Community and The Neighbours We Never Knew

The Vanishing Neighbours

It was only a few weeks ago that I had a conversation in the office kitchen, near the coffee machine. I was curious as to why a company on our floor seemed to keep a three-day week. They were in on neither Monday nor Friday.

The lady I spoke to said that they worked from home on Mondays and had Fridays off. As usual, this week I did not expect them in on Monday, but by Tuesday it became apparent that they had gone. The hive of activity that sat between my office and the kitchen became a scene of eerie calm and emptiness. A part of my office community had gone without notice.

Communion and Loss

Earlier in the week, during Communion at church, people lined up for the gifts. My place in the seating arrangement means that I am one of the first congregants to go forward, ahead of others.

After returning to my seat for contemplation and to listen to the choir sing, I could also watch the other congregants go forward for the breaking of bread. A male couple usually sits to the side, on the right as one looks towards the altar, but only the taller of the two went forward.

It seemed peculiar, as they were never apart, and the shorter of them still carried his age well, being a nonagenarian, though I cannot say why we had never exchanged pleasantries in all the time I had seen them.

Comforting the Bereaved

After the Sung Eucharist, I saw other church members go to chat with the one who was present, and it caught my eye that they were shaking his hand and patting his knee. Everything pointed to the premise that something might have happened to his partner, and from these interactions, I had drawn my own conclusions before I enquired of another person.

The old man had passed away during the week, and they were comforting his partner. I had not made his acquaintance well enough to be familiar, yet I felt that we had, even from the distance I maintained, lost a dear member of our community. May his soul rest in peace.

A Summer Barbecue

Our village, which comprises five apartment blocks with shared facilities and a rather cantankerous WhatsApp group of restless people who have not yet found the natural circadian rhythm of silence and peace at a certain time of day, gathered in the communal garden for a summer barbecue.

I was not sure I would attend, as I am not good with crowds, but when my neighbour, one of the organisers, saw me a few hours before the event, I could not excuse myself from the fête. I paid for my ticket and took a bottle of South African shiraz and a bottle of orange juice to the gathering.

Gathering in the Garden

Dressed in traditional and colourful apparel, I was easily the centre of attention, while at the same time hoping to be inconspicuous. This was the first time something like this had been arranged in our decades-long residency of the village, and over forty people came.

From someone who had moved in only a fortnight ago to others who have lived here for over thirty years, I gleaned enough from the conversations I had. I was better off sitting in one place, with people interacting with me, than moving around networking extrovertly, which is a total drain on my mental reserves.

Proximity Without Intimacy

It struck me then how strange it was that so many of us should live so close and yet know one another so little. That WhatsApp group is the perfect emblem of it; we are near enough to disturb each other's peace, yet not close enough to know the names behind the complaints.

We had shared walls, stairwells, and a garden for years, and it took a barbecue for some of us to exchange a first word. Proximity, I realised, is not the same as intimacy, and living side by side is not the same as living together.

What Community Means

What it revealed to me was that we do not do neighbourliness and community enough, at least for those with an interest in others. I once had a neighbour whom I never met and who kept to themselves in the eighteen months they lived next door. Whether a recluse or simply indifferent, one could only be glad they were gone when I learnt of the situation.

I only want neighbours I can check on and who check on me; people who, when we meet in the corridor, would stop to have a chat; people ready to help one another in the ordinary and the more so. They become a kind of family, and that too is what community is all about.

A Google NotebookLM AI Podcast on this blog

Coronavirus streets in Manchester - LXXIX: Reading the Signs We Miss

The Streets of Manchester

The fascinating people that live in this city or visit it never cease to captivate me. Whilst I do attempt to be inconspicuous, I nearly always fail to blend in, but the attention usually brings compliments that I am glad to accept with gratitude.

The streets of Manchester bring both the familiar and the revealing. Looking at the health dashboard for the north of England, there have been outbreaks of measles and other respiratory viruses, but COVID-19 remains six years on.

I take Coronavirus vaccine boosters twice a year because it is an evolving virus with strains, we have literally forgotten to keep track of. I'm on the take-your-jabs side of the debate.

An Arresting Entrance

Attending a function yesterday, someone arrived late enough to be noticed in more ways than one. First, it was her blonde hair with red highlights and bows to the left and right, very much as one would have imagined Heidi would look, or a traditional Kellnerin (beer maid) at Oktoberfest.

Her dress was purple and slightly body-hugging, and her shoes were platform boots, the type that makes your gait look like a plod. Each footstep was an ungainly stamp, not so much soldiering but what you might observe from a horse in canter.

Her face had a chubby, childlike quality, but it left us wondering if she had left a face mask on, because it seemed unlikely that this was the result of make-up application.

A Mystery Unfolds

An intriguing personality, you might think. You had the urge to introduce yourself and then found yourself tongue-tied, unsure which of the thousand questions coursing through your thoughts to ask first.

After she sat down, it became obvious that she was unsure of what to do. I plucked up the courage to walk across the room to tell her that food was being served around a corner in the longer part of the hall. She seemed to prefer a sprint to a walk, even in this enclosed space, displaying an unnecessary urgency that drew concerned attention.

Even after several people tried to engage her, none came away with her name, who she was, where she came from, or who she was wearing for either fashion or make-up. I doubt anyone paid compliments, and if anything commendable were said, it might have been along the lines of, “You're quite brave to leave home like that.” Everyone wondered who had broken all the mirrors and reflective surfaces in her home; I dare not say care home.

