Morning Train

Some people have a strange obsession with trains, whether they be a trainspotter with their clipboards and pocket protectors, or the Hornby railway collective who lock themselves in their attics to indulge in their private pleasures. Whatever your delectation the idea of a train journey for many holds a certain appeal, conjuring up thoughts of an era of steam, sounds, and images in keeping with a bygone era and a romantic journey on the Orient Express.

The reality for many of us is a vastly different story, as we take our daily commute surrounded by coffee breath, stifled only by the proximity of the armpits into which we are forced to bury our noses. However these are things that we cannot avoid unless we choose an alternative means of transport. What each of us can remedy is our participation in the daily orchestral accompaniment of sniffs, snorts, coughs and sneezes which each one of us are subjected to.

This morning it was started by a lone participant. A well dressed respectable looking gentleman standing near the doorway of the carriage, deeply engrossed in the news of the day, all the while giving a deep mucus filled, gut wrenching sniff with the regularity of a metronome. By the time we reached the first stop I was about to offer him a tissue, however it was then that we were joined by the next onslaught of passengers, pushing, shoving, and establishing their own personal space. It was here that the cacophony of sounds became more overwhelming with a variety of sniffs perpetuating from every corner. Building up via a mexican wave of coughs and snorts choking its way around the circumference of the carriage and cumulating in a series of exuberant sneezes exploding their way back through the centre.

We will all agree that the public transport system does not always meet our expectations with regard to the service provided, however we could all contribute towards minimising the discomfort and increasing the user experience of all of us by stifling our bodily functions to a decent level.

Chin up and smile

For the majority of us work is a necessary evil, however it always helps when we are in a vocation that we enjoy. I think I am fortunate in that I do enjoy my work. Despite this we all have good days and bad days and on some of those 'not so pleasurable' days, it is sometimes difficult to answer in a positive way when we are asked by our loving partners "How was your day today".

It was with this in mind that I read an article recently about a diver in Mexico City who spends his working hours swimming and diving through the sewers of the city clearing the blockages. For the last 30 years he has been maintaining the 7,500 miles of pipes and tunnels, spending between 30 minutes and six hours at a time submerged in their depths, with just an airtight suit for protection against the human, animal and chemical waste and the associated stench.

I don't know what sort of a man Julio Cu Camara is, and I don't know if he actually enjoys what he does, but I do know that when I think I have had a 'crap day' I should be ashamed of myself. No matter how bad my day has been, it really hasn't been that bad. I haven't gone out each day to be faced with unknown people trying to kill me, I haven't left home not knowing if I will return again, I haven't walked out my front door knowing that I will be required to submerge myself in someone else's excrement, and that I will be required to do it again tomorrow as well. We spend a lot of time complaining, but is our situation really as bad as we think?

At the moment we seem to be spending a lot of time complaining about the weather. Over the last few days the front page of every newspaper, and the headline act on every news channel has been caught up in the weather gloom. 'Winter weather greets the first day of spring', 'Freezing Britain braced for more winter weather in coldest March for 50 years', 'Snow and floods cause widespread disruption across the UK'.

It may be a bit cool, but come on guys, it isn't that bad. It's quite simple really, if you are too cold, put more clothes on, if you are too hot, take some off. Most of us also have the luxury of turning the heating up. Spare a thought for the homeless guys that you stepped over on the way to the tube this morning. Many of them don't have a choice, and when we get these cold days, it is them that suffer. Do they complain? I don't know, to my shame I have never listened, have you? It does raise the question of how far any one of us are from being in their position. Who really knows. One bad decision, one set of unfortunate circumstances, and that could be any one of us.

We are a nation that prides itself on the war time motto of 'Keep Calm and Carry On'. Does this still hold true, or has that become the seemingly more accurate 'Complain bitterly, and lets stop work to talk about it'. Lets spare a thought for Julio Cu Camara and the homeless guy that we studiously ignore every day. Chin up, smile, and lets get on with living.

GSH

Its been a while since I read the personal columns, but if my recollection serves me correctly the required specification, along with tall dark, handsome and no strings attached, will also include the obligatory 'GSH'. So what is a Good sense of humour? As we know humour is many things to many people, ranging from the school boy humour of fart jokes to the more subtle and clever word play, that the English language lends itself towards so appropriately.

What is on my mind at the moment though is what is affectionately known as black humour. This is a genre that I am quite fond of and I am certainly not beyond exploiting from time to time. Have I ever told or laughed at a joke about Alzheimer's? Yes I have, and I know that it is important to pick your audience. As anyone telling a joke knows, timing is everything and it is this timing and appropriateness that has brought this to my attention.

I was at work the other day having a serious conversation with a couple of people about epilepsy, particularly serious as one of the group was telling us about his sister who suffers from the disease. In comes party number four, a woman who none of us know particularly well and who knows us in the same way, and she launches straight into an 'epileptic joke'. Firstly it wasn't particularly funny, and secondly she didn't establish the level of the conversation. This is woman who is loud, bubbly, boisterous and could generally be relied upon to have a good time and provide entertainment, and yet she missed the mark big time. In one sentence she alienated herself in our collective esteems within a matter of seconds. Does she have a good sense of humour, I am sure she does, and I am sure that in different circumstances she would have been viewed in a completely different light.

