4: Why?

Why do things happen as they do?

Why does action X, yield interpreation Y from person Z?

Do we ever understand?

A friend of mine believes in silence, communicating via silence and a communication through
energy. I'm not entirely sure what she means, and will spare you the link to said esoteric site that explains it all so it makes perfect sense.

Maybe I should just accept that some things I don't understand, and leave it at that.

Or maybe I should say what I really feel in my personal journals (written in my own, unique, spider-scrawl).

You moan too much, mate!

I can't even attribute that comment to anyone but me!

Ouch!

(I'd just been re-reading some of my recent inspired(!) thoughts in this Blog.)

4-play

Foreplay!?

Apologies, but it really was the first thing that came into my head as I realised it was time to make my daily 4th journal entry.

Hmm, I can see that my titles are going to cause me some trouble in the future.

For now, let's just all of us smile at the images conjured up by the word foreplay.

Spared the details...

Again!

(Pages and pages of stuff you don't want to read.)

When will Woman make ManGo wow?

That's what I'd like to know!

I dreamt of you last night...

I dreamt of a girl named... Vivienne, last night. (You, in a blonde wig.)

You'd finally made the journey to meet me in Odersfeld.

But You didn't stay with me. You were there to meet someone else - a "husband's friend"; and wanted me to know, I guess.

I talked to this 'friend' and asked him if he'd been intimate with You. "No!" he replied all enthusiastically, "but I'm really looking forward to doing so tonight."

"Yeah, she's good" I answered, uncharachteristically blowing my little male trumpet.

I hear you "loud and clear".

(I love you, do you hear.)

"Walk the line"

Let's walk the line.

Let's walk the line.

--

(I know it doesn't make sense. It doesn't ryhyme, and it's not a story, but it woke me up at 4am, and that's just about what I remember, okay! I wrote my notes at 4.44 ...

Not Johnny Cash.

Not Johnny Nash.

Just Me and Vivienne.)

One week (ago today)...

One week ago, today...

We communicated(*), for the first time in quite a while.

This, after I bluntly told you to leave me alone, and I'll leave you alone.

One week later, and whole lot of shit has been stirred up inside of me and maybe you too.

[See?]

One more week. That's all I can say. Not sure I have the patience of Johnny Cash, or the singing voice for that matter. In one more week, however, I will feel like singing Johnny Nash's favouite tune

One week and counting...

(*) We changed the name of our Windows Messenger 'Handle' and/or 'Personal message'. Yeah, subtle...

4 fooks sake!

Got my first ever parking ticket today.

14 minutes late.

£50 fine.

Goddamn... How do you like them apples!

Even this doesn't help, methinks - How to get 0ut of paying a car-parking ticket

Well, I didn't get out of bed the wrong way, but I did wake up early after a somewhat uncomfortable dream...

Square pegs, round holes...

I've got this scrawled on a tatty piece of (pink) paper. I might as well put it online as not, especially as I've just started thinking of Square Pegs and Round Holes(*)...

"I'm looking for someone, or something, and every woman I meet I think: 'could she be the one?'. Not that I believe in The One or anything like that, but sooner or later I will commit to someone and that's the person I'm referring to here.

"So I'm in a 'situation' and I'm trying my hardest to imagine that, yes, she is the one. I see our lives evolving together, and think of the time when I knew it would always be so.

"I'm never mistaken, either, but I'm also never proved right."

...Even a search through the past does not help. [This bit onwards, I've added.]

And my 'situations' are never fully enjoyed. What you will tolerate for the one who is 'the one', versus what you should not tolerate for anyone. (And who's eat all the pegs?)

Am I that desperate?

I don't think so.

So why am I continually trying to put square pegs into round holes?

[Come back later, for when I am much wiser I will show you the answer.]

In the meantime, my only answer is to live for the moment. Be present, always. And smile...

Even round pegs and square holes like to smile.

(*) Sounds painful? You bet!

4 Candles?

"4 Candles?"

"No, fork handles?"

Etc.

Hilarious. You really had to be there. The Two Ronnies at their finest (apparently!).

Why U Wanna Know Girl

Five replies (red, white and blue!)

Subject: RE: Remember the deal!

it's gotta be the Butterfly...or the Sunset...ecstatic! Worst? Dunno...not worth judging.

What is your new address?

