Jun 2016 – TimMaidment.Com

And Now For Something Different

27/06/2016Tim MaidmentLeave a comment

(Or: Why did I swear so much in that last post?)

I did briefly consider leaving my last, emotional, blog post as the last ever entry in this site – an enduring monument to frustration that could be referenced as an impassioned reaction to whatever people wanted. However, it would be a waste of a perfectly good domain name and the money spent to maintain it. I’m also still enjoying writing too much, and the act of creating the post seems to have unblocked work on the novel too (!)

I may link back to it on occasion in future, simply because it’s hard to read it without smiling.

Those of you who only know me through this site, or possibly Twitter/Tumble/Google+ may be wondering what prompted me to write the word ‘fuck’ one thousand times beyond an expression of dismay. The simplest answer is because I joked about doing it on Facebook, and a few friends egged me on.

Sounds a bit boring with some context, doesn’t it?

Fuck

24/06/2016Tim Maidment2 Comments

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Uneasy Malaise

17/06/2016Tim Maidment1 Comment

My enthusiasm and joie de vivre are both pretty suppressed at the moment, and it’s taken me a while to compose my thoughts around recent events. The murders at Pulse in Orlando, and of Jo Cox MP in West Yorkshire are both resonating with me on two counts.

Firstly they both took place in or just outside what are generally considered as safe places. Gay clubs are often one of the few places where people can be themselves, especially if their families or neighbourhood are unsympathetic or outright opposed to their rights to even exist, let alone love who they love.

Libraries, despite what feels like a concerted assault by government, are community hubs serving everyone, helping those in need to help themselves with information, access to resources, and sometimes physical space to avoid a hostile outside world. Local and national politicians use them for surgeries because they know libraries are seen as a neutral meeting ground, and they go where people will feel safe enough to talk.

The second resonance comes because in each case, the perpetrators of the actual murders are being tarred with a variety of brushes to suit political ends. Mental illness has again been suggested as a factor in each crime, but at the same time there seems to be a reluctance to address whatever has triggered these horrific attacks.

On both sides of the Atlantic, rhetoric and hatred has been allowed to hijack public debate. Right wing media has joined in fanning dismay and prejudice, and the sad fact is that those of us who suffer from mental illness can find ourselves being even more sensitive to the outrage and bile than whoever cares to label themselves as ‘normal’.

In such a toxic mix of cheap outrage and manufactured hatred, it’s not hugely surprising that some people snap. Whether it’s due to self-loathing and feelings of powerlessness, an inability or unwillingness to ask deeper questions, or someone planting a seductively easy target in front of them in their confusion, there’s only so much frenzy that people can let slide off their shoulders before they begin to identify with it.

The real shame is that those peddling the hate won’t see that they’ve done harm, or do anything to change their ways. It’ll all just get used to justify the next wave of distorted crap that sells us all down the river.

So you’ll excuse my lack of humour at the moment I hope. Normal chirpy facemasks will be resumed in due course. Your challenge, should you accept it, is to see what you can do to level the playing fields and do some good in the world. What are you waiting for?

So I Survived My First Body Balance Class

16/06/201615/06/2016Tim MaidmentLeave a comment

It’s a tough old lark this trying to get healthier and lose some weight thing. Having dragged Lady M into coming along to the gym, she got her revenge by convincing me to join her in a Body Balance class. These 45 minute classes combine Tai Chi, Pilates, and Yoga and hit most of the main muscle groups, focusing on balance and core strength (he says, reading off the label).

What better way to spend a Sunday lunchtime? Tying myself in knots, discovering that I’m far more flexible than I reckoned on, and have a knee that’s still surprisingly weak ten years after surgery. That’s my excuse, and I’m sticking to it. Okay, eating would be a better way to spend Sunday lunchtime, I’ll grant you that, but it did mean that when we got home I felt no guilt about setting up open sandwiches topped with smoked grilled back bacon and slices of black pudding fried in butter.

I have no shame.

What the lesson also taught me was precisely which muscles I haven’t been using in a while – because the first half of this week has been spent walking around feeling like someone has stapled the top thigh muscles to my legs with iron spikes. Yesterday was the first day I could get out of a chair without wincing. I celebrated by going back to the gym.

Oh dear.

I know it’s going to be worth it – in fact I already know it is worth it because my resting bpm has already fallen significantly and a bit of weight loss has started too. I’ll try not to bore you all with it in huge detail, promise.