This story was reiterated in the news the other day where it was reported that Frankie Boyle had his entire routine cut out of the Comic Relief broadcast for his 'bad taste' jokes about Kate Middleton, the Queen, Oscar Pistorius and the Pope. I don't have any sympathy for him as I just don't like Frankie Boyle's humour as I find he resorts to racism and bad taste to raise a snigger, a snigger that this time has been turned against him. Because of my view on his humour I personally wouldn't go to one of his shows. In the Comic Relief situation he probably found himself in front of an audience of people who came to see a variety of performers and like me possibly wouldn't seek him out to watch, as indeed some of the other comedians performing. Therefore I am a little incredulous that a seasoned performer such as Frankie would not have the experience or ability to 'read' the audience and know when to tone it down. Instead he ploughed on riding the wave of his own ego and successfully alienated himself from his audience, his future bread and butter.

What am I trying to say? Both of these stories come down to the basic rule of establishing your audience, as you just don't know who you are talking to. You don't know their background, their story, or what they have been through in their lives. It is a requirement of society that we need to consider the feelings of the people around us, think about who we are talking to, but if you still insist on putting your foot in your mouth, please take your boots off first.

Am I a feminist

To start this dialogue I would like to make it clear that this isn't the sort of question I would usually ask myself and it only came to mind whilst reading a couple of news articles over the last couple of days. I would not usually associate myself with the term feminist because for me it has too many connotations of hairy armpits and bra burning on bonfire night. When asked previously about the equality issue I have usually scoffed at the suggestion of inequality in the workplace, as I have witnessed too many examples of woman promoted or hired into positions beyond their ability as a direct result of their willingness to shorten their skirts and display their assets. As one Managing Director that I know is quoted as saying in his defence, 'but she gives the best blow jobs in the country'. But for that, as men, we cannot blame the women involved, but the stupidity of the men doing the promoting.

Back to the article that I was reading. It was about a Cambridge undergraduate who came under sexist fire whilst debating at the Glasgow University Union. Heckled with 'shame woman' and 'what does a woman know anyway'. On further investigation she found that she was the subject of a chat room discussing her 'rape potential'. The further this woman researched, the more she found that this was not a one off experience but something that has become expected by many woman and an endemic within many areas of society. As I read the article I found myself getting angry on her behalf, not only because of the fact that I get a little riled when I see someone being treated unfairly, but also because the primitive attitudes being expressed are not the expressions of the lower echelons of society as you would expect, but from supposed intelligent men. Educated men who are theoretically the future leaders and decision makes of our country. These are the same intelligent men who when confronted will say, 'but I was only joking'. A joke only goes so far and how many times is a joke repeated before it becomes the expression of the real man.

As I said, I was getting quite angry about this whole situation when I moved onto another article. An article about a woman who had become paralysed from the chest down and yet contary to popular opinion she still enjoyed sex. As enlightening as this was about this aspect of the life of a paraplegic, there was a sentence in there that in the light of the previous discussion really confused me. She was discussing the Paralympics last year and the fellow disabled people that she met that enjoyed healthy relationships and family. And I quote 'And, oh happy day, the mens style magazine FHM was finally able to objectify some disabled women'.

So where does this leave me and the rest of the decent men who feel indignation on behalf of the women that are minimalised. Do those disabled women feel less that normal unless they are objectified too? Whatever other women have they want as well, even if it is not necessarily a good thing?

Am I a feminist? I don't know. All I know is that I don't like seeing people treated unfairly, male or female, and as long as we continue to debate the merits of either gender we are in a way admitting inequality.

Why here and why now?

You may ask why here, why now, why this blog, that is assuming of course that 'you' exist.

Whilst writing this I am very much aware that 'you' may not exist and that I am simply scratching down an expression of my thoughts and opinions to no one but myself. Despite this possibility I will continue. I don't know if this forum for my venting will continue ad infinitum or perhaps die of natural causes in the not too distant future. What I do know as of now, is that I do not intend the entries to be forced into some kind of regular weekly column, as the mere hint of that sounds too much like a chore for me. What I do feel is that as the mood strikes me I will express it, and this feels like a good place to scratch that down whether it gets read or not.

Those that are close to me know that I have been absorbed into the world of work more than I am particularly happy about lately. Working extremely long hours is not good for the soul or mind and I feel that I need to reconnect with the world outside of work. I feel I need to redevelop my interest in what is happening locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally. If that means talking to people, developing an opinion about things, or just by playing an observatory role, then that is what I want to do. To help me achieve this I have set it upon myself to write these things down. One of the golden rules of setting yourself a task (such as a New Years resolution) and achieving success, is to tell other people about it, so hereby consider yourself told.