Ok, here are 5 replies that I might have sent to this particular email from this particularly enigmatic person.

[Why not guess which one I actually sent!]

(1) Subject: Butterfly is beautiful for sure

...But do we really want to 'start chasing buttlerflies' again?

Or, to put that question in my own rather more blunt language, why do you want my address especially when you wouldn't give me your address *if* I asked for it?

To combine both personalities, if I can do that:
- What exactly do you want with this butterfly? Or...
- What do the Shapeshifters want with each other?

I really have no idea.

Perhaps if you simply told me what you wanted, I might be able to give it to you without the hassles I've obviously given you in the last 2 years.

Openness. Now there's something I know a lot about.

Succintness. Your speciality. Lol

PS Glad you like the tunes :-)

(2) How many songs will it take?

How many times do I have to give you my address, and how many times will you not do anything with it?

PS 3?

(3) Subject: Monday

Monday was a strange day for me for lots of reasons, not least of which was the fact that we actually communicated, via Instant Messenger for the first time in quite a while. And we were both friendly to each other.

Tuesday, our contact continued, finishing with your emailed question above in response to the MP3s I 'ripped' for you.

And today (Wednesday) yet more contact.

Unprecedented times. But don't you think it's strange? And, to mis-quote the Miss, "is it profitable?"

No, I guess this doesn't help. It doesn't.

But I don't know what does.

(And please don't pretend that I'm making a fuss about nothing. You don't need yet another male friend after all, especially one that doesn't know his lines! There *is* something in the air (tonight, oh lord!).

Maybe this is the wrong year.

Maybe I'll never know.

Or maybe it's because I'm a Londoner!...

On another note, I've just bought a TV for my new home. And soon I will have a DVD player too. And then I can re-watch the 3 Colors films, starting with the Blue One that stars Juliet Binoche. Remember? :-)

PS Sounds like Wednesday wasn't your brightest day - "F*****g I***t!"

(4) Subject: Show us yer *****!

You show me yours and I'll show you mine ;-)

PS Smile. Show us yer smile!

(5) Subject: Why U Wanna Know Girl?

http://boringjohn.blogspot.com/2006/02/why-u-wanna-know-girl.html

PS It's not like you're gonna visit me, is it?

--

Which reply, of any, dear reader, did I actually use?

Answers on a postcard, to this address...

[ address removed :-) ]

4

"The name of the game is..."

That's the first line of an amusing track on a CD kindly donated to me last year by someone who truly (madly, deeply) adored me, until...

Still, I got a CD out of it. Oooh!

So, what does 4 stand for? Apart from intersecting my 2 lucky numbers, it's the prefix to my fourth journal. (Geddit!?)

That means all entries that represent my random musings at the time of writing will be preceded by the number 4. So you know what to avoid, eh, if inane drivel is not your thing.

"That Gladys Allthorpe nevers buys her own!..."

(Bing bloody go! Aint the web marvellous!)

4th journal starts today...

I update 3 journals on a regular basis (daily, mostly) and today I'm starting my 4th - this one.

Short and sweet, just like I like my [men/women(*)]

So what are the other journals about, then?
1) Daily trudge of life - hey ho!
2) S*x - lots of th*nking, and very little do*ng!
3) Spanish - how learning a language teaches us about life.
(Heavy man!)

4) Thoughts I have at the exact time of writing

* Delete as appropriate!

Words...

Like certain songs, there are certain words that have more potency, to me at least.

And I thought I'd start a list of such words today.

Here goes:

Ameliorate

Antithesis

Mentor

Patience

Tschüss!

(Watch this space, as I continue to remember my favourite words.)

"Where's Your Head At?"

Songs, tooons, that I will always love. Always.

There's no point in explaining, musically, what makes these pieces great to me. Pointless. Music, like beauty, cannot be explained or rationalised. It moves you, or it doesn't.

These songs move me (baby!).

Do come back, because I will add to this as and when I remember the name's of songs that truly make me glad to be alive. (I am alive, aren't I?)

Where's your head at? - Basement Jax

Merv the...

"You have 5 minutes to free write whatever comes into your head. Just write, no thinking or evaluating or wondering whether... Just write! Just write the first thing that comes into your head with the following 3 words, chosen randomly

* Wrinkles
* Shark
* Red lingerie"

5 minutes?