Games Nights – Gloom and Love Letter

15/06/2016Tim MaidmentLeave a comment

We’ve been introduced to a few new card games this last week, as we’ve casually extended our geekery in social situations. Lord S has been collecting a vast array of easily transportable games over the last few years, and brought a couple round on Sunday when he dropped by for a catch-up.

The first of these – Love Letter – he also brought to #Tuesday, where it served as social glue for conversations through the night – it’s a simple game ostensibly suitable for 2-4 players, but at one point we had 6 or 7 players round the table. The action is pretty much take a card, play a card, with the aim being to eliminate or hold on to the Princess card by a process of knocking other players out of contention.

It’s a fun system that also proved once more that the former-Lady M has great difficulty in counting cards or reading instructions (first noted while playing Cards Against Humanity). Lord S was heard to opine that it was the first time he had ever had to consider being a games master/referee for a card game. Hilarity ensued.

By way of total contrast we also played Gloom for the first time, and I’ve decided to buy a set for myself as soon as pay day arrives (unless someone is kind and generous and gets it for me first). Not only is Gloom a beautiful set of cards with a simple set of mechanics, but it is first and foremost about telling stories. I wonder why that appeals to me?

In Gloom you take control of a Gothically horrible family and your aim is to make their lives as miserable as possible before killing them. The cards also include positive events that you can play on yourself or more usually on other people. When a character has a negative score, they can have a death card played on them – if you have one. The lovely conceit holding the whole thing together though is that rather than just placing cards, you need to tell a rambling story, for which the punchline is the title of the card you wish to play. These include positive cards like “was the toast of the town”, “was enchanted by the circus”, and “purchased a peerage” as well as negative ones like “cursed by the Queen”, “went mildly mad”, and “shunned by society”. Death cards include “burned by a mob”, “baked in a pie”, and “ran out of air”

As we’re all horrible, horrible people we took great delight in fashioning the demise of these dreadful characters, and quickly found the stories interweaving as we picked up and played with throwaway locations, situations and jokes from other players.

A Quietly Busy Day

10/06/2016Tim MaidmentLeave a comment

We finally have hot water again, following a packed morning of helping a plumber dismantle the old leaky one, bundle it down two flights of stairs, and carry the new one back up. The old one had been failing for a while, so the sense of relief at not having to shore it up any more is gratifying.

Lady M had taken a day’s leave following her triumphant tour of the TechBritain ’16 event at Stamford Bridge. Rather than representing the company that pays her wages, she was there by invitation of the organisers under her online persona of TWITT (Today’s Women In Tomorrow’s Technology).

Lady M has been championing this event focusing on diversity and futurism in the technology sector ever since it was announced. In conjunction with the organisers she was even able to provide discount codes for attendees and has already had discussions about speaking at next year’s event. Even so, I don’t think she was prepared for the warmth of her reception there, or how many people knew her by reputation already.

Rather interestingly, there did seem to be a significant number of people who were surprised to learn that she was a women. A hefty percentage of men there had assumed that as some of her tweets and articles had a technical focus she was male. You can imagine, I’m sure, the saltily arid comments Lady M made to those individuals, let alone the smirks among those who witnessed the exchanges.

Despite fighting off a migraine, Lady M/TWITT has come away from the event inspired, confident, and clutching a handful of contact details for an impressive array of business and thought leaders in the UK technology sector and I suspect that the ripples of her actions and commentaries will continue to upset and inform a number of apple carts for some time to come.

So I think our afternoon in the pub with Lady G was a fair reward for her ongoing awesomeness, and as a celebration of the return of some basic amenities. Time for a shower I think.

The TWITT Twitter can be found @TodaysWomenInTo
Lady M’s Twitter can be found @JoLMaidment
The TWITT blog can be found at http://twittcomblog.wordpress.com

More Things Lady M Says

09/06/2016Tim MaidmentLeave a comment

Lady M is akin to a force of nature, especially in her attention to detail when it comes to work, contracts, and organisation. It is a defining attribute of her work life, along with her setting impossibly high standards for herself and everyone who works with, around, or for her.

Perhaps that’s why it tickles me that every time she talks about checking the fine details of things, she uses the phrase “crossing the i’s and dotting the t’s” – and nobody ever questions it.

Well, except me, because I’m awkward like that…

Things Lady M Says: What Day Is It?

08/06/2016Tim MaidmentLeave a comment

We had a packed evening for #Tuesday last night, and as ever once conversations got going and plans started to be laid, things got complicated.

We’ve all known and taken part in those freewheeling torrents of laughter and chatter that cut back and forth, switching partners in a frantic dance. Perhaps then that’s why, when asked if she would be at the pub again next week, Lady M asked: what day is that?

