Life is… Edgy and Scary

I haven’t had anything to say recently, and now I’ve noticed that Friendster have started adding big adverts into my blog, so I’m discontinuing it.  Bastards.  Watch this space for a new location, possibly.

One of the advantages of having a full time job is that you learn to value your free time, although it does occasionally make you regret not using that time to the fullest.  I guess a large proportion of my real "free" time recently has been taken up with thinking, and I certainly don’t consider that time wasted.

I’ve had a lot to think about, I suppose, what with Alison walking out on me and my new job, as well as George’s treatment and other friends/family related issues.  I guess I could say that I’ve been properly sad for the first time in absolutely ages, and I genuinely feel a little lonely.  Don’t get me wrong - it’s nothing dramatic.  I’ve been in a state of flux for a while now - constantly up and down.  Usually towards the end of the day I feel wistful, but I haven’t been really miserable since I was ill.

I don’t think many people read this blog, but for those who do, I’d like you to know that I’m grateful for your interest despite my recent egocentricity.  To fill you in, Alison and I have not been speaking for a while now - mostly because I found I couldn’t handle her continued company - although I do think about her a lot.  I know that she reads this and I want her to know that I miss her, but that I just can’t compromise any more.  It’s bloody hard dealing with this sort of thing at the best of times…

Hey-ho.  It’s at times like these when you really value your support network, and I thank you if you consider yourself part of mine.  Likewise, if you clearly don’t form any link in my chain, bugger off and go and pester someone else!  You pesky critters…

Many thanks to the well-wishers.  Things are better now.  I won’t go into details because it’s late and I have to get to work tomorrow, but suffice to say I’m feeling much better than I did a couple of weeks ago.  Hope everyone else is doing just fine.  Big cheer to George, who is kicking that Cancer’s lily ass as we speak.

I’ve been feeling a bit rubbish over the last week or so.  It’s been compounded by the fact that I’m ill, which always makes things seem worse than they actually are.  Work is going well, so that’s good news, but other than that I just feel fed up.  I miss Alison terribly and I know that it’s just going to get worse,  I feel like I’m losing touch with my friends and I can’t seem to muster enthusiasm for anything at the moment.  I’ve been having problems sleeping, too, which is proving hard to handle.  I don’t know… maybe things will look brighter after the weekend.

Just watched the second installment of Prof. Richard Dawkins‘ documentary series The Root of All Evil?, where the eminent scientist and "Darwin’s Rottweiler" aims to debunk all religious belief as nothing more than superstition.  My Grandad has no doubt been watching intently and nodding to himself with every sharp word Dawkins wields to work away at the thick ropes of religious bondage.  He lost his faith when my Nan - a kinder and more altruistic person you could never hope to meet - became ill with Parkinsons disease and he had to look after her until her death fourteen years later.

Seeing the depth of his bitterness as he rails against organised faith and then watching Dawkins try not to boil over as he is confronted with some of the most bigoted, sexist, homophobic, murderous zealots on man’s Earth, who in God’s name laugh in the face of established scientific fact and the pursuit of reason, inspires me with a new conviction.

There is no God.

I immediately rushed to change my "religion" on MySpace from "agnostic" to "atheist".  I can’t believe I didn’t do it sooner.  I declared myself an agnostic while at school, so as to avoid having to commit, but now I see that ALL faith denies the very faculties we humans are blessed with: the ability to weigh evidence and come to a rational conclusion.  It is preposterous to suggest that any genuinely benevolent power could allow the suffering of innocents - Camus was right.  Some people would say I was party to a similar experience to those experienced by converts, and that I have been swayed by a convincing  (anti-) preacher, but I would refute those claims.  I have come to my own conclusion, based on years of self-searching.  All Dawkins has done is given me the balls to admit it.

The British student Katherine Horton, who was brutally and senselessly raped and murdered on the Thai island of Koh Samui at New Year, was travelling with Ruth Adams, an old friend of mine from school and ex-girlfriend of Luke’s.  She can be heard giving a statement on the BBC website about the horrific incident.

It’s heartbreaking to see Ruth on TV having to relive such an awful ordeal in front of the nation, but I seriously admire her bravery.  I’m glad the Thai police have found the two guys who (apparently) did it.  I hope justice is served and that everybody concerned can start to rebuild their lives.  The photo, with Ruth on the right, is courtesy of the BBC website.

It really brings it home to you how incidents like this can happen to anyone.

I know it’s in extremely poor taste to be sentimental and slushy, but blogs are all about histrionics and egoism anyway, so I don’t feel I’m doing myself an injustice in perpetuating that cliché.  I’ve been listening to Pulp’s TV Movie recently.  It’s a track from their 1998 album, This is Hardcore which is, in my opinion, underrated and often overlooked for its show-tune style and the seediness of the sexual perversion motif (ooh, get me!).

The reason I’ve been listening to it is because it’s a break up song - unashamedly and overtly - and I think the lyrics are disarmingly honest and so heavily tragic that you can’t help but feel melancholic listening to it.

Without you my life has become a hangover without end.
A movie made for TV:
Bad dialogue, bad acting, no interest.
Too long with no story and no sex.
Is it a kind of weakness to miss someone so much?
To wish the day would go away?
Like you did yesterday.

OK, it’s no Wordsworth, but you’ve got to admire Jarvis.

Happy New Year everybody!  In a sterling start to 2006 I have had singledom status thrust upon me.  Things are going to be tough for a while, but at least I have my snazzy new iPod and my library of power ballads to keep me company.

Merry Christmas, blogfans!  I hope you all have a wonderful time this year and get all the presents you want.  Thanks to TNT’s incompetence I’ll be lonely this Christmas (in an iPod sense, at least), but I’m sure there’ll be plenty of other groovy shit to keep me happy.

Enjoy yourselves and don’t eat too much turkey!

Today, having waited for many days for my new iPod to be delivered, I finally decided to bite the bullet, phone up and find out where it was.  Many phonecalls to TNT and several wasted hours later, I get a call from a compunctious chap called Chuck telling me that it was missing from the depot and from his van.  He could only assume, therefore that it had been stolen.  When did this happen, I asked him.  Sometime between (he pauses to think) Monday morning and… (further pause) Monday afternoon.  Today is Thursday.  If what they tell me is true - that they check the undelivered stock at the end of the day and lock it up in the managers’ office overnight - why was its absence not noted on Monday evening?  You would have thought that Apple would be a pretty big contract at this time of year and that they wouldn’t want to piss them off…

Unfortunately for them, Apple are pissed off, but not ‘arf as riled as I, dear Blog.  Let this be my second consumer-related post (after that one about 4×4s).  TNT ATE MY IPOD!  Damn them.  You ain’t heard the last of this, boys…