Shark?

Sharks hunt after women apparently, in search of red lingerie, wrinkling down legs. Red bras, red tights and the wrinkling that means the tights are coming off.

Off?

That can only mean one thing.

Condoms?

Condoms were sexy to me - very sexy - because when I was young I only associated them with sex. [Having sex.] Plain and simple. Not 'shall we have sex?', 'No, I've got a headache' but off comes the condom wrapper, on goes the condom, and off we go.

Condoms mean "sex", or they used to do.

And it's the same with wrinkled stockings - I certainly don't think of that woman who lives in 'Last of the Summer Wine' country, even though I actually live there myself, and have been to The Wrinkled Stocking on several occasions. (Aint it great how local businesses take advantage of television success.)

Anyway, I'm day-dreaming when I should be [concentrating on] stockings coming off, red stockings wrinkling for my pleasure.

Off. Wrinkled, crumpled on the floor. But who's looking there!

Sharks did I say. Sharky Steve!

[The only corrections made to the 5-minute braind dump denoted by these lil' square things. Brackets. Though it was quite hard to decipher the spider-scrawl :-) ]

Revised Questions & Answers

Well, I jumped the gun with my Nick Daws' writing course. He didn't want the answers to the questions that I answered - confused, yet? - he wanted me to think up my own questions from one of the somewhat eclectic choice of topics below.

Oh dear, run before walking etc.

These are the topics that Nick so kindly thought of:

World peace

Seaweed

Classical music

Windows (not the Microsoft kind)

Banking

Conifers

Vehicle numberplates

Bricks

TV aerials

Apples

Cutlery.

Well, after a little bit of thought, I'm going to choose...

Classical music

And my revised questions are:

1. What is a concerto?

2. Who is the best composer of all time?

3. Who is the best conductor of all time?

4. What does a musical conductor do?

5. What would happen if an orchestra played without a conductor?

6. Why does classical music help learning, especially music by Mozart?

7. What is the definitive classical musical instrument?

8. Have any famous jazz musicians ever tried to play classical music?

9. Have any famous classical musicians ever tried to play jazz?

10. What is the most famous pop song that features classical music?

And now, according to Nick, I have to re-arrange them in the order that best provides for the framework for an article. (Here goes...)

1. What is the definition of classical music?

2. What is a concerto?

3. Who is the best composer of all time?

4. What does a musical conductor do?

5. What would happen if an orchestra played without a conductor?

6. Who is the best musical conductor of all time?

7. What is the definitive classical musical instrument?

8. Have any famous jazz musicians ever tried to play classical music?

9. Have any famous classical musicians ever tried to play jazz?

10. What are the similarities between jazz and classical music?

Yeah, I changed the pop question - did you notice?

Note: this was actually written on Feb 13th, but I forgot to post it. (Insert suitable Homer Simpson noise here!)

Questions & Answers

Nick Daws thinks that I can write a book in 28 days (or less)! Which is very sweet of him, and encouraging, but the man's an idiot. I mean it's just not possible, is it? Who is this Nick Daws geyser, anyway?

Anyway, I was very intrigued by the prospect of writing a book (novel, please!) in 28 days (or less), so whilst I didn't buy the company, à la Victor Kiam, I did buy the course.

And I have my first writing assignment, goody!

Here it is. (Apparently, it's a lot easier to write something if that 'something' is based on simply answering questions.)

So, here are the questions (and answers):

1. What is my job title?

Erm, I do something with computers.

2. What are the main things I do?

I research, design, build, maintain and make money from my own websites. Do you want an example? Well do a search for 'free mobile phones' and you'll find lots of examples. (And if the year is no later than 2003, then your search will find two examples of my sites. If not, then click on the 10th or 20th page of search results. Yeah, I don't do too well on mobile phone sales these days! )

3. What do I like most about my job?

The autonomy. Making money online, making a living, earning a crust, getting by, whatever you want to call it, still has so much potential right now. And all I have to do is decide what idea to implement next. It's still exciting, and the nearest I've ever come to a job where my success (or failure) is determined so obviously by how well I make the most of my own abilities.

4. What do I like least?

Well, I could easily say 'see 3.'. To misquote a great song, "it's a thin line, between [success and failure]'.

I have discovered and developed many skills in this job, but also come to realise that I have failings too, which is not always comfortable to realise.

