BLOG 238: Shuttlecock

'An astonishing study of forms of guilt and puckering now and then into outrageous humour' 

-Sunday Times review of the classic 80's novel Shuttlecock. 

Every decade has it's book, and back in 1981 you were either illiterate or foetal if you had not picked up a copy of Graham Swifts novel, which later went on to be a movie starring Alan Bates. 

The  title refers to a codename for a spy, and was so chosen because unlike balls commonly used in racquet sports, the shuttlecock delivers a much higher top speed along with several other unique aerodynamic properties. Because of this to oppose the 'Shuttlecock'  aerobic stamina, agility, explosive strength, speed and precision would be demanded as entry level requirements. And yet there is something laughable about a shuttlecock... it just never looks like it could pose a threat. 

When I was a child I used to collect them. Strange funny corks wrapped with a skirt of feathers... and to add to the allure they came with so many strange tales... (the feathers only come from the left wing of a duck or a goose). They appealed to my childish self. They were quite simply a blend of strength and underestimation that I liked.  

As a non sporty adult, I find it amusing that so many of my closest friends chose Badminton, Jainzi or Battledore as their chosen methods of keeping fit... although my days of collecting 'birdies' as I used to call them, are long behind me... I can't help but smile when ever I see a shuttlecock. There remains something defiant about something that looks so silly and yet can routinely slice the elements at speeds of over 200mph. 

As an adult I find my self more and more feeling like a shuttlecock in many areas of my life. I just don't look like I could possibly deliver. On first glance I look decorative. Spend more time and you'll notice the lack of solidity. A simple person may read that like the cork and feather skirt that makes up the shuttlecock I am a combination that surely must be fanciful and fragile. And yes to a point that may be true... feathers are often painted pretty colours and do fall from a shuttlecock in play. But don't underestimate me. I come out fast and I change speed at will. I force rapid changes of direction and demand explosive power to keep up. I'll cause injury if you can't. 

I am everything I appear to be - but I am so much more. Often I will be what you didn't expect. Don't take me on if you can't get that or you will get hurt. 

Sorry about that. 

But it is... What it is. 

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Blog 237 Choice (regrets, desires and what-ifs)

“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.”  Confucius

Events this weekend have got me thinking about the importance of choice. I've been sorting out my love life (oh yes… the It’s Complicated status on Facebook was invented for me), and then suddenly out of the blue something happened that brought everything into sharp focus. Nothing is that complicated really. Sometimes you need to have your attention drawn to something else entirely to make you realise that sometimes the only thing making stuff complicated are the choices we make.

Yep… I had the lightbulb moment (and so early in 2013 too!). But weirder than that.. Facebook contributed to my enlightenment! Go figure??

So… what happened was that I was happily bantering on Facebook with my mate The Mikster. Then suddenly a pop up appeared… I’d been In-boxed.  For those who have resisted Facebook, In-boxing is Facebook’s equivalent of email, where just about anyone who knows your Facebook-Moniker, can send you a private message.

Anyway, low and behold, I had received a message from Macey who many years ago used to be a very close personal friend of mine. We fell out over a difference of opinion almost four years ago now…I had not expected to ever hear from her again. But there it was… an Inbox from her. Resisting the urge to delete unread – I opened the message. I’m glad I did .It was the most mature, well thought out, categorically honest and heartfelt apology I have ever come across.

It left me with little choice but to accept it (I may be a lot of things but belligerently petty is not one of them).

And dare I say it, a lot of people will exhale with relief (especially The Mikster who along with many mutual friends have walked the tightrope between Camp Jax and Camp Macey and delicately juggled everything so that the riftees need never be in the same room at the same time).

And so a rift is overcome.

Over the almost four years Macey and I haven’t spoken, many in Camp Jax have. Many have said it was always destined that we would fall out. They say that people come into your life for reasons, seasons or for ever and it was destined that Macey and I could not be forever people.

Comforting as that may be when crap happens… that line of thinking is to be blunt… just BOLLIX!

