Old Age - Bucket Listing

I remember once hearing a definition of old age (or it might be of past-it-tedness) that from that one particular moment in time you suddenly realise you will very probably not sleep with anybody new ever again. This is not simply a question of fidelity and monogamy although both are relevant but more about the options that expand or contract as we move through life. Perhaps it is concerned with possibilities or probabilities and no-one accepts that individuals are guaranteed to never make a mistake, walk on the wild side or play away (pick your own euphemism) but it is seriously unlikely that the latest Hollywood starlet (that shows my age to begin with) will want to help me tidy my attic. Test cricket watching is not very likely to raise their temperature either (although Val for some strange reason thinks Andrew Strauss is cute; as she does Jason Statham although I suspect that impulse may originate from a different section of the cerebral cortex).

These concepts of shared interests and lifestyle compromises imply that even if our hero had a body like a Greek God then certain avenues of exploration were, shall we say, closing relatively quickly. Now in reality with a waistline like the Tropic of Capricorn and a hairstyle in which the term Fringe can no longer be deemed believable it would need something special to draw anybody to look at my etchings.

So attention mysteriously shifts to what we would like to do if our days were numbered and we knew it to be so. One possibility is to purchase all those books such as 1001 paintings to see before you die and use this as the guidebook towards self-satisfaction before destruction. Of course using a book means that the agenda is already set. In fact these are someone else's choices and reflect their tastes not necessarily yours. Indeed perhaps we should already have been working through the books year by year as we approached the heavenly terminus or you can cherry pick which parts you wish to partake of although you would risk being left thinking if only I'd had time to... The same goes for Albums you must hear (subdivided into a separate sister publication of 1001 Classical Recordings to also hear). The publishing boom continues; 1001 Historic sites to visit, 1001 buildings to see, 1001 Gardens to go to, 1001 Natural Wonders,1001 movies to watch, 1001 Paintings, 1001 foods to try and even bizarrely 1001 things to spot in Fairyland. All before you die. All those experiences and so little time. If you are not too tired by this strenuous activity on the borders of ultimate incapacitation then one could take a less structured response.

I do not drive so travelling down Route 66 won't work. I have no money so visiting the Pyramids of Giza or anywhere outside Sheffield city centre is unlikely. The most likely scenario is to buy the above-mentioned books and look at the pictures. But it doesn't quite fit the dynamic impact pattern that we are looking for. Therefore in terms of experiential learning ; sleeping with supermodels is out, travel and variety are out and that leaves only two potential shots at immortality left. The first is achieved already. All life's experiences might be waiting for Carrie, my daughter and her fame, power, glory, achievement all reflect on us, her parents. On the other hand if she descends into a life of sin and depravity then similarly that is also down to us. And then there was one.

The final act in one's life when all other options are spent is to indulge in a purely personal relationship with Art. It definitely does not guarantee lasting fame or wealth but it can be unique and immensely satisfying. To create Art. Creativity. Whatever the art is; from Abstract expressionism to Zoological illustration, from doodling in the margins to monstrous conceptual installations towering over the little ants below it. On my bucket list are two entries - to be happy and to create something that is mine. The two may go together (but they may not) and Art is, of course, a fickle mistress. Now that I am 50 I have served my apprenticeship. As the school report once said and paraphrasing it slightly Christopher's work is "not bad but could do much better". 1001 paintings to paint before you die. 1001 Virgins to deflower. 1001 attempts to read Ulysses. 1001 books copying the Da Vinci code formula. 1001 Muesli recipes. 1001 religions to offer the truth.

Art, literature, Creativity, Style ; They are all about making a mark on something. How and Why is up to the individual.

Investing in What....

Yesterday was the day my partner Val was turned down for a job she had really set her heart on. Experience had warned her repeatedly that to invest too much interest and enthusiasm on behalf of her employers could only lead to disappointment. However she ignored those quiet threatening noises and applied anyway. She put aside her cynical thoughts and sceptical attitude towards management and hoped for the best.

She was not even granted an interview. Kiss of Death.

An immediate explanation beyond a few mumbled phrases was not given and an email was sent inviting Val to contact Kiss of Death's secretary (who was on holiday) to set up a meeting. By pushing a personal visit Val was given no reasoning behind the decision making process because Kiss had not had time to prepare for a meeting with her.

One might think that is not so unusual or surprising but it was for a position within the organisation she already works for. At best it translates as a very poor response to a valued worker, particularly bad public relations to a place that claims to be investing in people, and absolutely destructive to a staff morale prone to the odd upheaval.

We await the final appointment to try to witness the hiring process at its best. We expect the appointee to show us why they were picked and another was not. We will try not to take it personally. But, the point is, that it is personal. And it hurts.

