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Page last updated:
26 November 2004
World Copyright
© Martin Foreman
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Christmas, ho!
Let’s divorce consumerism from religion. Let Christians
celebrate the birth of their baby if they want to, but for the rest of us 25th
and 26th December should be ordinary working days. On the other hand, the New
Year is worth celebrating (even if it should strictly be on 22nd December, the day
on which days start getting longer), so let’s take a whole week off, which is
what many people do at this time of year anyway.
Conning the Customer
You could be nice and simply write say, "we've frozen your electricity prices until 1 January 2004," but actually
you're making me take the time to write to fill in the form to ask you to do so. Is this because you believe that I might not
want my electricity prices frozen? Or I might actually want you to put the price up?
Community Values
There are two of them, a man and woman. It’s difficult to tell what age they
are, because they have obviously been drinking for many years, and possibly living on
the streets that long. It's not the first time I've seen them or their
companions, huddled in a corner muttering intently to each other.
Cornices and Cubes
The following morning the ex roused himself from sleep to call for a taxi. I
kissed him goodbye and headed for the airport. By half-past two I was home
again and greeted disdainfully by the cat that I had inherited from our
relationship.
Penicillin, Pineapples and Pontefract
Have you played the Google Game? I assume, since you’re staring at the screen,
that you know that Google is a search engine, or, as some of us would say The
Search Engine. I’m sure Jeeves has his uses, but every time I’ve asked him a
question he’s completely misunderstood me. (Well, he’s getting on a bit now and
I think he's going deaf.)
A Minor Neurological Defect
When asked, I find it difficult enough
to remember what I did last week, far less last year or ten years ago. And at
the end of the day, the last thing I want to do, is, Tony Benn-like, to record
my thoughts for my posterity. An ego I have, but an ego that I keep firmly
locked in its cage.
Chemicals in the atmosphere
It's the end of a meal à deux at the end of an evening. Somehow I have got onto the subject of astrology. As I speak, my inner voice expresses its disapproval. Did I really have to start on this topic this late in the day?
Home is where the memory is
This visit, as every visit, I am reminded that you can't go home again. There is much about Edinburgh I love, in particular the lack of so much that makes London unpleasant - the litter, the rudeness, the petty crime and the sense of rootlessness in a city whose inhabitants always seem to come from elsewhere - but my childhood memories keep clashing with today's reality.
Turning over a new leaf
Well, the Equinox has been and gone and, you'll be glad to know, I have written down my Autumn Resolution, the goal I set myself each year to improve both myself and the world I live in.
The sound of silence
Are you reading this in the office, or at home? Or in an internet cafe? For the moment, let's assume you're at home, and if you're not at home, imagine you are.
Road to Destruction
I've decided that it's time to ban private car ownership, at least in the UK. Cars are expensive, destructive and, despite the protests of many car owners, a luxury not a necessity. Cars create more problems than they resolve, and the solutions put forward to resolve those problems create more problems in return. I write as a driver, in the sense of someone who has owned cars in the past and who still hires cars regularly, but also as a pedestrian and public transport user.
Poverty and Health
Poverty deprives populations of clean water and sanitation, a good diet, education and comprehensive vaccination programmes. Poverty weakens health infrastructures, limits the numbers of medical personnel, reduces access to many drugs and encourages corruption - the private selling of state-provided services or drugs. Poverty is not the only factor underlying poor health - such factors as recreational drug use and violence also play a part - but poverty both undermines the foundations of good health and reduces options for the ill.
A Sense of Smell
The last time I came across anyone who called himself bisexual was a long time ago at university, when several of us used the term while we adjusted to the fact that we were really gay. To be honest, I'm not convinced that true bisexuality - in the sense of equal sexual and emotional attraction to both men and women - exists, except perhaps as a tiny minority of the population.
Ill-conceived
I am confused. In February this year, the UK Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority granted a licence for the parents of a two-year-old child suffering from thalassaemia, which causes permanent pain and leads to death in the early twenties, to ensure that a future child will not suffer from the same disease. This can only be ensured by embryo selection.
Gliding through the water
Modesty aside - and I have a lot to be modest about - I have a good body. Well-defined and with a chest: waist ratio of 4:3, in my forties I'm in better shape than I was twenty years ago. The current icing on the cake is a good tan picked up in Africa in June and topped up on the occasional days of sunshine in London since.