Reading the Signs

In retrospect, many of the signs were there. The sprint across the room when a walk would do, the inability to engage in small talk, the preference for group activities that required no conversation, even the styling choices that perhaps made perfect sense to her but read as incongruous to others.

These weren't eccentricities designed to provoke or performed awkwardness for effect. They were markers, perhaps, of someone navigating a neurotypical social space with a neurodivergent compass.

The unnecessary urgency, the difficulty with eye contact and introduction, the retreat into structured activities like dancing where the rules are clearer and the social demands more predictable; all of this suggested someone for whom these gatherings are both desired and exhausting. Someone who wanted to be there but lacked the social scaffolding that others take for granted.

The Enigma Departs

Later, she got involved in the dancing and some other activities you could do in a group without having to chat to anyone. She remained a mystery, an enigma of sorts, and we left nonplussed. She might have decided on being the girly doll version of Chucky.

She was Black.

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Essential Snobbery 101: Leaving the village people in the village

A fear of the imagined

Village People, and this is not the American disco group from the 1970s; rather, it defines a state of mind, the foreboding that any adversity or misfortune is an extension of the negative influence of people from your homestead on your circumstances.

The idea of village people is retrogressive, a concept of people limited by a frame of reference governed by malevolence and envy: detractors who cannot bear to see others succeeding, whose sense of joy is derived from the downfall of others.

Whether the concept of village people is imagined or real, we find ourselves caught in the paranoia of being watched and afraid to stumble. Everything becomes a premonition towards ill. The danger is that we become ensnared by mental constraints we have imposed on ourselves, borne of the irrational yet significantly impactful on our mien.

Leave them in the village

Yet, I aver that village people should be left in the village and not be given any semblance of influence beyond the village limits. They cannot walk where we have walked, nor can they see through our eyes.

Why, then, do we believe that village people have the ability to impact our lives so profoundly that they have such a hold on us? How can they divert not just the course of events far removed from them but also define our destiny? The truth is probably a battle we are engaged with, in our heads rather than something external to us.

To paraphrase Hanlon's razor: "Never ascribe to malice (of village people) that which is adequately explained by incompetence (of ourselves)." If we took more responsibility for some things that have happened to us, the village people might just become the music that gets us on the dancefloor.

Coronavirus streets in Manchester - LXXVII

Leaps of fleshly walks

It had rained earlier besides the fact that there was a forecast of further rain episodes in Manchester. I was dressed in anticipation of adverse weather, but when I stepped out this afternoon to replenish my supply of cranberry juice that eases urinary tract issues, there was much to see.

There are people still adorning facemasks, they seem to be visitors from the Far East, in my case, I know that the Coronavirus is still about, five years on, because I only recently got my biannual booster, bringing my COVID-19 jabs to ten, in all.

However, as summer is now upon us, you cannot help but notice two things, the lips and the legs. The former is seen in both males and females, lips filled like balloons with fillers or Botox, all so unnaturally like big-lipped fish, very much the giant grouper or the Napoleon wrasse look. [A-Z Animals: Fish with Big Lips]

Flesh is not quite fresh

This is one case where beauty is hardly in the eye of the beholder other than whoever wants this unsightly cosmetic procedure that distorts from the natural and presents the utterly bizarre. For this and the latter issue, much as you want to look away, you are forced to see the indescribable that speaks louder than farce.

The rising mercury allows for the revealing of more skin, from shorts that should only be worn for a burlesque performance in a dingy poorly lit nightclub, well away from our common streets, to body parts that are best kept under wraps.

Whatever makes these fashion trends attractive fails to persuade me of either the self-awareness or the sensibleness of the purveyors. Yet, one must live and let live. Each time I walk through Manchester, one must curb the need to comment after seeing the outrageous to the dastardly.

It is still a bustling city of contrasts, changed and changing by circumstances, residents, and visitors alike. We cannot forget that the pandemic also wreaked havoc on our idyllic existence.

Desert Island Discs: Connecting stories

Their Interesting Stories 

I began this blog days ago after weeks of wondering how to approach the subject. Over time, it dawned on me that what I had to say might not fit into just one blog; there were simply too many interesting things to discuss before the blog began to resemble a soporific treatise. 

How people have lived their lives and how they have impacted others or humanity always fascinates me. Friday evenings represent a time to reflect on the lives of the recently departed when, on BBC Radio 4, I play back the latest episode of Last Word. 

This is a weekly obituary programme that highlights the life stories of four people, along with notable mentions of two or three others. After an introduction, people shed light on the lives of these personalities, eliciting interesting facts about who they were, what they did, and the significance of their existence among us. 

Music for Solitude 

A couple of months ago, during one broadcast, a rather unfamiliar but interesting name came up. I cannot remember which name it was, but upon searching for it, the first result was their appearance on another BBC Radio 4 programme, Desert Island Discs. 

Desert Island Discs was first broadcast in January 1942. A guest is invited to imagine being a castaway on a desert island like Robinson Crusoe but with the provision of eight chosen audio recordings, the complete works of Shakespeare, and a religious book of their choice. 

This programme follows an interview format interspersed with the guest's chosen music or audio recordings. It can be quite intrusive, and the light banter allows for probing and interesting questions. Even the choices may hold intriguing stories about the person’s life. At the end, guests are asked to choose just one of the eight audio recordings to take with them, along with a luxury item, a tradition that has been in place since the late 1950s. 

