Jonathan Myers | Personal Scribblings

I know I’ve ranted in the past about verbal tics and almost named a couple of friends – Mr PH I have to say… and Mr C As it were… both of whom still maintaining their tics years after I noted them as above on my phone.

I was therefore delighted this morning when Humphreys had someone on the Today programme to rant about misuse of “So” to start a sentence.

I had some American guests in Manchester a couple of weeks back who were even worse at it than the Brits.

Want a few others to watch / listen out for?

How about “At the end of the day”.

“Going forward”.

“Paradigm shift”

Any perversion of unique – totally unique, almost unique – or in fact qualifying any superlative.

“Hear me when I say”. That’s one that should be rewarded by a punch on the speaker’s nose.

Imagine being Mrs G and being picked up every time you accidentally utter a cliche or fall into some habit trap.

I promise that I do my utter best to avoid doing so myself.

Mrs G and I are staying in North Wales for what was supposed to have been a big weekend of walking, taking the dog up a couple of mountains for the first time, kicking back in front of a fire at night, big stews that we put on in the morning, all those kind of things.

However the trouble with North Wales is the rain and just how grim it is when that rain falls. You suddenly realise that the majority of the pubs are still the grotty nasty places that most English pubs have long since evolved from.

And then there’s the small issue of the language.

I love the fact that their is a distinct language in Wales and hope it survives to maintain the cultural difference between the different parts of Britain.

But it makes my blood boil when you walk into a place where they are speaking English and they switch to Welsh as soon as they realise they don’t know you. how bloody rude is that? Mrs G advises calm on the subject. I advise giving them independence and no grants to keep them going! I shall shut up.

Rain and Welsh aside the cottage is fabulous. The sodden hillsides actually suit the grey and I’ve loved having some time out to read, for hours rather than just 10 minutes before the lights go out, and tomorrow I’ll start the new Murakami book. I can’t wait.

Mr Jon Myers Glass is not a stupid man.

I admit I do some stupid stuff. Make stupid decisions now and then. Mrs G might suggest I’m more stupid than I like to think. But truly, this is all silliness.

So how come after months of listening to the gradual unravelling of the great European plan do I understand so little?

If someone came back from a year’s work in central Africa, where they had no news whatsoever, and said to me “Hey Jonny G, what the hell is going on?” I’d find it truly difficult to understand.

But as an exercise I’m going to try to tell it as a story and hope to make it make sense.

It seems that Italy is currently the biggest poo pile, so I’ll pretend to be Italy.

A few years ago I bought a house, a bloody big house and I deck it out with the most lavish taste anyone can imagine. I lied a bit when I borrowed a fortune to pay for it, but then, don’t we all?

Unfortunately business hasn’t been quite as good as it was and I have to borrow from somewhere else to maintain the repayments on the mortgage, but I’m sure it’ll only be for a few months before things get straight again.

The bank finds out about this and gets a bit worried and it increases my interest rate because it sees me as a greater risk than it did in the first place. Because I’ve borrowed so much, that rate increase puts a massive amount onto my monthly payments, and business hasn’t picked up yet so I have to borrow even more to pay the bank. Then the guy I’m borrowing the extra from says I can’t have any more.

So I’m fooked – as is Italy.

But because my massive mortgage was nearly 10% of the total money the bank had lent out that means that the bank is fooked too.

And because the whole of Europe has turned to poo the house isn’t worth half what I paid for it and so the bank’s security isn’t worth anything either.

And so when i go down the whole system goes down.

I’ll think of an analogy for Germany’s position and come back with it tomorrow if it’s good enough.

Ha!

Despite my hangover my journey back to Manchester got quite interesting after I was writing my last blog on the train.

My man in Newcastle, let’s call him Dan, called to laugh about the night before and in particular at my stupid decision to sup on some very expensive whiskeys at the hotel at the end of the night when we all knew that Mr Glass should be tucked up in bed.

I had just finished typing and was feeling cock sure and pleased with myself. I took the opportunity to share my thoughts with Dan on the peasantry we live with and my rant on progress and “Knowing what I like” sayers, and probably did so in an appalling attempt at a northern accent. Dan and I laughed at how clever and open minded we both are and all was well.

Except it wasn’t.

I hadn’t really noticed the fellow who sat opposite me part way through the conversation.

But hell, had he noticed me!

He pretty much wanted to rip my head off and poo down the hole (lovely turn of phrase Glass) by the time I’d finished my self righteous spiel of bollocks.

And he made no attempt to conceal his anger either.

His northern accent was real, as was his fetid breath and bad skin.

But he wasn’t daft. He tore a strip off me for ten minutes or so, without so much as a mention of any such handy monickers as Southern Jessie, or twat up from London.