5. What things make my job easier?

Automation. Automatic answers to people's (often) dumb email questions. Automatic site creation. And, the hard part, knowing how I can continue automating what I do.

6. What things make it harder?

The web changes constantly, bringing new opportunities and challenges all the time. If ever the truism 'change is the only constant in life' were more evident than on the web, I've yet to see it. (Is that a truism?)

Answers to the next few questions, make my job harder too...

7. Who else do I work with and what do they do?

I work alone. I bounce ideas to and fro from one (virtual) person, and I visit a few message boards, but I work alone, and therefore benefit from the synergy of one(!).

8. What's the most unusual thing I've had to do in my job?

I didn't do this, but it was unusual. A few years ago, when football clubs were really struggling for income (thanks to the collapse of the ITV Digital deal), they just couldn't sell advertising space at football grounds. They were so desperate that salesman were doing highly unscientific and un-targeted searches on Google for likely sponsors. I was telephoned, and advertising space was only going to cost me £10,000 for the rest of the season. A bargain, for sure, especially when you consider that my advertising budget (if I actually had one) amounted to £100 per year!

9. What's the most important thing I've learned through doing my job?

You can't do it all by yourself. (D'oh!)

10. What would I like to be doing in five years' time?

That is a bloody great question. And the clock is ticking too, so will have to think fast. Erm, I'd like to be raising a family, developing my fluency in Spanish, and only needing to be working my online business one day a week, with time to do something less boring instead (like write a follow-up Boring John novel - yeah, baby!)

Time taken: 20 mins (I timed myself)

Yesterday (in Barcelona!)

Have you ever missed your flight?

I have.

I did it yesterday, in Barcelona, Spain.

Oh, I set off in plenty of time; I left the north of the city at 9.15am for a 12.20 flight to Manchester. I took the blue Metro line to Diagonal, changed for Sants (leave the Metro, and head toward Via Cinco (platform 5) of the train station; and got on a train headed for Tarragona (which kindly stops at El Prat de Llobregrat).

Then you get off the train at Prat, change platforms and wait for a train headed for el aeropuerto (belive it or not, that's Castillian Spanish for ' the airport').

Simple. No?

No.

Finding your way to the airport is far from obvious. Yes, they leave clues but you have to know where to look!

In fact, in my limited experience of travelling to Barcelona, I'd say that in trying to find where you're going it helps if either a) you know exactly where you're going or b) you know exactly where you're going.

(I don't like to criticise a whole country, but Spanish directions from A to B, that I have experienced travelling to Barcelona, really are appallingly inadequate. And I'm not simply complaining that the good instructions are in Castillian or Catalan, and not English; there just are very few instructions, full stop.

And it's not as if there aren't thousands of tourists arriving into (and leaving from) Barcelona, via the airport every day. Moan over. (Hey, I am English after all!))

Anyway, I digress. (You noticed?)

I've been to Barcelona several times in the last 12 months and I know the routine.

I even know the new, more-convoluted, route explained earlier. (Apparently, the line between Sants and el aeropuerto is being improved. Let's hope that Sants - the singularly least tourist-friendly train station I have ever been to, ever! - gets improved too.)

So, I set off at 9.15am and expect to be at the airport by 10.45, at the latest.

Trouble is, I'm on the train that stops at Prat de Llobregrat but I've left my keys behind. That's what the two text messages say, anyway.

"You've left your keys," said the first.

"... It's okay, I'll meet you at Sants" followed the second.

So I get off the train that stops at Prat de Llobregat, go back up the elevator and into Sants station, and I wait.

Twenty minutes later, I have my keys in my pocket, and I'm waiting for my train again.

I look at the timetable and it seems to say that trains to Prat come every ten minutes, so why have I been waiting fifteen?

Finally, a train.

It's going to St Vicenc.

I get on, cautiously, and look at the electronic display for reassurances that I'm on the right train, but it's not working.

A couple of people with rucksacks get on, which is good, but a whole load of other tourist-type people don't, which is not good, but I ignore them - what do they know!

If it's the wrong train, then I'll just get off and turn around, I think to myself. What's the worse that can happen?

It was the wrong train. (Obviously.)