Over 3,400 episodes have been recorded, but some are lost. Others can be recovered or contain fragments from episodes previously thought to be lost, sometimes as brief as two minutes, while typical episodes run around 40 minutes. 

An Event of Propinquity 

I recently started playing back the episodes from the very beginning of those that could be found, and what an experience it has been; it is like a history of popular culture told from the perspective of individuals, many of whom, including some of the earlier hosts of the show, have passed on. 

I plan to cover this in subsequent blogs, but I was inspired to complete this blog because I am now in the middle of 1971. Earlier this morning, I heard the Desert Island Discs episode featuring Clodagh Rodgers, only to log on to the BBC News website to learn that she had just passed on. [BBC News: Eurovision singer Clodagh Rodgers dies aged 78] 

It is quite remarkable how the various ideas, events, and individuals that shape history can have a significant impact, create memorable moments, or become notorious. These elements weave together to form a fabric of the human narrative that deserves greater appreciation for its instructional value or as cautionary tales. 

I have begun to take detailed notes and establish connections between different observations, sounds, and memories. These reflections may be incorporated into future blog posts.

Barabbas trumpets a Golden Age

A day of two commemorations

Considering that I seem to observe events, it would have been remiss not to have noticed yesterday's activities; the unfortunate propinquity of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and the inauguration of an American president. It was totally missable (a word rarely used) and redolent of something to be disregarded.

If anything, it was so totally predictable; someone undeserving of it was accorded the respect and courtesy of being peacefully handed the reins of power that he stroppily refused to do out of a total lack of decorum, at the last inauguration. I guess this already sets the tone for how this blog will go. [The Guardian: Trump says he won’t attend Biden’s inauguration]

The humour in a travesty

As the event would pervade the airwaves, it was impossible to ignore, I had a news blackout and decided anything about it was best viewed through the prism of how the night talk shows depict the events of the day. Like I have handled cancer with humour rather than despair, this was to be seen through the prism of humour before despondency sets in.

At the swearing-in, which was to be hand on the Bibles held by his spouse, at least two talk shows suggested, since the inauguration was moved indoors, the fire services had refused the bibles be touched by the president to avoid a conflagration of the Capitol. We could well assume either the person or the book would burst into flames if they came in contact. Outside, the freezing cold might have extinguished any point of ignition.

The silhouette figure of his spouse cum black chapeau with a wide brim created an air gap to the intended public intimacy between man and wife that did not escape the amusement of a global audience. Many other things were said that require no repetition. Barabbas of the modern age is quite different from the one gambled on by Pontius Pilate who only had a history, this one will have a future that many might view with trepidation.

Blog - Give us Barabbas!

Blog - It is well with my soul

Winding back a century in time?

The full personification of felonious Barabbas came with the pardons granted to the mobs involved in the invasion and insurrection at the Capitol on the 6th of January 2021.

A rash of Executive Orders followed, and a new era of American exceptionalism and isolationism has begun. Leaving the WHO and some predicated on the America First notion. Why it has not reversed straight into the Prohibition era of a century ago escapes me as that would be the Golden Age being sought before it was snatched away by the Great Depression. History will repeat itself as a risible farce and that is not a prophecy. [Wikipedia: Roaring Twenties] [The White House: Presidential Actions]

We shall not be moved

We in a broader sense would refuse to be affected or impacted by the expected dysfunction of that place, while adopting a perspective that should exhibit surprise and mirth. His predecessor bought himself a life of peaceful retirement without regret by the pre-emptive pardons of relations and others in the gunsights of a vengeful kakistocracy.

Lest anyone be deceived, the tech plutocrats of this incoming oligarchy had the front seats, this will not be the government of the people, for the people, by the people, but who wants to listen to the truth when the lies appeal so well to our basest instincts?

Life will go on; most of us survived the first time, as we, and Americans especially, forgot those who did not, because of the heartless incompetence of managing the global pandemic then. We have mostly climbed down the peak of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs towards its base; which is why every similitude of Barabbas in democracies worldwide is chosen over a better person. The day after is a time for reflection and anticipation.

Hello in There Over There

Hello in There · Bette Midler - John Prine

Looking out into the day

Life in the city presents a window of observation both literally and figuratively. If I cranked my neck looking out to the right, I would see the main road, full of traffic, the missing Venetian blinds pulled down by those who are not gentle of touch might offer a spectacle in flagrante delicto of things better kept out of view.

On occasions, where I have been asked about the weather, a predilection to Miss Havisham’s shunning of the public might suggest that one is unaware of where the sun or the clouds might have come to an agreement about what day they want to show.

Left to my own devices, I will know nothing of what happens in my city until after the event. A hermit untouched and unknown, yet conversant and connected in isolation from sensual interaction.

A part of apartment life

Then, so much information filters in like sunrays on a brilliantly sunny day. From the fourth floor of the apartment block opposite and across the street, I know they are in because they open the window that reflects a blast of light into my living room. Should I wave to them?

For the past two days, the first-floor apartment across from mine had the blinds drawn. They are on holiday one must presume for nothing in the weather of the past couple of days supports the need to shelter from enjoying the elements. They appear to be a partying lot, not that I might haphazardly identify them on the street. They are a function of the apartment in which they live, as I might have been an operatic revue of the unspeakable that excites chortles and giggles.

Old people maybe not lonesome

To the left on the second floor, at the breaking of the dawn, an old man sits at the window looking at a world that his youth once participated in with verve and vigour. The lady who sometimes sits with him might be the wife of decades of marital bliss, a companion of life and experience, with whom living out the rest of their days might stretch to a time beyond record.