Had it been outside and night time he’d have lamped me I’m sure. I’m no small fellow but i didn’t fancy a stand off with this one.

Nonetheless I stood my ground as I think the progress argument is a sound one. Bloody hell, haven’t had a fight in public, even if it were just words, in years. I’m not that keen on doing so again in a hurry either.

Mrs G frowned at the tale and blamed me completely. Ah, the love and support of home!

Last night was a hoot.

And now I feel like shit!

But so what, it was great fun and hopefully some work will come of it before too long. The fellow I met works at a rather large computing business in the area and needs some help on an internal brand programme. The business knows it desperately needs to work out where it’s going and what it stands for, but it  hasn’t got a clue where to start. My man was happy for me to write about it on the basis that one of his line reports knows me and apparently reads this blog, but I’ll not name them until we’re started. I’m chuffed to hear that, but please, if you do, don’t attach too much importance to what I say! This is just an outlet for my random thoughts and rants.

As for the job? Fantastic. Just the sort of work I love best.

I got a much later train than expected, so I still don’t have an opinion on the Baltic – but I remembered yesterday’s promise to write on “Knowing what I like”. I can almost hear the dreadful accent as the person says it!

You do not know what you like! Period.

If we did there would be no change.

With no change there would be no progress.

Take that back as far as you want to, crap cars? No cars? No power? Still living in caves?

I actually use this as an argument against traditional research too. People do not know what they like. They only know what they have liked so far.

Henry Ford is credited as saying on the subject “If I asked people what they wanted they would have said “A faster horse”". That sums up the issue in one simple succinct sentence.

Go back ten years and offer someone an i-phone. They’d have been scared, might even have petitioned and protested against its potential dangers to life as we know it.

That goes for art.

For music.

For fashion – imagine ten years ago telling teenagers that they’d have to wear their jeans with the arse down around their knees!

For life.

Without the crazy ones who dare to go and a make a difference we’d be nowhere. I love and embrace the crazy ones, even if they scare me too at times.

Anyway. There you have JMG’s thoughts on knowing what we like. If I wasn’t so bloody hung over I’d rant on for hours. I might even pick up the topic later…

Oliver Letwin?

Fool.

No doubt.

No matter what he was throwing away it was absolutely daft to chuck anything that could ever be considered to be on House of Commons paper into a public waste bin.

I’ve worked in banks where the staff were utterly scared to take anything official out of the office, I’ve known people be physically sick when they have thought they had lost their Blackberry, not because of the cost, but because of what could be accessed from it.

So Mr Letwin hang your head in shame.

Dr Fox on the other hand.

OK, perhaps a tad foolish, especially regarding where the money for his best mate Werritty’s exploits was coming from, but an enquiry as to whether young Adam committed fraud by having some dodgy business cards? What a complete waste of time and money.

And what’s the upshot? Fox resigns from a vital role where it seemed as if he had the balls to make the changes so badly needed, and is replaced by a lesser man. Labour may consider that a victory, but what sort of victory is it that leaves the government weaker in a time when we desperately need strength.

Paddy O’Connell had a lovely aside this morning when talking about the protesters around the world when he said something to the effect of “Too much cause, or too much time”.

Rant? Oh yes!

I’m convinced that most of the moaners in this world have too much time on their hands.

Last week I went to a meeting on a very smart estate in the Cheshire countryside. The fact that the place is referred to as an estate at all is quite funny. It’s an estate more in the way that Chatsworth is an estate than the Wythenshaw based Shameless is filmed on an estate.

Anyway, that’s sort of relevant as it’ll help you get the picture.

About a dozen huge houses in amazing grounds that would have had at least a couple of hundred flats and houses on had it been located five or six miles down the road. It was gorgeous, calm, felt safe, and felt very expensive indeed.

There were quite a few of us attending the meeting and we’d all come from different places and had each driven our own cars, and while the host’s drive was pretty impressive there wasn’t enough room for all of us, so I parked on the verge down the road as had a few others. I hadn’t even taken the key out of the ignition before some old general type was rapping on my window and shouting in a false clipped accent about parking on his lawn.

When I got out to politely greet him he bawled at me “I haven’t got time to come out here telling you disrespectful buffoons where to park…” and the rest of his tirade washed over my head as a familiar grin spread across my face. Ah yes, “I haven’t got time…”, a phrase pretty much exclusively used by those with too much time.

And I’m sure he’ll have gone in, stewed on the subject, and taken my host, his neighbour to task on it since.

“Oh Lord, Give me the grace to ….MOVE ON”

I’m sure I’m not perfect in this regard, there must be some stupid grudges I bear folk who have wronged me. But I do so I hope I recognise these in time and remember that I can live without dragging some old subject through the mire again.