Couch Potato with extra Mayo

Summer is rapidly approaching and my trainers are starting to become noisy. They sit there on the shelf glaring at me and daring to suggest that just perhaps, once again, you ought to shift some of that lard from around your midriff. They are cruel but accurate. I swear my body still thinks it runs 35 miles a week and is storing this largesse in case of an impending famine. It isn't as if I don't feel guilty - I do and every night as my eyes try to find my toes I tell myself - I will run, I will get fit, I will shed this mysterious five stones that somehow has attached itself to me. Somehow ! I know how, the anchor that tightens my trousers seemingly by day and night, is a terrible disfiguring disease. Found more often in the United States it has nevertheless made its way to South Yorkshire. Fatbastard's Doughnutitis is a creeping sort of virus that sneaks up on you in the lunch and tea breaks of Test Matches - those 5 days you spend pinned in the armchair admiring the battle between bat and ball. And subtly, gently, session by session, you turn into a ball.

One is still able to appreciate Athleticism simply not perform it. I remember that first great sentence of "The Competitive Runner's Handbook" which said "You are an athlete" and at that time I believed it. Nowadays those PB days of 1.34 are long gone. In the last Sheffield Half Marathon I ran in it was over 3 hours until I finished. The stewards were dozing and failed to point me into the stadium, the medals were all gone and the following sweep bus spend the whole race trying to overtake me.
And now I want to run again. I have considered retirement but the thought of developing larger breasts than my partner is distinctly disturbing. After my kidney transplant I was so keen to run, presumably just because I always had done and was now not allowed to. I counted down the 90 days until I could run and I then did. Slowly. And I got slower. And I got fatter. Until now.

Now I aim to change this. To change the worst excesses of my debauched lifestyle. To cast away champagne and oysters, foie gras and melted toblerone (on cornish ice cream); I have divorced my doughnuts, discarded my Dime bars, pole-axed my pork scratchings. I know it will be difficult and I will not lament my pre-transplant times (1995) but set up a set of new criteria. I will run to smell the roses, to feel the wind on my face, to face the oncoming traffic, to fit into a size 38 waist once more. I will let you know how I get on.

Where are you ?

As I approach the half century and consider my impact upon the world (minimal) and the world's impact on me (monstrous) I lie awake at night and consider other more important questions. Will Sheffield Wednesday ever win the Champions League ? Will I ever lose those last few ounces to bring me back to my fighting weight (five stones to be precise) ? Will I find out where two of my school friends disappeared to ?
It is not urgent. I am simply curious. If they are hiding from the combined police forces of the Western world then I don't want them to give themselves up. I simply wonder. My friend Sam, possibly the finest full back since Skinner Normanton to destroy a ball-juggling Fleur-de-lys Ronaldo, finds a real faith in God and does his work in difficult conditions. But where are Michael Duerden and Jerome Clough ?

Michael, from Todmorden, out there in the badlands between Yorkshire and Lancashire was the bloke I always picked first in my footy team as I struggled to put a game together on those desolate Fylde coast Sundays.
Jerome was more of a mystery. Father something to do with Coca-Cola and Liberia but like Michael never mentioned in any Rossallian newspapers. I hope they have prospered and I really would like to know how they have got on with their lives. I have no intentions of appearing at their front door to reminisce about juvenile pranks or profound speculations about the merits of boarding schools (or their failings).

Out of all the people you know and talk with regularly where do thoughts like this come from ? Why these two boys/men - last seen in 1976 ? Why have their names floated back to me all of a sudden. If for instance my life was summarised as rapidly as possible it would read. University. Failed. Dole. Job. Thinking; temporary. Still there now. Clearly Permanent. Librarian. Married. Divorced. Kidney failure. Transplant. Val. Baby. Carrie. Now 11. Which brings me back to the impact of an individual and the connections that he or her makes around him. C. M. Duerden - Where are you ? J. Clough - Where are you ? Is it really a small world ?

Rossall School was a strange environment to grow up in. I always felt somewhat of an outsider and somewhat rebellious but always with the feeling that my idealism might be, after all, misplaced. I couldn't play the games which that world wanted then and I certainly have not since. I still wait for that Eureka moment when the world I inhabit now finally makes sense and I understand it. If I have found answers to questions they have come from the pages of a book. Answers balanced between interpretation and criticism but not essentially mine. I think I am still doing now what I did then. I act, I posture, I pretend, I look as if I am in control but I am not. And then suddenly I think in the midst of this middle age, in the dark of the night, I wonder Whatever happened to ....

Xanadu Thinking Processes.....

What I want. What I really really want is a Curriculum, a Reading List, a Prospectus which will direct my thinking and my reading for the rest of my life. It would obviously allow space for digressions or illogical rampages into alien territory or more esoteric tangents. It would supply direction and justification and would allow me to feel I was moving towards an indefinable purpose that someone or something had designed.