The stories in those faces, the memories that fetch fresh waters from wells of existence we could not begin to fathom. They could be parents, likely grandparents, never doubt them being great grandparents, but no little girl’s face has replaced the visage that has met my gaze.

Maybe they see me when I see them, if they ever noticed; for I have watched that window from my desk for years, I could wave at them to say, “Hello! In there”.

Homeless, not hopeless

Among us all

There are moments that you observe as you walk around your city that present you with a time to reflect on the many blessings that greet us each passing day.

The grip of adversity can rob you of every kind of agency, the belief in yourself, the appreciation of human kindness, the facility for hope, and even a desire to live.

Hurdled in corners all around my city are the homeless and the destitute whose many stories are seen through just their immediate deprivation. There is more to them than what we see. Yet, there is no magic wand to wave with either determination or the almost limp-wristed suave of a sprite from the other world to change things.

Just a little

The burden of the issue is immense, you want to walk away and pretend certain realities are too great to countenance, but I saw a man in distress, he was crying and that touched me so deeply, that I turned and went to him to ask what the problem was.

He had a catalogue of woe to drown fish in its own habitat and I asked him to give me 15 minutes, he had probably heard that too many times to care about the truth of good intentions until I returned just about 20 minutes later having been distracted by an unfortunate situation.

His surprise at seeing me again, yes, I made a promise to a total stranger, but it was not just about him trusting me but a demonstration of knowing that my own words must count for something to myself. It is hence important not to vow rashly, for in not meeting it, your words begin to lose significance to you first and then to others.

More in him

In our exchanges, I found that he was going to be 50 and about to be a grandfather, you just never know if you do not engage, interact with, and deign to see another regardless of stature. One little thing can restore hope, give a sense that there is a tomorrow and help appreciate that no man is or remains an island.

He said he would lie down and say a prayer for me, I cannot remember the number of times we hugged, but that little moment of turning tears into smiles should be the broader story of our shared humanity.

I believe in angels, and many have been sent my way, in the depths of despair there is strength that tells you a better story is just being written.

Coronavirus streets in Manchester - LXXIII

The pandemic’s long tail

The latest figures as of yesterday in the UK, we have 3,927 active cases of COVID-19 infections, this would suggest that someone is laid low, for them, the looming spectre of the pandemic is a grim reality that many seem to have forgotten because it is apparently out of mind and out of sight. [Worldometers: United Kingdom]

It is however without dispute that the world has changed perceptively in some cases or otherwise. I barely see anyone donning a mask, but the absence of someone I regularly see at some meeting place almost always suggests they have taken ill rather than having taken a holiday.

There have been no notifications for a vaccine booster yet as those who are immunosuppressed would be informed of the prospect for them to prepare. What I started during the pandemic and led to my discovery of Manchester was walking, and walking helps with a unique observation and perspective of my beautiful city, the people, the buildings, the events, and the changes.

The dangers with bicycles

Electric bicycles remain an enduring menace of lawlessness, the riders who no longer need to exert any physical energy in peddling their bicycles are totally oblivious to road traffic rules, and they run through red lights as if they do not exist. If they are not weaving through pedestrians whose precarious existence is exacerbated by being anywhere outside their homes, they would be run through at risk of life or limb.

I was leapfrogging over a bicycle left lying on the pavement as the rider went in for a KFC, later, it was someone who forgot to activate his phone’s camera to keep an eye on the path before him as he interacted with his phone with carefree abandon and just inches of bumping into another.

Working on a hybrid high

I suspect anyone putting out a job advertisement with the strict requirement of working in the office where the work can be done remotely is on a losing streak, they would get fleeting interest. The worst you can offer is a hybrid working scenario, and whilst we cannot expect to work from home permanently, the flexibility and the ability to negotiate those terms must be available or your vacancy would remain vacant.

The buildings, we have a construction site everywhere and cranes not of the avian type towering around the city lit up with colours just to prevent cranes from flying into them at night or we, the slightly taller people from hitting our heads when stumbling out of nightclubs totally inebriated that our minds are rivalling kites for height.

Milking us for every penny

In the completed buildings the shops that were a longer walk away are now at my doorsteps, the Starbucks that disappeared almost two years ago has now halved its distance from my door. I stopped shopping at Tesco when one of their managers installed anti-homeless spikes outside one of their stores in London. I guess all is forgiven now that it is too inconvenient to ignore the closeness of the new store, the distance is not enough to attract a charge of outraging public decency, if I left home with just a towel wrapped around my head.

Imagine not having to walk 3 kilometres for a small tub of taramasalata, though I won’t be spending an extra 30p on milk that goes for less at my local Sainsbury’s. Between online shopping through Amazon for Iceland produce, Aldi competes favourably on price for most of my needs, and Marks & Spencer when slightly indulgent, then Spar for just the comfort of a sweet tooth, what I need is an automated shopping trolley with the instincts and intelligence of a dog that respects voice commands, throw in robotic arms and it might well go and do the shopping while I occupy myself missing the life and wonder of my city. Probably a bad idea, except if it would bring those lawless bicycles to heel on our somewhat dangerous streets.

The world that comes to us

Saying a little prayer

It was one of the strangest requests I had encountered that left me rather unsure of how to respond. He walked in off the street like everyone else who I had greeted that afternoon, now over 200 of them in just over 2 hours, strangers all, interest common.