My answer that it would also be a Tuesday, same as it usually is, was met with laughter and a salutation of single digits. What Lady M had meant was to ask what the date would be, so that she could consult her mental diary and compare it to the many demands on her time.

She keeps this mental list carefully corralled – a marching order of dates and times of almost encyclopaedic volume – but I suspect that for some time to come, she will be reminded that Tuesday happens every week on a Tuesday.

Happy Birthday Charleesi

07/06/201606/06/2016Tim MaidmentLeave a comment

It’s a momentous day: not only is it the last day of the Charleesi’s AS exams, but it’s also her birthday. That’s a double reason therefore to celebrate at tonight’s #Tuesday, as if we really needed the excuse! Knowing the Charleesi, she will continue to give the impression of quiet calm under pressure, matching her teenage scorn of parental emotional displays to a studied serenity of poise as she proceeds through the day.

If I were particularly cruel, I would use this opportunity to present a montage of childhood photos, illustrating her growth from round-cheeked cherub (I’m thinking the Victorian cute babies rather than the biblical multi-headed engines of destruction and wrath) through awkward tween to formidable young lady that she now is.

On the other hand, she is also a Maidment, versed in getting her vengeance in first, and with all the lateral thought and dry wit running through her veins she may wish for; so I won’t do that. Instead, here she is as a fluffy unicorn, which is far more amusing than it really should be.

I’m told that many people who know both myself and the former Lady M are initially struck by how much she looks like me. Then they recognise her mother’s features. Then they have a period of mental confusion while their brains try to reconcile two sets of features before actually starting to see the person in front of them.

From the way she rolls her eyes, it’s a set of reactions that the Charleesi is used to, and she humours people with a modicum of grace while she, in turn, sizes them up. Being the people watcher that I am, this can be hugely entertaining to observe.

So, happy birthday Charleesi; your summer waits to unfold before you, with dragons no doubt anticipating your call. Hope it’s a great day on every level.

Regrets

06/06/201604/06/2016Tim Maidment1 Comment

The brain is a wonderfully complex thing, as befits the organ required to support mind and memory that can in quick succession plan a meal, think about a show seen on a screen, forget the lyrics to a favourite song, or remember things said or done many years ago with crushing embarrassment.

Like, I suspect, most people who might read this I have things I’d rather not remember. I’m not talking about traumatic events, but the day to day cringe-making things we’ve said or done while under the influence of being young, naïve, over-enthusiastic, or just plain thoughtless. As much as I’d like to believe I’ve moved on, grown, learned lessons, or otherwise got a grip on life that I didn’t before, my thought processes do delight in ~~occasionally~~ repeatedly flashing embarrassing moments onto the screen of my mind’s eye when I’m least expecting it.

If these mental coshes came with captions, they would probably be along the lines of: “hey, remember that dumb and slightly hurtful thing you said twenty years ago? Here it is again, and I’ll bet the person you said it to is still pissed at you.”

All I can do, of course, is shake my head and carry on. For the first part I can’t go back in time to change anything. For another, the significance of many of these recollections is so trivial as to be vanishingly relevant to life and the people now in it. The people for whom there have been lasting impacts have either had it out with me already or have presumably moved on. Should they then come back, well that’s something to address if they do.

But that doesn’t stop my wonderful mind from carrying on. My consolation is that most other people experience the same thing too, based on many many conversations, not to mention innumerable jokes, memes, and cartoons online or in popular culture. For the most part it’s just part of that background chatter in our consciousness as we process our places in the world.

What’s put my mind on this track? Well I recently opened an old journal I kept when I was descending into deep depression fourteen or fifteen years ago. I’d completely forgotten about it, but reading the flat prose and extremely distorted views within it has shaken loose more than a few memories on that mind’s eye theatre. I’m currently debating whether to throw that old journal away, or to keep it as a record of how ill I was, and how uncomfortable I must have been to be around in that illness.

I honestly don’t know which way I’m going to jump on this one – I’m trying to analyse if shame and injured pride are a good enough reason to discard a part of my history.

M	T	W	T	F	S	S
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20	21	22	23	24	25	26
27	28	29	30

TimMaidment.Com

Just making it up as I go along…

Month: Jun 2016

And Now For Something Different

Fuck

Uneasy Malaise

So I Survived My First Body Balance Class

Games Nights – Gloom and Love Letter

A Quietly Busy Day

More Things Lady M Says

Things Lady M Says: What Day Is It?

Happy Birthday Charleesi

Regrets

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