Wrong, Miss Widdecombe, Wrong
There are some people in this world whom I like in small doses. (There are probably a lot of people who think of me in the same way.) They include children. Professors with a hygiene problem. Incredibly sexy men with a low IQ. Work colleagues with an irritating laugh. Handymen.
Web Cite
I would lie in bed at night and imagine myself in the red and blue uniform, cape fluttering behind me, as I flew out of my bedroom and soared over the city of Edinburgh. Or, deprived of Superhero powers, but a gymnast par excellence, this time in red, green and yellow, I would hear the Batmobile growling beneath my window and leap gracefully down into the street and hop into the seat next to Batman before we drove off into the night in search of villains, danger and always triumphant justice.
The Secret of the Tree
I'm semi-naked, standing bolt upright in front of a full-length mirror, staring at a spot about six inches above my eyes. Slowly, I lift my right leg and reach down with my right arm to pull the heel into my groin. My left arm, which should be hanging by my side, flails in the air as I try to keep my balance. My left foot twitches as it responds to the slight shifts in gravity, but, if I'm lucky, my body finds its balance and I slowly lift both arms to point ceilingwards.
Ten Year Lease
I'm sorry, I can't resist. It's the Golden Jubilee; every other columnist is writing about the monarchy and I'm going to join in - even though my mother always said that just because everyone else jumps off the end of the pier doesn't mean you have to. (It was an old harbour entrance at the mouth of the River Tay. The water was dark and definitely cold. I could imagine thick fronds of seaweed and slimy, squelchy tentacled things waiting to grab hold of me. I have avoided pier-jumping ever since.)
Government by Chance
In a distant galaxy a long time ago, as a thirteen year old in Edinburgh I stood in a mock election as the Liberal Party candidate. I wasn't quite sure what their policies were, but they had six seats in a parliament of over six hundred and I've always been sympathetic to the underdog. So I wrote to party headquarters and got some posters to pin up around school, but still came fourth, behind the Scottish Nationalists.
Selling Sex
Sex is a commodity. Some of us have more than we want, some of us don't have enough. Some of us offer it for money, others for love or companionship. Some of us use it as blackmail, others as bribery. Some of us associate it with fear, others - at the most inopportune moments - with laughter. Ultimately, however, sex is no more than an asset that each of us tries to use to our best advantage, to bring ourselves material or emotional reward. At least those sex workers who enter the profession freely and some of their clients recognise there is no intrinsic shame in the exchange.
Destroying Paradise
I looked at Europe again and again, began to recognise first Italy, then its neighbour Greece. To the right of Greece was Turkey and further down Palestine, still coloured Empire pink. I wanted to know what came next and tried to follow the map onto the next page but was confused by the differences of scale. Eventually I made out Persia and the red triangle of India. Lands that had once been as fictitious as Wonderland and Narnia leapt into life, complete with fezzes and loincloths, elephants and rope-tricks, endless deserts and blazing sun.
Furball
There's a grey furball sitting on the crooked wall that separates my miniscule garden from my neighbour's. Her ears are pricked at the sound of a neighbour's dog, two upturned Vs on a round head squatting on a oval body. It's late evening and the colours are fading - the greens of the garden, the dark yellows of the brickwork, the muted reds of the rooftiles. The furball looks round less curious than content. This is my world, her body language says. I don't need to explore it.
An Overgrown, Retarded Child
Imagine you're twelve years old. You're at a big party with hundred or so other twelve year olds. Like any group of children they're a mixture. Some tall, some short, some fat some thin, some intelligent, some less so, some shy, some noisy, some honest, some… You get the picture. A group of kids, just as you'd expect, except for one, who's the same age as the rest of you but he's much bigger, the size of an adult and with an adult's strength. Only instead of an adult's mind, he has the mind of a child, and not just a child, but a retarded child.
The Ecstasy Method of peacekeeping
Why do we persist in legalising weapons and profiting from the sales and death they bring, while banning one of the few mechanisms we have for peace?
Dancing to the Music of Time
Theoretically, anyone is expert at the Dance That Has No Name. In reality, most of us are not very good at it. Most of the time I have the sense to dance where people are too involved in their drugs and themselves to notice how bad a dancer I am.
The Hallmark of Blandness
Each night my emotions were carefully taken out, washed, ironed neatly and handed back. I went to sleep feeling, as Hallmark no doubt wanted me to, at peace with the world around me.
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