Before I could greet him, excited as he was, he asked if I could pray for him, I had a sash on and an identity badge, but I had to protest, I am not a member of the clergy. I was at a confluence of belief systems that have shaped my spirituality in interesting ways. I would expect in the Church of England, you might pray with the spectacle of magisterial homiletics, whereas depending on what spectrum of the Evangelical persuasion you are, let’s not even begin to speculate.

He asked me to light him a candle as he was a bit scared of fire and still insisted I pray. So I did with the almost confusion of the laity doing what they were not trained to do and the mumbling of understanding his distress, a few strong words to remedy the situation that bothered him, for which I believe he was full of faith that coming to the church to ask to be prayed for will help. He left, just as he came in.

The world comes to our cathedral

It was the end of my first shift as a welcoming guide to the Cathedral and what an experience it was for me, that I learnt a lot more than I seemed to offer in terms of the basic information about our cathedral. If I do decide to do this regularly, there is a big consideration to have, the strain on my back as I steady myself with my walking cane, in that 3-hour stint, there were times I did have to sit down because the pain was getting uncomfortable and unbearable.

Visitors came from near and far, alone or in numbers, as family, with friends, in groups with purpose or just on a detour, with lots of time and sometimes barely enough to gather the spectacle of architecture before going on their way. When I asked, the nationalities and the small talk made a connection in my wayfaring archive of what a friend calls my library of seemingly useless information that just becomes pertinent for that engagement.

Probably more than a quarter of the guests were someone living in Manchester bringing someone visiting for the first time. I do not think I encountered anyone from Central or South America, but all other regions presented a representative from many places I had been to and could I remember something quite significant in the exchange.

Learning to learn more

For me, there were two things that stood out, visitors who said they were visiting from Kurdistan and if there was any justice in this world, the people should be a country, but I did ask which of the many Kurdistans as I thought they were at least in three countries and I was informed it was 4 countries, I soon realised from my knowledge of geography that was indeed true.

Another couple came in with beautifully trained and behaved dogs and their visit to our cathedral for which they wanted a more substantial guidebook than the simple folder pamphlet on offer that needed updating, they eventually found someone to help. It was in a later conversation that I learnt that there were 42 cathedrals in England, visiting ours was their 39^th, they had two more to visit in Yorkshire and the last was undergoing extensive renovations, so they will have to wait to visit.

To be more effective, I need to develop beyond the platitude of welcoming to becoming an informed tour guide. There is so much to know about our cathedral, its history, the architecture, the windows, the majestic pipe organ, its function, the furnishings, the chapels, the memorials, the statues, the many influences from when there was a building in the same place from the 13^th Century and the 600^th anniversary of its establishment as a collegiate church.

There is a lot more to think about of my experience today, however, what is most important is, I enjoyed welcoming people to our cathedral.

Essential Snobbery 101: Yet More Compassion Affects

Your Monitoring Causes Anguish

It was with amusement when I was chatting to my friend yesterday that I talked about YMCA, in reference to the malevolent Village People that camp on my social media pages for no particular reason than to seek salacious gossip to feed to others to find some sort of relevance or sense of significance.

Indeed, especially in almost 20 years of blogging and well over a decade on Facebook and Twitter, if it is not already clear that my expression is not as advanced and determined as it would ever be, my hope always is to present an ever-improving clarity in voice, intent, and assertion.

Maybe, in some cases, what I say when reported to some might upset them, but those who know me already know who I am, I am accepted for the person I am, and I have been. I know that learning to love myself is the greatest love of all, and I keep at it.

Your Meddling Cannot Alter

I was over 50 when a distant relation I had not spoken to in over 35 years called out of the blue to upbraid me. You, this boy, have not done this, he intoned. There was a swell of rage and anger in me, but I kept my cool. Apparently, he wanted to humiliate me before shoving a begging bowl before me to send him funds to complete his building.

I have been blessed abundantly to have an open hand to many, and more grace will abound to be able to do more as times change.

What would not happen is people who have no inkling of my life, history, struggles, or victories, thinking they can come around to instruct me to change something about my life because they once had some influence by reason of some old relationship to interfere and exceed their bounds.

Your Meanness Cultivates Atrocity

It is quite irksome, the lack of self-awareness in the first instance, that follows with the inability to mind your own business. Busybodies, on the lurk, unconcerned with the particularities of their own situation but inserting themselves in the lives of others in the quest to dominate.

Those who have absorbed the jot and tittle of everything going on elsewhere, yet all they do is exacerbate tittle-tattle without any iota of humanity or concern to help tackle to some resolution the situation they know too well is, for a season, not going to plan.

They are everything but the Good Samaritan, evil in thought or deed, overly spiritual in apparent prayerful support, without helping to meet any need. Full of faith but bereft of works that make it of any effect. They stand as leafy green fig trees without fruit, awaiting the curse to wither to the root and bear no fruit again. You know yourselves; the Lord forgives you and shows you mercy.

Y'All Moi Conquers Adversity

As for me, much of my amazing life has been lived in the open, my lips filled with testimonies of success, victories, and beauty. What say I? I have no problems with those who have set encampments at the gate; they will see the glorious from afar, and they will be partakers of the blessing, whether they deserve it or not.

The spirit of hope stirs up a well of possibility, and that has happened so many times that I even wonder how things happened and how change has come in ways never anticipated.

I will always have a story to tell, a story of a life that has experiences, adventure, loveliness, excitement, and much more. It has always been my own story, not vicariously living the lives of others, because I have enough to be doing and living, I love my life and the stories I have been blessed to share. Yet More Compassion Affects!

