doing if I gave a monkey's and if I had more patience I'm sure I could do a lot more 'hobbying'. </p> <p>2008's revelation was getting in to reading. Reading had always been something that made me either feel stupid or fall asleep. Just because someone gets a degree and has a reasonably good job doesn't mean they are good at consuming the contents of a book or three these days. Infact, I've read more books in the last year than in the total combined years between birth and 30. That says something about either a) my state of mind in 2008 of b) the search to delete boredom from my cognitive repertoire. </p> <p>So blogging with the hope of illeviating boredom is how this will start but for sure not how it will end. This year will be the toughest year of my life for sure. Major work pressures, major home pressures, major family pressures and major questions around love. 2008 saw me find out a lot about who I am and why I am that way. 2009 will have to be the year I decide what to do with all that knowledge and ability and bring myself back to a point of happiness. </p> <p>I'd be delighted if you'd join me. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2009/01/02/the-boy-is-back-in-town-5311728/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>lovelifehttp://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2009/01/02/the-boy-is-back-in-town-5311728/#commentshttp://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2008/09/08/do-good-things-come-to-those-who-wait-4701211/tag:lastromantic.blog.co.uk,2008-09-08:/2008/09/08/do-good-things-come-to-those-who-wait-4701211/Mon, 08 Sep 2008 23:56:34 +0200 <p>For 30 years I've been good at avoiding risk. In fact, I think I'm rather highly skilled at it. </p> <p>Over the last year I've been pondering the truth of things, finding out as much about myself as I can and then trying to use that knowledge to make sense of the world. Starting this blog was the beginning of a journey that has left me confused, dazed and tired but ultimately enlightened and capable of much more than I ever realised. I've learnt to love people a different way, take opportunities when presented more readily and recognise my weaknesses as potential strengths (dependent on which side of the bed I get out of that day). </p> <p>Most of all I've learnt what it means to really care for someone and trust them implicitly. It's a curious thing to meet someone in life who you believe in wholeheartedly and invest time, energy and effort into them in such a way that you know that one way or another there's very little more of yourself you can give. 2008 has fostered my belief that it is possible to find people who can match you and give you a sense of equality in life that helps you to breath in more easily and then breath out a sigh of relief that you're not the only one who sees the world this way. </p> <p>As I write, I am having to muster all my courage to retain the faith that I will not be paid back for all the ill I have done in my life and lose the heart of that trust through the influence of past histories and obvious bonds that over time come to represent things that maybe aren't any more true than most other things in life. </p> <p>Fostering friendships can be a dark art at times and at others a thing of absolute beauty. I'm inclined to hope that no matter what happens under tonight's sky, that I've made the right choices and commitments when following my instinct and that the belief in good things coming out of bad situations is not something I have been deluding myself with all this time. </p> <p>Do good things come to those who wait? </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2008/09/08/do-good-things-come-to-those-who-wait-4701211/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2008/09/08/do-good-things-come-to-those-who-wait-4701211/#commentshttp://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2008/08/09/so-i-ve-started-on-my-bucket-list-4563190/tag:lastromantic.blog.co.uk,2008-08-09:/2008/08/09/so-i-ve-started-on-my-bucket-list-4563190/Sat, 09 Aug 2008 12:05:07 +0200 <p>Here it is so far....</p> <p>• Be a father<br> • Go skiing<br> • Drive across America<br> • Drive across Europe<br> • Breathe the air in at John O’Groats<br> • Visit Austria<br> • Visit Auchwitz<u> (achieved Sept 08!)