Life is random. Life does not make sense. Life is not pre-destined.

People have free will. People will do great things. People will fuck up.  All we have are our choices. And everything else… is just regrets, desires and what-ifs.

Macey chose to do what she did as much I chose to do what I did. She chose to believe she was right. I chose to be obdurate in the belief that she was wrong.  I chose to walk away from the friendship. She chose to let me.

We chose not to communicate for almost four years. We chose to put our mutual friends through the politics of ensuring we were never in the same room at the same time for all that time .

And then

She chose to apologise. I chose to accept it.  And we have chosen to go on from here.

It could have been a zillion other maps and outcomes if we chose them.

We may have regrets about outcomes achieved.

We may desire outcomes unachieved.

We may dwell on the what-if outcomes till we are blue in the face…

But all those non-choices are in the ether. If you don’t make choices you can’t blame destiny. You have to live with the regrets the unfilled desire and the zillion what-if scenarios.

What we really have are the consequences of the decisions we ACTUALLY made and continue to make.  Because…

Life, quite simply is nothing more than the choices you make.

And Life, quite simply is really that complicated.

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BLOG 236: Funeral for an old friend

"There's more poetry in a bored shop assistant's feckless sigh than a thousand soulless digital downloads" @montynero  on Twitter regarding the demise of the 91yr old music retailer HMV 

The great composer Elgar opened the flagship HMV on Oxford Street. His Masters Voice as it was still known at that time is the rather poetically named and now ill fated British Global Retail Chain that since the dawn of the gramophone in the late 1890's has rather dominated the buying of the recorded voice. 

Although there is a HMV in every town worth talking about, it is the flagship store on Oxford Street London that stirs the emotion. It saw off competition from the likes of the Virgin Megastore and became less of a store and more of a destination for music lovers from around the world. Famously HMV did Playlist CD's and used to give them away free when you bought selected titles. These were exclusive collections of the days new music. 

As an adult those playlist introduced me to artists such as Thirteen Senses, Massive Attack, The Dears, Roni Size, De la Soul, Biffy Clyro,  and of course Funeral for a Friend .... to name but a few. I love HMV for that. They'd play featured albums, stuff that seldom got radio play... so that if you were in one of their emporiums your ears would be educated... and of course if you liked it... you could buy it. 

Britain isn't known for fluffy customer service and I for one am not gonna blow smoke up any ones ass by claiming HMV were an exception to the rule. Yeah I've had great salespeople in their stores... and I've had crap ones. But one thing I can say is from my teens to this day - I've always found that in HMV the staff KNOW music. 

As a music obsessed youth, HMV lured me through it's doors with the promise that if I could hum a tune - the staff could find it. 

The first thing you have to understand is that being a suburban teen, the opportunities for buying recorded music were somewhat limited. My local high street could only serve you chart music … and that was over the counter at Woolworths. The opportunities for browsing along side other music lovers were somewhat stunted. My music taste as always been somewhat eclectic and whilst I am happy to tap a foot to what ever has made the playlist of the popular radio stations, when it comes to music ownership for play on demand, my tastes tend to reflect my romances with sub-cultures or lyrics that capture my  ideology of  the week.  Quite often my requests for recordings would be met by a rather stunned expression from the woolies counter girl and a long wait while the manager scratched his head... only to be told that they couldn't get what ever it was I asked for. I soon learned that the best solution would be to take my musical quest... into London. 

So, I'd  travel up to town from the borders of Kent on a variety of buses and get off at Trafalgar Square and quite literally infuse my lungs with the chewy London air as I saluted Nelson high on his pigeon infested column. But I was not in town to play tourist.                                                              

I'd walk towards St Martins in Fields and hurry up Charing Cross Road where the side roads would boast many small independent record stores. Having spent many an hour browsing and ordering imports from counter clerks with superior attitudes (who quite frankly would actually sniff at my eclectic choices) I'd continue my journey up to Tottenham Court Road (TCR) where lay the Virgin Megastore. This emporium was always a fur coat/no knickers affair... unlike the sniffy musoos of the independent store, the VM staff were seemingly models and actors awaiting the big break and could do little more than point if you asked them a music related question. It was a great place to pick up music related tee-shirts though - and the carrier bag was particularly cool. (I used to keep them pristine - so I could use them again!) So it was never a waste of time popping into VM....You just had to remember not to bother the staff with service requests, as they had lip gloss to apply and pouts to practice. 