Notes

Village People was a popular American music group that formed in the late 1970s, and one of their most-played hits with a cult following is Y.M.C.A, which has formed the basis of the subheadings in my blog.

Context of Village People from the Urban Dictionary: A person or a group of persons who wish you bad and constantly work towards bringing you misfortune through physical or diabolical means. Usually from your town, but could also be anyone.

Learning from the letters

Letters from the past

In the process of writing one’s story, much research still needs to be done, the many things you think you remember from things said and related, over time that should be reviewed and confirmed. The confusion of dates and events along with those involved.

I thought I was going type out the sketches of memory percolating in my mind over the last couple of weeks, but at the same time, I had been thinking of reading letters going back 30 years just to fill in some gaps.

Reaching for the trusty shoebox, I read the first lover’s letter from April 1992 and many subsequent letters afterwards with some dates confirmed and what feelings we had for each other then. My parents each with their entreaties about what should be doing in the UK, full of advice on how to approach things and the obligatory badgering about making introductions and getting married.

Letters with a blast

On the event side, it occurred to me that there were things I might not have noticed, marriages, births, and deaths placed in their perspectives of relationships, celebrations and there were quite a few, who was doing what and where, especially how they were getting on, I had not read these letters since when I received and read them the first time.

Other things that could wear you down from all quarters, as questions, requests, demands, and pleadings extending beyond relations to friends and passing acquaintances, many with the view that you are living large abroad with no responsibilities apart from that which regards them. If one were to put a cost to the tranche of requirements, you would be totally wiped out. For those of us with regular engagements, you had to ignore and withhold a response totally.

Yet, there were many more letters to read all of which read out in my head in the hearing of the voices of the authors, that itself brought a kind of mental strain even though none had the contemporaneous urgency that portended the time of writing, I had to give it a break and find another time to read a few more.

Letters written to last

Though, in one of the letters from my mother with some useful historical content that I jotted down from my notes, she also revealed that she once worked at Vono Tipton. Vono was also known in Nigeria for beds, bed frames, bedsteads, bedding, and furniture. What I did not know was that VONO is in fact an acronym for Vaughan Only, No Others. The company was founded in 1896 by Ernest Vaughan and at one time, the largest employer in Tipton. [The annals of Tipton industries]

As for the other pertinent pieces of information I gain, I would suppose those would be woven into the stories to be found in my book.

Walking to observe and notice

Off the beaten path

Not down the usual walking route did I ply but rather down the Ashton Canal towpath from Paradise Wharf to Islington Wharf between which mechanical cranes and hoists of history have become monuments of the industries that once thrived here. Now, we have bijoux apartments and waterfront properties, a kind of exclusivity not nearly as exciting as it seems apart from when the canal forms an aqueduct over Store Street.

The further straight on this towpath leads to isolation, but for a sunny day, many are walking in groups to and fro, a kind of busy that is usually reserved for football match days but let us not be distracted from our surroundings and the oncoming traffic of senseless cyclists. The numerous canal locks holding back water as overflows give a sense of life.

Nature in many guises

Life in ducks, geese, and birds, they all are quacking, honking, or singing, in unison, separately or a disordered cacophony, not in need of the marshalling of a choirmaster. The music of nature is more settling than the blaring of headphones in covering your ears that you are totally unaware of what or where you are. If only they could just pocket their mobile phones for a moment and see something else.

One man and his dog, that dog a beast instead giving the person a status of terror for he could earn fear masquerading as respect no other way, then another dog, fluffy and friendly being called away from a couple sitting for a quiet talk. Just before you saw the fouling of the path, and I suspect the beastly dog, for the owner at one look did not appear the civil kind, yet, I have been wrong making such judgements.

A sport to thrill

Even as I have not decided how much further I want to go, I probably will go as far as this towpath will take me, my height is many times challenged by the low arches of bridged straddling the canal, I stoop or bow as I walk keeping an eye for some who care nothing for other users of this way.

Walking at speed, I pass another couple whilst resisting the urge to eavesdrop and then to my right over the canal is the Etihad Campus, with the football stadium of Manchester City Football Club and I recall when I could not persuade my best friend, a Manchester United fan to walk into that ‘abominable’ sanctum, though he might have had considered visiting for a local derby, I’ll ask.

Love in the park

One more bridge to duck and the windy path veers off the canal and I am presented with the entrance to Philips Park and I have not been here in years, many years at that. Two men have been ahead of me all the while, interesting from my perspective and something about them suggests more than meets the eye.

Into the park, they walk, down one of the more secluded routes that goes by the culverting of the River Medlock, the handiwork of brutal Victorians, that defines the boundary between the park and the cemetery. I am not following or trailing them, but I am just slightly behind them, then they touch and hug, I knew it all the while. They are getting more affectionate and honestly, why should I be shocked?

Just as I turn to cross over the River Medlock into the Philips Park Cemetery, they are now making their way back towards the park and in a moment of overwhelming passion, they embrace and kiss, that remains for a while or it is my persistence of vision deceiving me, for in that moment, I see love and think of love, then I wonder when Brian and I will walk about again, and give this spectacle to another narrator.

Essential Snobbery 101: Sir Hans Sloane disturbed

What we truly endured

Bluebird took me down memory lane, for what I remember is it was the model of one of the official cars granted to my father in his accountancy prime of the 1980s in the Nissan range, though now, I realise it was a broader model dating from 1995, the one in our fleet of vehicles being the U11 series. This was the thought on my mind as we sought the entrance to the King’s Road restaurant in Chelsea for brunch.

