Month: June 2015

bookmark_borderWeekend Reading

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A few things that I’ve read this week, you might enjoy them too (might rename this the ‘Amy Schumer Edition’):

  • Amy Schumer’s Glamour Awards Speech Is Beyond Brilliant (VIDEO)
    Let’s be honest – award ceremonies are *pretty* dull. Unless you invite someone like Amy Schumer. The US comedian was guest of honour at the Glamour Awards on Tuesday evening, where she accepted the Trailblazer Of The Year Award.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1HKV9Fy

  • From Amy Schumer to John Oliver, How Comedians Became Public Intellectuals
    People look to Amy Schumer and her fellow jokers not just to make fun of the world, but to make sense of it. And maybe even to help fix it. This week, in a much-anticipated sketch on her Comedy Central show, Amy Schumer staged a trial of Bill Cosby.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1FGaYPC

  • The Egg
    You were on your way home when you died. It was a car accident. Nothing particularly remarkable, but fatal nonetheless. You left behind a wife and two children. It was a painless death. The EMTs tried their best to save you, but to no avail.
    Read: http://ift.tt/ODzNVe

  • The advent and evolution of Apple’s digital hub
    Like many people, the iPhone has replaced many consumer electronics in my home. I no longer own a point-and-shoot camera, camcorder, voice recorder or dedicated music player. My iPhone is all of those items — plus more — in one, sleek, powerful and pocketable device.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1dxlVds

  • Chasing the next billion with Sundar Pichai
    We sat down with Pichai to hear his vision for the Google of the future. He laid out a plan to improve Google’s products through machine learning — but more importantly, he sketched out a grand effort to deliver computing capabilities to billions of people around the world.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1EEDOvO

  • The Top 7 Commencement Speeches Of All Time
    Powerful, challenging, and teeming with wisdom, these commencement addresses will inspire anyone who reads them—not just graduating seniors.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1FHVQBt

  • Lena Dunham, Amy Schumer and Comedy Actress A-List in Raunchy, R-Rated Roundtable
    “So, what’s your policy on ‘pussy’?” inquires a polite Amy Schumer regarding what can and can’t be said during THR’s annual gathering of Emmy-contending comedy actresses. If the ensuing conversation — held inside a Manhattan studio where, at one point, one of the six women offers another oral sex — is any indication, nothing is off limits when feminism and comedy collide
    Read: http://ift.tt/1J5ASi2

  • 5 Helpful Answers To Society’s Most Uncomfortable Questions
    How many of you are old enough to remember “We Didn’t Start The Fire,” that shit-awful Billy Joel song in which he unconvincingly insists over and over that he didn’t cause the apocalypse? Well, what I am finding as time goes on is that we are all secretly Billy Joel.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1HpBL3t

  • Go Ask Alice
    Who reads “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”? The answer used to be: Anyone who can read. From the tangled tale of mass literacy one can pluck a few specific objects—books that were to be found in every household where there was somebody who could read and people who wanted to listen.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1I3GTKU

  • Boswick the Clown Doesn’t Understand Why Adults Are So Scared of Him
    No one is better at making children laugh than Boswick the Clown. He doesn’t understand why adults are so scared of him. Among the indignities the clown routinely endures, the theft of his Ralph Wiggum antenna topper barely registered.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1clyC9D

  • Why the worst time to drink coffee is actually in the morning
    Coffee has ingrained itself in the mechanisms of so many people’s early morning routines. There is something romantic about brewing a carafe, or holding a freshly bought cup close, first thing.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1KHIKIR

  • 25 Facts About ‘Jaws’ for Its 40th Anniversary
    Daah dun, daah dun, daah dun, dun dun, dun dun, dun dun. Today is the 40th anniversary of Steven Spielberg’s original blockbuster, Jaws. Here are 25 fascinating facts you may not have known about the Oscar-winning shark flick.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1dGMCME

  • The Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, and the Secret Ghostwriters of Children’s Fiction
    Along with the Nancy Drew series, almost all of the thrillers in the popular teenage franchise were produced by ghostwriters, thanks to a business model that proved to be prescient.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1FqsXHD

  • Patti Smith: punk’s poet laureate heads back on the road for her sins
    In 1975, with the opening line of her debut album Horses, Patti Smith set out her stall: “Jesus died for somebody’s sins,” she drawled, “but not mine.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1ImXnwM