</u><br> • Visit Pompeii<br> • Watch the Monaco Grand Prix in Monaco<br> • Read the diary of Samuel Pepes<br> • Hear Kings College Cambridge Choir sing Midnight Mass at Christmas<br> • Get a suntan<br> • Save someone’s life<br> • Look out from Hitler’s Eagle's Nest<br> • See the Giant’s Causeway<br> • Make love by a lake / sea<br> • Be responsible for someone crying tears of joy<br> • Grow a full beard <u>(achieved October 08)</u><br> • Learn to bake<br> • Cook for my whole family<br> • Learn to draw<br> • Be scared shitless<br> • Be present at an exhibition of my own photography<br> • Perform in a band with Matt<br> • Record an album of song’s I’ve written<br> • Release a song I’ve written for general sale<br> • See John Mayer live at Madison Square Gardens<br> • Make a documentary film<br> • Raise half a million pounds for charity.<br> • Share a bottle of wine with someone I trust enough to share it with<br> • Learn to appreciate details<br> • Give a woman the best orgasm of her life<br> • Be someone’s hero<br> • Walk with a loved one in the pissing rain<br> • Unexpectedly laugh with someone till I cry<br> • Build a train-set for a child<br> • Be there for someone as they die<br> • Collect someone from the airport with a plackard<br> • Go back to Lindesfarne<br> • Revisit Ladykirk and find the old graveyard<br> • Finish researching my family tree and add to it<br> • Drive as fast as I feel I want to<br> • Be brought to tears by nature<br> • Change someone’s life for the better<br> • Reach the age of 90 without wishing I hadn't<br> • Write of a book of poetry<br> • Hear the Berlin Philharmonic in Berlin<br> • Be at Rebecca’s wedding<br> • Drive a steam train<br> • Create something that history remembers<br> • Help someone give birth<br> • Grow a herb garden<br> • Lie back in the sun at the top of a hill with someone I love and feel content</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2008/08/09/so-i-ve-started-on-my-bucket-list-4563190/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2008/08/09/so-i-ve-started-on-my-bucket-list-4563190/#commentshttp://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2008/07/22/140-days-on-4484532/tag:lastromantic.blog.co.uk,2008-07-22:/2008/07/22/140-days-on-4484532/Tue, 22 Jul 2008 18:38:19 +0200 <p>It's been a while. Many things have changed. Many thing stay the same. </p> <p>So why haven't I blogged in a while. Truth is, I think I realised I had nothing to write about that would actually interest people for quite a bit. With the pressures of work, home life and growing up - my libido for blogging seemed to end when people moved on and others entered my life. </p> <p>I'm going to get back into writing again but here's a question for you........</p> <p>At what cost is 24/7 multiplatform communication? How does it effect who we are and how we think about the world? Because we are permanently connected via iPhone, Messenger, Blogs, Email - do we find ourselves saying nothing at all in terms of depth and clarity. </p> <p>Would be interested to see who is out there after all this time......</p> <p>AB </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2008/07/22/140-days-on-4484532/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2008/07/22/140-days-on-4484532/#commentshttp://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2008/02/27/earthquake-3787563/tag:lastromantic.blog.co.uk,2008-02-27:/2008/02/27/earthquake-3787563/Wed, 27 Feb 2008 12:46:22 +0100 <p>It's been a while since I took the opportunity to update my blog. I guess I've been trying to avoid thinking as much recently and therefore, the need to write has subsided. </p> <p>Over the course of the last months, things have changed a lot. Settled into my new job and enjoying it, cut ties with my previous employer and the only two people I care about are either leaving or looking to leave. </p> <p>I've learnt a lot about myself in the last year and more so, a lot about attachment theory. Here we all are, writing our thoughts down and wondering what other people with think of our lives when reading what we've constructed. Attachment theory is interesting shit. It denotes everyone's preference for how we interact as a species and how and why we become attached to certain attachment figures. </p> <p>The older I get, the more attached I become to people. I'm intrigued to know how other people feel about those they are attached to and why they are attached. </p> <p>Anyone got any thoughts?</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2008/02/27/earthquake-3787563/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>attachmenthttp://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2008/02/27/earthquake-3787563/#commentshttp://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2007/12/26/jizzy_christmas~3493961/tag:lastromantic.blog.co.uk,2007-12-26:/2007/12/26/jizzy_christmas~3493961/Wed, 26 Dec 2007 23:42:11 +0100 <p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lqrf3PRoqA"></p> <p>CLICK HERE TO SEE MY CHRISTMAS SINGLE & VIDEO....... </a></p> <p>Hi all. Merry Christmas.