The pictures of food we saw on Google Maps after we realised the Chelsea Farmer’s Market had been gentrified to the standard of unrecognisable and inaccessible, this became our fallback. The young lady, nails all done in a shade of pink that would appear as just pink to men, looked like she had taken on a part-time role as a waiter, untrained, nervous, and unsure, like she was just earning a crust she did not need to be able to go out to party with her girlfriends.

All the appearances of sophistication and shabby chic were soon dispelled, the service was unsupervised and unprofessional, the food pitiable in presentation, I had to scrape the dollops of hollandaise sauce off the eggs royale and still had enough to paint the walls, if I was so inclined. We sat through it with regret and left in haste, for one should resist posting a review on TripAdvisor, for a couple of stars would be overly generous to the lasting impression. Like a Jehovah’s Witness proselytiser, I did half shake the dust off my feet as I left.

Everything off in this place

Then, for the first time ever, I set foot in Harrods and nothing, absolutely nothing, endeared me to the place, and it is why I had never been there before when Fortnum & Mason had proved its standing.

Stopping over at a Harvey Nichols café for a cream tea, two ladies refused to be seated beside us. I won’t want them for company either, as they looked like Madeline Ashton and Helen Sharp, the two protagonists of Death Becomes Her, so artificially enhanced to occlude any semblance of natural beauty that once blessed their visages. Perchance there was a child in that restaurant, it would have squealed in terror at sighting them.

In a fashion for the history

Another patron was so grandly attired in exorbitant designer label apparel that altogether failed the basics of coordination, and it did nothing to enhance her; she was more a clothes ass than a clothes horse. All that money and no fashion sense. Yet, I am informed that having the same designer label in 3 textures and 4 layers of clothes is termed Ghetto Fabulous; what do I know about fashion?

This area of Chelsea and Knightsbridge with its pomposity of class, old and new money, and antiquated aristocracy long past aspiration or adulation, that radiates from Sloane Square was named for Sir Hans Sloane, an Irish physicist from the 18^th Century, who was buried at the Chelsea Old Church and out of whose bequest formed the foundations of the British Museum, the British Library, and the Natural History Museum in London. The unsavoury aspects of his provenance and activities are not accounted for in this piece.

Bowling toffee

Standups at dawn

In the mornings, nature compels a situation over which many would not have any control but to endure as a part of life experience that might be shared with another if the occasion presents. What it represents and it portends can be expressed in various ways not demanding much detail except where one is aiming for some kind of competitive prize.

Be it one where pleasure or excitement replaces the awakening moments of the rising of the sun, there is a lot of warmth and love to live in and embrace. Companionship accords a mystery that can defeat the best of those who can string together words in ways that astound.

To dip and usurp

Yet, at the rising of that star in the east is the rising from slumber and rising to perform as bowls to different deployments can be touched in the course of the day, from what nature frequently demands, to that which nature requires for sustenance and the many sports where bowls and bowling give us a spectacle of nature to revel in.

To the few that are given the gift to know that bowls can be touched like being called to a priesthood of the anointed and endowed, the bats you have been given for the game of life and the way you wield them in winning your games can only be cause for envy even as you can be proud of who you are. You wonder if there are repeating daily rituals that have been missed by the less observant.

Blogs - Bowling coffee

Coronavirus streets in Manchester - XL

A river scolded

River Medlock, a 10-mile long river that rises is Oldham, through the centre of Manchester before it runs into the River Irwell was after a moment of natural exuberance tamed by the Victorians, culverted and restrained through the cities of Salford and Manchester. It idly flows almost bereft of its menacing history when it took the dead out of their graves in Philips Park Cemetery in the mid-19^th Century.

Blog - Walks through the cycle of life

On my walks, I write in my notepad with script that is neither shorthand nor legible, I just have to remember my scrawl as a collection of thoughts to transcribe into my eventual blog. A sight indeed not learnt from the rigour of handwriting lessons I took in primary school.

A sample of handwriting from my notepad whilst I am walking.

It’s going down

Two high-performance Porsche cars and a Range Rover parked in a secluded and abandoned garage on Old Ashton Road, three men by the building engaged in a discussion and through the air, I heard the words ‘pay’ and ‘money’.

I surmise, something is going down and I doubt it is legal, else they would have met in a restaurant, I would think. A thought crosses my mind to take a picture of the cars and their licence plate numbers, but I resisted the urge to court trouble. Who knows what else they might be up to and you really do not want to be the collateral damage?

I walk on by trying for forget what I saw and setting my eyes on the goal to just get my steps in whilst I discover another part of Manchester that was always there, but I never dared to visit.

The patience medication might not work

A walk of patience

Getting somewhere takes time and deciding to walk there when there are other means to travel faster or possibly safely is a test of patience, I determined to teach myself with the hope it might be beneficial.

Then, I consider the fact that I could be quite impatient, my capacity for endurance gets tested in many ways for which I should muster a lot to contain reactions I would rather not express. In the things that I have been fully persuaded of people or things, I can find a lot more to give whilst expecting little or nothing in return. My heart is in it.

Doing what I won’t

Yet, there are things that I would rather not do, things that have brought remonstration and reticence usually well-expressed but poorly received. My interest is forced, my engagement is coerced, and my patience is too easily exhausted. I rarely wait around to exercised, for my sanity, those chapters find closure long before they are fully written for others, but beyond completed for me.