  • Japanese artist Masayoshi Matsumoto Elevates Balloon Art to New Heights
    We want Masayoshi Matsumoto at our next birthday party! Although, admittedly, it may be difficult to get the kids to request things other than swords, shields and helmets.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1dJlFbh

  • The Iceman List
    I strongly recommend it. It’s one of those movies — a lot of movies from the 1980s feel this way — that didn’t hold up for a long time, but now it does.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1GiSF6E

  • Wes Anderson’s The Shining
    I noticed how Wes Anderson and Stanley Kubrick frame their shots in a similar way – this was the result: “The Grand Overlook Hotel”!
    Read: http://ift.tt/1GTRJnU

  • Learn to Dunk
    Michael McKnight Sports Illustrated A 42-year-old man with small hands and a dream.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1RJtoV5

  • Life
    A quarter of a million pregnancies in the UK end in miscarriage every year. Affecting over a fifth of pregnant women, there’s often little information available about what went wrong. While researching this piece I asked on social media if anyone would share their miscarriage experience with me.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1AO0fUw

bookmark_border16 years of thanks

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16 years is a long time and I’ll admit I’ve been looking back at the history of this blog, reading old posts and finding that it’s a fairly accurate depiction of my own journey. Obvious, I know, but given that there is so much I don’t write about, the blog posts I have published act as a signpost for my memory.

It has sparked further contemplation about my past and, on the whole, it’s been a positive experience to revisit the links and connections I’ve made throughout my life that still hold true today. They are few, but they are strong.

I’m forgetful and can be a little too focused on moving forward, looking ahead and making plans. I’m also not blessed with much sentimentality, although I can be a bit of a sop at times, so tend to lose sight of emotional connections and the value I gain from having other people in my life.

I can generalise this even further; life for me is typically about what’s happening next, not looking back at the what ifs.

But the past is what it is and I acknowledge that without it I wouldn’t be who I am today. That said,  as time goes on I naturally find myself distanced from the painful times, and I feel like I am finally comfortable that what lies behind me isn’t shaping the path ahead. I am not beholden to the dark clouds of my history.

Sometimes it’s good to pause, to look around at where you are, live life in the present, and as I look at my life today I realise just how lucky I am, and I have a lot of people to thank for that.

This post is a thank you to all of the following, who are listed chronologically purely because it’s the only fair way to do it. They’ve all meant more to me than I’ve probably told them (something I have gotten better at but I still need to work on).

First up, my parents for bringing me up to learn, to challenge, to be tolerant and challenge prejudice. For helping me when I needed it and for always being supportive, understanding and caring. It’s only now, as I approach middle-age (I’m in denial, shut up) that I realise how blessed I was to have them as parents…

…then they went and brought my sister into the world. I’m massively over-protective of her and in return she keeps me grounded just by being her wonderful, caring, ditzy self. We have many attributes alike and as we both get older it feels like we are growing closer, mostly because we are realising that we aren’t that much different from our parents and can revert to our childhood relationship in the blink of an eye. Hey, I’m a big brother, I’m SUPPOSED to wind her up!

My ex-wife Louise is next; I’ve known her for half my life and when we were together we experienced wonderful highs and brutally crushing lows. From her I learned the values of family and patience, and how to properly load a dishwasher (in-joke). Part of me remains sad it didn’t work out but I am glad we parted on good terms and remain friends to this day.

Speaking of friends – Stuart, Keith, Ian and William are mine – a constant source of laughter, support, ridicule, and beer. Our shared history grows richer even though we don’t see enough of each other. I take great comfort that whenever we are together, nothing really changes. They are my brothers, through thick and thin.

My girlfriend Kirsty. Part of me wishes I’d met her sooner. Despite only being together for a few years it feels like we’ve journeyed so so far. She has helped me get to know the real me, challenged me to be better, held me when I failed, and allowed me to support her and be part of her life. She is more amazing than she ever seems to realise and continues to surprise me. I know I wouldn’t be as happy as I am today without her.

My girlfriend Clare. When we first met I think both of us were a little caught out by how easy it seemed to be, how quickly we clicked. We may only have been together for a couple of years (almost) but she has helped me understand and embrace parts of my personality that I didn’t fully appreciate. I am lucky to be a part of her life.