</p> <p>I've not blogged for a while and to be honest it's because I've not had that much going on in my mind to allow me to do my blog justice. </p> <p>I wasn't looking forward to Christmas at all, but so far it's been really good and I've been very relaxed. </p> <p>I hope you are all well and please take the time to watch my Christmas video recorded earlier in December. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2007/12/26/jizzy_christmas~3493961/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>housewife-video-christmas-songhttp://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2007/12/26/jizzy_christmas~3493961/#commentshttp://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2007/12/13/back_home~3440493/tag:lastromantic.blog.co.uk,2007-12-13:/2007/12/13/back_home~3440493/Thu, 13 Dec 2007 23:11:58 +0100 <p>So, I would have written a load more stuff in my blog from the studios, however, the internet connection was absolutely shite. </p> <p>The studio however was awesome. We ended up getting 5 tracks done , all of which were a little amusing...... Of course now the hard work begins, the mix!</p> <p>Made me realise that I rely on music to get stuff out of my head. It's a long time since I managed to really make something I'm proud of. </p> <p><a href="http://www.tonhauser.com/rubbersoul/music/Miracle%20(Rubber%20Soul%2000).mp3"> Miracle </a> was a song I wrote and recorded with the band a while ago. Whilst we get the other stuff mixed, maybe the land of blog can judge whether I should just shut up before I even start....... </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2007/12/13/back_home~3440493/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>housewife-miraclehttp://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2007/12/13/back_home~3440493/#commentshttp://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2007/12/09/the_byre~3418565/tag:lastromantic.blog.co.uk,2007-12-09:/2007/12/09/the_byre~3418565/Sun, 09 Dec 2007 18:16:20 +0100 <p><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2151/2098331824_b47693a0cf.jpg" alt="" title=""></p> <p>It's Sunday evening and we've been recording for two days. So far, we've managed to record almost a whole of an old tune called Chimp and written a new one. </p> <p>The strange thing about going back in time and reuniting with the old band members is quite how easy it has been to get straight back into the mindset I left behind in 2000. Everything we've ever done has a quirk to it that is unique to the characters of all four of us. </p> <p>Having spent the last 18 months exorcising demons in myself - being back in the past is an interesting experience. </p> <p>Half way through. Lets see what the rest brings. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2007/12/09/the_byre~3418565/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>housewifehttp://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2007/12/09/the_byre~3418565/#commentshttp://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2007/12/08/day_1_part~3413534/tag:lastromantic.blog.co.uk,2007-12-08:/2007/12/08/day_1_part~3413534/Sat, 08 Dec 2007 14:53:36 +0100 <p>So, here we are, Matt, Baker and I sat in the studio in Scotland having set everything up last night and got out of the studio at 12am. </p> <p>Back in the studio this morning, we're starting to record Chimp. So, hold on , tune in and cop out to this blog as I continue the updates. You're all going to need to protect your ears soon..... </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2007/12/08/day_1_part~3413534/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>chimphttp://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2007/12/08/day_1_part~3413534/#commentshttp://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2007/12/07/flight_check~3410553/tag:lastromantic.blog.co.uk,2007-12-07:/2007/12/07/flight_check~3410553/Fri, 07 Dec 2007 19:50:46 +0100 <p>So, I've arrived just outside Inverness for 4 days in the studio recording new material. </p> <p>I have literally no idea what I will come back with. All I know is that this will be the longest period of time in my life I will have been without female company of any type. I'm already twitching. </p> <p>9.5 hour journey was astonishingly quick in real terms. I'm tired, it's wet and we're setting up now. I'm just hoping that all goes smoothly. Keep your eye on the blog of the next few days to see the progress. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2007/12/07/flight_check~3410553/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>music-studio-invernesshttp://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2007/12/07/flight_check~3410553/#commentshttp://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2007/12/01/long_weekend~3381179/tag:lastromantic.blog.co.uk,2007-12-01:/2007/12/01/long_weekend~3381179/Sat, 01 Dec 2007 23:36:46 +0100 <p><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2291/2079080654_5bd8610054.jpg" alt="" title=""></p> <p>It's the 1st Dec and it will soon be Christmas. I'm not looking forward to it at all. I've always found celebrating Christmas difficult, it brings back too many memories of times that cannot be returned to me. Things change and people change. Someone said to me this week that everyone needs reminding that people 'retain the right to change their mind in life'. With Christmas approaching, I wish I had enough control of my mind to stop it changing. It changes every minute and never ends up back where it was the minute before. </p> <p>I took the photograph above in Salisbury today and it reminded me of a good friend who's out of the country this weekend. It's been a long weekend so far and I'm only half way through. Hopefully her long weekend is going ok too..... </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2007/12/01/long_weekend~3381179/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>lifehttp://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2007/12/01/long_weekend~3381179/#commentshttp://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2007/11/28/compromise~3367503/tag:lastromantic.blog.co.uk,2007-11-28:/2007/11/28/compromise~3367503/Wed, 28 Nov 2007 23:36:59 +0100 <p>Had lunch with someone today and we discussed compromise. We decided to both put our thoughts into words.</p> <p>Her view was: there should be no such thing in compromise in a relationship and that 1 + 1 = 2. </p> <p>My view is the 'or' or 'and' debate. In a relationship with no compromise, its and 'or' relationship. It's either you or me, my way or your way, my dreams or your dreams. 'And' is a compromise, me and you, your dreams and my dreams, your way and my way combining to make to. Infact, what I believe my friend has failed to realise in her description is that her sum is the sum of a compromise that 1 and 1 should make 2. They don't make 11, they are not two individual 1's. </p> <p>Discuss. </p> <p>But I'm right. <img src="/img/smilies/icon_wink.gif" alt=";)" class="middle" border="0"> </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2007/11/28/compromise~3367503/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2007/11/28/compromise~3367503/#commentshttp://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2007/11/28/no_signal~3362430/tag:lastromantic.blog.co.uk,2007-11-28:/2007/11/28/no_signal~3362430/Wed, 28 Nov 2007 01:12:43 +0100 <p>During the last year, some days have passed me by without incident and others have smacked me full in the face. Today, I felt I had a pretty good day. </p> <p>However, in the way that always happens, I've been waiting for a text from someone all evening to know that they are safe and well. In my book, there is nothing more upsetting than planning to receive a bit of information and then be powerless to receive it - and that is what is currently happening. For some unknown reason, just at the moment I needed my phone to work - it's died. Completely void of use for the one thing it's for. It's on, and every feature is working it just won't connect. </p> <p>So I'm without signal. Literally. I don't know how that person is or how they are feeling. Worst of all, I can't send my support and wishes. It's all very strange. I guess that sometimes it's good to be silent. Alone without connection to anyone else. It makes you wonder if we're now all too reliant on connection and whether being permanently connected means that actually you're never truly connected at all. </p> <p>What does it mean to lose signal with other people. How do you know when you've dropped your connection and can't dial into them anymore. Texting, blogging, instant messaging, phoning, emailing, facebooking.....I'm more connected than I've ever been to my friends and family, yet more of them feel lonely, troubled, misunderstood, misrepresented than every before. </p> <p>Long ago, the only way I knew had to communicate was through songs. Makes me wonder if I should go back to that and quit communicating without saying anything at all......... </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2007/11/28/no_signal~3362430/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://lastromantic.blog.co.uk/2007/11/28/no_signal~3362430/#comments