With one who shares filial piety, that has been my regret. For to be who they could be seems to elude their availability. Too many have called me into situations I would rather not find involvement and when I did, I was quite disappointed. My anger I have contained, the harshest words have been in the phraseology of business-like formality, no excoriation or condemnation, just displeasure with a withdrawal somewhat recondite.

No seconds on minutes

Time is another factor for which my patience is quickly worn, whilst I do not watch my watch with addictive distraction, the use of time and the purposeful adherence to it being kept or where it might slip, communication exists, cannot be overstated. I then must understand that many are not conditioned to timeliness to the extent that one is punctilious.

When I think about it, I might have to admit that I am an in-patient taking treatment in a patient ward. The cure for elements of chronic impatience is being administered in ways no one is sure will produce the expected result. It is in progress, a work of hope and yearning.

The dead hand of bureaucracy

Agency is supreme

If there is anything a free agent as I can desire is that one never loses agency, the need outside the machinations of systems put in place to implement processes with no consideration of the people affected.

Incensed does not begin to describe the sense of unjust and atrocious manipulation one has been subjected to whilst apparatchiks go about ticking boxes, dotting their I’s and crossing their T’s, ensuring the P’s and Q’s are just right, aligning forms to readers and auditors whose main purpose is to see to the rules being followed as an embodiment of mendacious misrule.

One has suffered

How my person has been abused, the man in the middle trying to manage expectations completely oblivious of the indignities suffered at the hands of mindless bureaucracies seeking relevance where common sense has deserted the fray. Whilst one cannot say it has been intentional, the consequence has been no less demeaning, one’s interest in the project is now barely there but for the genuinely nice people we once called colleagues.

In all the toing and froing, it has been impossible to plan anything and in the process, a month has passed in what was supposed to be an interregnum of not more than a week. In my heart of hearts, finding something else would be the better part of the story. No one, I mean, no one, should be subjected to this sham of a system pretending to ensure everything is in order.

References

Blog - The auction of grey matter is open

Blog - Sitting here in limbo

Blog - Like pawns in the game of spaghetti red tape

Almost a stranger seeing some danger

A man in a park

How the familiar can easily rob you of the peculiar is sometimes the spectacle of living in Manchester and watching the interplay of people, property, and services. My local Sainsbury had closed when I got up from my nap and I needed to get some essentials leaving the shop at the Manchester Piccadilly Station the closest that is open until midnight.

Donning my walking gear as I was just a two-score steps short of my daily 10,000 step threshold, having aborted my walk, earlier because it had begun to rain and I was not wearing suitable apparel. Out by the Vimto monument in Vimto Park, a police car was parked on the kerb and I spotted two policemen apparently chatting to a man sitting on the bench.

A man on a limb

Maybe to eliminate the strange and wary, one of the policemen called out a greeting to be me as I passed, and he waved as I acknowledged him. Minding my own business I trotted down the rather quietly deserted road that has a few student hostel blocks until I got to the main road and crossed it into the station.

Up the escalator and via the one-way system in a station that was for years familiar and now remote as to be changed into the unknown. I have not boarded a train there since the first week of December 2019, I got to Sainsbury’s and picked up a shopping basket. A couple of bananas and then an altercation between a member of staff and a customer, whether it was a power trip or something else, the customer was being thrown out and the guards were ready to manhandle him. Some things he said were borderline unprintable.

A man to be cuffed

I continued with my shopping, some milk, tea, and sparkling water, using the self-service till I walked out seeing a man grab about 10 shopping bags that go for 10 pence each, that would be stealing or shoplifting, to put it mildly. I must have missed where he went because as I reached the bottom of the first escalator, I could have sworn those bags were a pile of litter caught in the teeth of the moving steps of the escalator.

On to the main road and back on the route I plied on my way out not expecting to see the policemen I saw earlier, there was a police van parked in front of the police car and 4 men in uniform apparently trying to get a hold of someone lying on that same bench, like he did not want to be taken away. 

I doubt the person had a medical issue, else the van should have been an ambulance. As to why the policemen were there in the first place, considering the road is private with a lifting bar gate, one can only surmise someone alerted them to the presence of a strange man in Vimto Park.

Back to some discipline

Out to walk at dawn

I was a bit of an early riser this morning, being awake just before 6:00 AM, I thought I might just put in the walk and I last got up at that time to perform my walking exercise in the first week of December and holding off for the days before my travel to South Africa, shielding myself to forestall an adverse test result that could scupper my travel plans.

Getting into my kit, with a high-visibility vest and LED armbands, I was out on the road but had to have my hood up because there was a light drizzle, at 4⁰ Celsius, it was best to wear my winter gloves and off I went. I usually can’t understand how I feel I am maintaining the same pace and steps cadence yet could have up to a difference of over 2 minutes per kilometre.

Pace to the familiar

My average is around a 9-minutes kilometre, though I did get in a 7-minute 2-second kilometre on the home straight, that was quite unusual, I had not done anything close to that in months. The fact that for the 11.56 kilometres I walked, I never stopped apart from when I had a short conversation with the lady and her male companion who is out each morning feeding the birds. We had not seen each other for 4 months.

Another regular morning walker is the friendly man and his two dogs, one always on the leash and the other named Tilly excitedly running into my path whenever she sees me. However, today, they had crossed the main road and we acknowledged each other with a wave. I might well return to the early morning walks, there is enough light at that time to do a good circuit. By 15,559 steps, there was a good sweat, a bit of panting, but seeing the effects will take a little longer.