I'd then enter the final furlong of my music walk... which would be the big walk from TCR to Bond Street. Yes... there was always a detor at Oxford Circus to ride the escalators into the bowels of Top Shop (Don't condemn me for being impressed ...I was a suburban teen!). But the big destination was ALWAYS Oxford street...HMV. Even as a callow youth I knew the benefit of saving the best for last. 

As I said... HMV (unlike VM) were not 'johnny come lately's jumping on the wagon'. They had been selling recorded music since the inception of the gramophone... quite simply the just did it better than anyone else. Frankly... if they didn't sell it... you probably wouldn't want it. Simples. 

Even their teeny tiniest store in the back waters of somewhere had a tardis like quality...  I still have no idea how they create that illusion of space amongst all that stuff, but they did. They designed their stores so you could quite simply spend hours immersed in an entertainment world.However the flagship store next to Bond Street tube station on Oxford St was a palace dedicated to the music lover. 

A large chunk of my youth has been spent within its walls. 

I have a terrible memory for names of things. Friends are so familiar with my flappy hand gestures and my  "you know ….oojamaflip!". At HMV I'd approach the staff (kind of a hybrid betwwen the beardy musoos of Charing Cross Road and the supermodels-in-waiting of VM)… they always seemed to be in the middle of a rather important music debate and would pause, then look at me with such focus, I'd sometimes stumble over my words.  

"Whatchya lookin for?" 

"Ah.... um...I don't know who recorded it … but it kind of goes like ...um this..." 

The staff would never seem bewildered when I tried to recreate the sound of a tune that had that week stirred my soul. (Amazingly...as I cannot sing!)

"dah dah da da dah da dah da da da dum lah" I'd warble 

The counter staff would be almost stonelike  - I say almost as the only thing that would move would be the darting of eyes as they'd quickly process my catawalling against the musical encyclopedia within the space between their ears. And in seconds... without breaking the stone like pose they'd say: 

"Morcheeba; 'Blindfold', here's listen to this... that's it yeah? - £3.99 - I'll put this months playlist in the bag yeah?"                                         

As I'd nod in awe the item is rung up and popped in the famous black bag with the huge neon pink logo. 

Then they'd sigh and return to their conversation as if nothing had interupted it. Yeah, not the greatest customer service, but I'd always leave happy. These people KNEW music. Which was why i'd make the trek. It never disapointed.

HMV was always, always, more than just a shop to me - even on this island of shopkeepers.  It was the place music lovers went. It was a destination. 

However, the day of the music shop, destination or otherwise is over...73.4% of music is now downloaded or bought online. 

Times have changed and the nation accepts that we are resolutely in the digital era.

Britain has many world class retailers but to date has been pretty unsuccessful in producing any world class successful online companies. Which is why its nationals have deeply contributed to the success and growth of foreign giants ITunes, NetFlix, Amazon, Ebay etc. 

HMV's business model of  retail emporiums for music lovers simply became increasingly irrelevant and unsustainable. It did not react early enough to the digital trend; it did not seem to realise that even when you are the best of the best you have to continually give shoppers a reason to keep buying from it. So HMV has died.

However... we are British... which means like the curtailing of O'levels, the demise of Woolies and the death of our empire... we will not absorb ourselves with  how it came to be that HMV is no more. 

Instead we will recall that a Jack Russell called Nipper turned his head when he heard his masters voice some through a gramophone - then  we shall grieve, tell tall tales, and immerse ourselves in nostalgia. 

Because.... well, what else can we do at a funeral for an old friend?

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