I must move on now. I have to get my head around a basis understanding of forex, foreign exchange to most of us, for another meeting I’ll attend soon for Bob. Unfortunately this one will be in London, nowhere near the glamour of last time, but it’s a market I know so little about. Swotting up required Mr Glass!

I was reading about Le Corbusier and how he was loved by many, but reviled by probably just as many. Personally I love his creations and have a long held desire to go to stay in his hotel in Marseille. Last time I was in Paris on holiday I visited a couple of his places, but I can’t remember their names now.

But what I was thinking about just now is how I can say that a Le Corbu is a great looking place to live, yet another might see the brutal use of unclad and unsoftened concrete and think that it automatically looks like some kind of sink estate. And from those perceptions we create our own realities. I could go and be over joyed at the experience, the light, the areas designed to create a feeling of community, yet the detractor could point at much of what I love and complain at the lack of soul, the harshness of the materials, the opportunity for it all to descend into a hell for all its unfortunate residents. And we’d probably both work to prove ourselves right if we lived there.

It’s that lovely truism of “Whether you think you can, or whether you think you can’t, you’re probably right”.

I think of this too when I’m with my elderly mum. There is so much that she has a complete blinkered approach to, and I’m sure it’s just because she decided she didn’t like modern music, or art, or Iranians or whatever other prejudice she might have. I hope I’m not the same, but as I say that I know there are likely to be a vast array of topics that I just ignore, that don’t exist for me. Actually, as I write this I know one huge area of popular culture that has passed me by – gaming. I have played the 90′s game Doom a few times, but other than that playing Brickbreaker on my Blackberry is as close as it gets.

I make a big effort to start with a positive approach to every new subject, embrace and be excited by the new, but it doesn’t help having parents who were the complete opposite. Hey – they were fab in so many ways. Just stuck in the mud.

I was lying awake last night just listening to the constant noise of the city. I wasn’t annoyed at being awake, just interested.

There was a plane that flew over quite low, I guess that was what woke me, and then I listened to a bin lid gently rocking in the breeze. I could hear a couple of lads staggering home in good spirits, laughing and slurring at each other, they’d been to the football it seems, or at least watched the match in a pub around here.

Right now there’s a dust cart, there are dust carts everyday as they collect bottles from the bars and restaurants. And the cars, always the cars, most gently pottering down the street, but the occasional kid will hammer along, oblivious to the damage the speed bumps will be inflicting on his Corsa. We have horses too most days as the police exercise theirs around here to keep them comfortable in traffic and crowds for the big matches.

And behind it all there’s the hum. I remember the first time I properly noticed the hum was when I was at college and went up onto Parliment Hill on Hampstead Heath. The hum of London was there but seemed to definitely come from down in built up area.

I don’t mind either. It’s constant, and leaves me uneasy for a while when I notice its absence if I’m in the countryside.

Next week we’re off to Cornwall again to our mates place. I’ll be able to test out my theory of still quiet versus the calming hum of the city.  We’re hugely lucky to be going – a customer of his had to pull out at last minute due to sickness in their family so New Forge here we come! And almost as a reward for not even looking at any gambling sites since we last went, I’ve been poking around Casino Choice looking at sites we might play on. I know it’s a bit naughty, and I do actually feel a bit guilty, which is daft. But I hardly think I’m going to be getting out of control.

I was listening to a trailer on the radio this morning for a serial on Samuel Pepys, and it struck me that if his blogging was as random as mine he’d not have the name he has today. My intention to write a few hundred words a day just doesn’t happen sometimes.

It’s no excuse but I’ve been down to Cornwall this week chasing a piece of business. That in itself was quite frustrating, it’s with a private company with an owner who is utterly passionate about his business. That passion is both the joy, and the pain of working with him. He’ll bring in experts to sort through a particular issue, but never bring them together, and nearly always just go his own way anyway. I love the fellow though and I’ll carry on trying to get things off the ground with him.

Fortunately we agreed up front that I’d charge for a day’s work each time I visit, because it’s two days out doing pretty much nothing but driving, and while I love Cornwall, I’d rather combine it with a few days at our friend’s cottage where we did the online gaming if possible.

I heard on the radio this morning that Sir Hugh Ord has spoken out against Cameron’s decision to bring in the former gang buster police chief from the states saying that if the cities the fellow has worked in have 400 gangs then his experience is not what we need. I can understand Sir Hugh getting a bit tetchy on the subject, but to me it’s a social problem as much as a police one.

My miles of driving helped the Guardian bias regain its position in my mind regarding the fact that as tax payers we’re supporting the very people that are destroying our towns. I understand the calls to cut their benefits, thrown them out of their houses or whatever, but where are they going to go then. As a learned friend was saying to me this week – do we really want more feral people living in our parks and having to steal everything they have? I can’t imagine the idea is attractive to many.