And the worst that could happen? Well - and I think the driver of the train did this on purpose, to taunt me - we approached Prat de Llogbregat slowly, as if we were going to stop, but didn't, and then we proceeded to 'bomb it' like an Intercity 125, or the Japanese Bullet train, or any of those fast trains that you're more than happy to be on WHEN you're on the right train.

I was not happy.

I had that sinking feeling, and I started to feel dizzy. Maybe it's because I was pacing up and down the width of a train, like a caged animal that didn't want to be where it found itself to be.

All I knew is that we were going very fast, away from the airport.

Very unpleasant feeling, folks, I can tell you.

God! What am I gonna do? How long have I got before I've definitely missed my train? Could I stay another day? And if so when would I go tomorrow (and how much extra would it cost)?

AND WHY THE F*CK DID I GET ON THE WRONG TRAIN? Aaaargh!

As you can imagine, I was pretty cross with myself.

It turns out that I was on a non-stop journey to St. Vicenc (we didn't even stop at Sitges).

A friendly, understanding conductor explained (in Castillian Spanish) that I had to get off at St. Vicenc, and head back on the next train into Barcelona. This train stopped at Prat de Llobregat (and every other train station, mind!), and I'd arrive at Prat at 11.50am.

'Bombing' out, snails-pace back. Brilliant!

Still, I *might* just have time to catch my plane, I thought to myself.

And I got close. I managed to get through the departure gates without checking-in (check-in had closed half an hour previously), and arrived at Gate 44 at 12.05pm for the 12.20pm flight to Manchester. But the two stony-faced assistants simply said "no", when I asked if I could get on the plane.

What I would have given for a flight delay,

So this is how I came to miss my flight to Manchester Airport.

The strange thing is, the rest of my journey went like more or less as well as possible. True, I did get experience a modest flight delay on my 13.50 flight to Newcastle, but I'd managed to get on a later flight less than two hours later.(Other alternative flights were either two days later, or set off today (or tomorrow), but arrived in the wrong part of England at the wrong time of the day (10pm onwards).

How am I meant to get home from Bristol or Luton or the depressing Gatwick Airport from 10om onwards.

No, I was on a flight to Newcastle which had very fast trains home waiting, just for me. I was feeling upbeat.

My 'upbeatness' started with my first positive experience of the day: me, and the nice-looking Easyjet woman who sold me the ticket. She just kept on smiling as I continued to seek the best flight to UK. I returned to talk to her three times, and when she told me that the next flight to Newcastle still had some seats free, I could have kissed her. I didn't, obviously.

The 13.50 flight to Newcasltle cost me 140 Euros.

(What ya gonna do? I really needed to get to UK, to get back to work, etc. etc. etc.)

Then there was me and the second Easyjet woman. A smiling check-in woman, who seemed almost brim-full with energy, smiled and chatted with me, and frowned when I told her about my getting on the wrong train. And, despite having had to deal with an irate customer who couldn't understand why his hand-luggage was too big to be hand luggage, she says to me: "I love this job she says... You see so many beautiful men, and women... Have a nice flight."

Indeed. I will. Thank you.

And then there was me and the woman, mourning. I met this third, tipsy, woman during the flight. She seemed familiar to me, so I made eye contact as she passed to go to the toilets behind me. She wanted to know about my hair, but then she blurted that her Dad had just died, and that she didn't know where she was, and she was sorry to just talk to me, a stranger, but she was a bit drunk and didn't know what to think.

It was a bit bizarre, for sure.

It was made more so, at least in this writer's eyes, because I'd spent the whole of this eventful day reading The Celestine Prophecy. This fanciful spiritual-cum-self-help book talked about the meaning behind coincidences, of thinking that you know someone and... well, it made me think.

So, this disasterous travel day ended with me 1) quickly getting on the next available flight from Barcelona and 2) getting the Newcastle Metro that left just as soon as I got on it and 3) getting on a direct train home, that again more or less departed just as soon as I got on it.

I arrived at 8.15pm, about 4 hours late.

If I was a God-fearing man I'd say it was almost a bloody miracle.

I do not *fear* god, though; I do not fear love.

Instead, I'm happy to be knowingly responsible for my attitude to the events that happen to me in my life, both good and bad. Having said that, I do think that I'll pay just a little bit more attention the next time I get on a train from Barcelona.

In fact, I think I'll pay a little bit more attention to life, full stop.