And finally, but certainly not least, YOU dear reader.

I’ve made many friends in the 16 years I’ve been blogging, connections transferred from blogcircles to twitter, through blogmeets to weddings and beyond. I feel very lucky to still be in touch with so many people who all came together because of this strange hobby on the wonderfully weird world of the web.

Thank you, thank you, thank you all. I know I wouldn’t be me, without you.

I’ll stop now as I appear to have some dust or something in my eye…

bookmark_border16 years old

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Every year this gets a bit scarier to admit.

16 years ago the internet was a small place, hand crafted HTML ruled the waves, and the surf was more a gentle swell than the tsunamis we now have to negotiate whenever we dip our toes.

Even now I’m still not sure how much of this hobby is vanity, how much is curiosity, how much is a desire for validation, nor how much it’s just because I can. It’s never been a focus, and that’s probably why I still do it.

I published my first piece of writing 16 years ago today.

That means, in the UK, my blog can now, in no particular order:

  • Drink beer or cider with a meal in a pub or hotel, but still can’t buy it.
  • Fly a glider.
  • Have sex, gay or straight, as long as the other blog is also 16+.
  • Join the armed forces.
  • Earn the minimum wage.
  • Choose a doctor.
  • Get married (with parental consent).

All of which is really, really weird.

bookmark_borderIs Saturation Good or Bad?

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Poly Means Many: There are many aspects of polyamory. Each month, the PMM bloggers will write about their views on one of them. Links to all posts can be found at www.polymeansmany.com.

I’m going to try and write this month’s Poly Means Many piece without using the word that I think best sums up my approach to the topic of poly saturation because I’ve already dedicated an article to my thoughts on that topic. It begins with a b and ends in alance, but I’m not going to use that word here.

So, this month we are writing about saturation – is it just me or does at hint at lascivious activities? The dictionary definition includes: soaked, impregnated, or imbued thoroughly; charged thoroughly or completely; brought to a state of saturation.

Oh my.

That said, saturation also has a slightly negative connotation, as it’s frequently coupled with over, and as we all know, to be over saturated is not a good thing.

Of course when we apply the word saturation to polyamory, which itself is the notion of being able to love more than one person and suddenly the word saturation seems out of place, after all there is no such thing as ‘too much love’, right?

Love = relationships, regardless of how they are defined (and we should probably write about that word in the future, “relationships” will be a rich vein of thinking) so you could say, on the purest level, that it can’t be right that one person could have too many relationships, too much love.

But of course there are other constraints to a relationship, other reasons why someone who is poly may feel saturated, so I guess the real question I need to be asking myself is, how do I know?

Do I have too many relationships? Do I want to have more relationships than I can handle? How many is too many? How many is not enough?

As with most of these things, there is no one size fits all response. At present I have two relationships and have pondered, on and off, whether I could manage another, or for that matter if I even want another.

Being open about my poly lifestyle may help my own mindset, it may allow for a third wholly casual relationship (which may allow me to explore some other things my current partners can’t offer me) which itself would bring additional pressures on my current relationships both in terms of availability (time) and dealing with any New Relationship Energy (NRE) that would inevitably occur

And that’s all before finding someone who is happy with a casual relationship… and weirdly presumes that you can permanently keep a relationship in a single state. It’s no wonder my mind continues to churn.

Looking forward there are a myriad of thoughts to be considered and discussed both with myself and my partners and, as ever, that communication will help me see whether adding ‘one more’ to my current lifestyle is even feasible, let alone desirable.

Add in the other parts of my life, work, Yelp events, ISTC website development, holidays, getting to the gym more often, even down to the basics of keeping my flat tidy and other boring household chores… and yeah it might even come down to a matter of time, perhaps I am already happily saturated as it is.

Or perhaps the fact I even have to consider whether I am, or not, suggests that, at least emotionally, I feel that I still have some room in there for someone else?

Ultimately I’m not stressing about my current relationships, nor about whether I want/need another. These days the main advantage of being poly is one that I’ve not yet utilised, far from being in a place where saturation is an issue, I’m just enjoying the fact that being poly allows for that situation to arise naturally. The opportunity is there whether I force it (and seek out someone new) or it happens naturally and, for me, that’s a welcome balance to try and strike.

Dammit, I was trying to avoid that “b” word!