It is not as if my social life intrudes. Partying has never really appealed (even to my baser instincts). I think I was born old and I was born unsociable and my partial deafness has not made that any easier. I am not a joiner of clubs. I am a loner but a contented loner with a partner and a family (as opposed to the serial killer loner with a fridge full of body parts). Therefore when I tinkered with the idea of starting a running club (unofficially), just Colin (my brother) and I, in order to formalise our training I hit upon the name Xanadu. Since this was in essence a pretend club, a fantasy running club, Xanadu struck me as just the right name. This was probably based on a gentle admiration for the poem but also for the weird combination of letters in some bizarre scrabblesque thinking process. It did not inspire me to break into the elite fields of international athletics but I do still like the name. It denoted creativity and imagination and romanticism the upside of sweat and blisters. Now in my slovenly dotage the name has developed farther.
Indeed to the extent that if I ever developed a company (which I wouldn't want to) and they were marketing something or indeed anything then I imagine it would most likely be for a service or an educational use - a teaching process to enable a different style of learning or to empower an individual to comprehend a more varied set of experiences. It would be a kind of Creative Project management - a self help fix-it guide with a zenlike attitude to results and profit margins.
I see it all, life probably too, as a game.

With Xanadu thinking the world is in front of us we simply need to see it differently. To see it, according to Alan Fletcher - sideways.

Xanadu Thinking might be a range of tools, meditation or analytic tools which will help the individual towards the art of seeing Sideways. In 2008 this is the year that the magic number 50 will finally be reached. The half century. Halfway there or halfway gone. Glass half empty Glass half full. You pays your money and you makes your choice. Mortality first rings my doorbell. The first footstep is heard above.

Bookshops are filled with books listing 1001 films, books, gardens, paintings, places, natural wonders, to see before you die. As if living is merely observation or worse; a kind of metaphysical twitching where you tick the birds off in the cosmic birdbook before that great Ornithologist in the sky points his pigeon-shitted digit in your direction.

I am left again with the search for a reason. For a protocol to be governed by - for a posterity in which a memory may survive. For an inheritance that would be deemed worthwhile. For a rebirth, a renaissance of what makes living worthwhile and fulfilling. For Zanadu thinking. Incorporated.

January Blues... begging for it......

It is cold and grey outside and it feels cold and grey inside. The last payday was middle December and the next is the end of January. As expected that glorious feeling of space and time and freedom is replaced by the tightly repressed constriction of the working day. Hopes and dreams are reduced to a flickering candle-powered image like an early silent movie jerkily hopping from frame to frame in a sepia world of doom and gloom.

The unlikely possibilities of a windfall bequest from a wealthy relative or the miraculous jackpot of those six magic lottery numbers seem even farther away than usual (and they have never appeared very near). As my bank account hovers in those margins between black and red like the old Manchester City away kit the image of a fiscal desert dry and barren and dessicated floats through my mind. Insofar as it might help I have decided to grasp the bull market by the horns of a dilemma and whisper goodbye to my pride and my dignity.

Therefore I am making an appeal to anybody out there with a spare (I figured) eighty thousand pounds. An amount that I reckon that takes care of my mortgage, my bank loan and my credit card spending. Please notice that I am not seeking to retire from my current job nor am I wishing to indulge in the pamperings of luxury. I crave no Mediterranean rock upon which to bask nor an automobile to dazzle the roads of South Yorkshire. I desire only a freedom from debt and from worry. Constant worry.

I have decided to consider this as my approach to certain individuals such as Ms Paris Hilton or Ms Tara Palmer-Tomkinson, people who have suffered abuse at the hands of pundits, the press and certain portions of the general populace. Not because I particularly identify with them and have been personally villified but because such attacks offend my sense of fair play and decency. They are, in effect free individuals and can pursue their own dreams irrespective of what anybody else may see, say or think. I thought about Mr Bill Gates or whichever Mr Getty actually holds the purse-strings these days but I decided not to bother with them as their funds (albeit unlimited) may in fact be already allocated. Yes, this would and certainly will constitute an act of Charity but it would not represent a grand gesture or a publicity coup to anybody except myself and my family. The wishes of the donor would be paramount. I can definitely keep either a secret or hold a press conference. The choice is yours. I know this reads like one of those internet scams that seem to come from the needy third world based in the affluence of the free world but this is in essence simply, totally, genuine begging and I must admit I do not really expect any great success. In fact judging by the fact that I seem to be writing to an audience of one (myself) I expect no response at all (unless my schizophrenia worsens drastically).

My fingers are crossed (well, not actually because it makes typing difficult; they are only metaphorically crossed) and I await the flood of donations that might be heading my way. Obviously anybody is free to participate if they so desire - there is no sense of threat or intimidation involved, nor would I accept any personal gifts above the target of eighty thousand pounds (the overspill would be donated to the Northern General Hospital's Renal Unit). Once my mortgage was paid off and essentially my puny wage becomes disposable income (a phrase I have never used before) I feel that many more options would become available for us as a family which can only be for the better. I await the onset of a more relaxed and contemplative future.