Oops

First and undeniable fact:  there are not multiple genders that is a physical impossibility we are all either one of the two genders.  It seems though that some people for physical, psychological or emotional reasons find the two genders confusing sometimes because there are problems from birth and sometimes because later influences cause them to become misaligned.  

There is nothing whatsoever wrong with individuals exploring the possibilities of their own and the opposite gender but the idea that there are more than the original two is nothing, can't be, but the wishful thinking of those suffering the insecurity of indecision, there is nothing wrong with exploration or uncertainty its likely that those who explore and/or are unsure are in a way healthier individuals than those who never question.

So nothing wrong with exploration, education or confusion at all, and these days after centuries of often self inflicted but mainly religious denial no one cares if a man longs to dress as a woman or vice versa.  No one cares if a man wants to become a woman or vice versa. No one cares if men want to have sex with men or women with women,   Marriage is still a problem but those who object to same sex marriages are declining in number and that is healthy and as it should be.

The problem, if there is one, may very likely be that those who have doubts are unsure of their identity.  Its not possible to forge an entirely new identity we are all the product of our genes, environment and upbringing and those are the ties that bind us far more securely than any ball and chain. Its a question of acceptance not the acceptance of others but of ourselves.  We are who we are and within the law we experiment and today after centuries of mostly religious hindrance no one really cares anymore, except perhaps there maybe opposition to change in some individual families, but that like so many family arguments is something that must and can only be solved within the home.

What is beginning to irritate me however is nothing to do with individuals but rather what has become the essential 'vice versa'.   We have to say it.  It shouldn't be necessary, very few members of the public, even less than those who are transgender, care, but the vociferous and continual nagging of a tiny minority have ensured that we must all repeat the same mantra.

Frankly and to use an old and unquestionably sexist colloquialism:  It gets on my tits.    

Concentrate!

Its been awhile since I studied.  I was going to start a course at Uni but found I couldn't get to quite a few of the subjects, I mean that literally, and had very reluctantly to withdraw, there are real advantages to living in a city!

I wasn't going to mention anything about this but my mind kept wandering back to ninety.  I mean its not a bad or difficult number.  If you get to ninety years most of us would consider that pretty good.  Ninety minutes is about the low average length of a film, and if its a film that interests us we usually consider it not long enough.   Being stuck in traffic ninety minutes can seem like the length of time itself and at the end when we finally escape we're often pretty explosive.

The average attention span can be as little as twelve or even eight seconds!  Can you imagine that? The Thing is I can't it seems impossibly quick to be able to absorb anything beyond the usual and oft derided first impression. I'm a great believer in first impressions.  Not for final cast in stone decisions but for that first glimpse of a character?  I wonder if we ever really change our mind I think maybe not or not entirely.

Our attention span obviously varies from the total absorption in something we enjoy and will remain fully engrossed to the end, to the stunned horror of something we totally oppose but will watch often in horrified fascination to the bitter end,  but that kind of hatred is also attention grabbing and holding so perhaps they are the same: the old 'love/hate' being the opposite sides of the same coin thing, but mostly our attention span flits like a butterfly landing than fluttering off in many and varied directions.

There are for eg. a few people who read this blog, now most of them are family and friends and whilst I think they probably take the time to read it rather than simply click and go I doubt they spend much of what might be called concentrated attention on it.  Probably all they do is skim the surface and to be fair that is probably the way I write most of the posts here to be read.  All are fairly short often remaining on top of rather than going deeply into the subject.  This is deliberate I don't like the idea that anyone would think I'm trying to sound like an expert and if I go all long winded and pontificational I'm kind of afraid I might give the very impression I want to avoid! Then again I'm actually not that much of an expert on anything.

Possibly the one subject we, including me, are all experts on is our own attention span and most of us being the kind of people who make up the 'average' person are therefore by default the kind of person who should know about attention spans in general, if not in an academic or analytical (spit) fashion then certainly in the much mocked 'I know what I like' one.

Ninety minutes is not a long time but it can seem like it.  Can you imagine sitting stone cold conscious in a dentist chair for ninety minutes?  I really can't, not without general anaesthetic anyway.   Similarly I can't imagine sitting through an entire live performance at the theatre if I dislike the subject, the performance or consider the acting, structure, or crucially the writing, to be inferior.  I may not be an expert at anything but I know what I like!

Power point is a boon to teaching, sales and entertainment but anyone who gives a power point display lasting ninety minutes, that's ninety minutes that will never be refunded out of a life by the way, is pushing his or her luck. Power point is not intended to be the kind of riveting stuff that holds our attention for a length of time in what is really in terms of education quite long most classes only last an hour or so.  Or perhaps its me I think of power point as intended to brush the surface and whet our appetite for more research or other study. Personally I think of it as a kind of advert for further research or maybe go out and buy the object, book or whatever.

In the real world people on a day trip on what is meant to be a relaxing Saturday may not want to find they've lost a whole ninety minutes!   on the for eg. ancient Greeks or whichever nationality you prefer.  Its asking a lot as is the presumption that all visitors go to a place because they are deeply fascinated most probably go out of curiosity, curiosity if not handled carefully can have the same attention grabbing advantage as the all too well known goldfish.  The other and really most important thing to keep in mind is competition, what else is going on in your field?  I write a blog and even though its deliberately mostly not advertised and private it is still and by default in competition with all the, presumably, millions of blogs out there.

Years ago a good friend of mine, really true and name withheld out of respect, would relate fascinating histories of the ancient Greeks. Whilst the audience were watching whichever opera or ballet some of us staff would be sitting in the foyer drinking coffee and listening to him.  He died of AIDs and his expertise, which is always particular to the individual, died with him.    I've probably forgotten most of the things he told us but what will always be with me is my surprise at finding a member of the catering staff, coffee bar, was such an expert.  My reaction, both patronising and snobbish became a lesson to me never to jump to conclusions about people, someone who wears an apron for a living may very well be an expert in a great deal more than coffee!  And yes, he held our attention, was a very interesting, informative and educational raconteur.

We're all the same when a subject interests us we take the time to listen but that time is rarely given in ninety minute packages.  More like a half hour here an hour there and follow ups on the bus or train to work or school.   Do take the time to think about attention span, Saturdays, and people wanting to cram as much into their 'spare time' as possible.

I could have filled this post with statistics I did check and those I give are as I read them, and as accurate as the article I read, but if I formally added them here what purpose would it serve?   I've not written this to cover the subject in either great depth or particular statistical accuracy but rather to skim it as we do most things. We acknowledge them with the glance and if sufficiently interested our glance becomes a longer look and then, perhaps, an in depth study.

How much time did you have to spare and how much of that precious time did you devote to this post.  Its taken me about three quarters of an hour to write, that's forty five minutes I won't see again!  I've a cat either side of me and both dogs at my feet they need my attention, in fact they are demanding it!  So maybe, just maybe, I've written this as a wee bit of a lesson to those who have the odd and very rare, five minutes from busy lives to spare, do others the courtesy of acknowledging in advance that they too have busy lives to lead.

Hair Raising

I think I must confess that I'm having what might be called, and indeed what I have been known to call others:  A Bad Hair Day, and believe me when I tell you every capital letter is justified.

My hair is long, its also wavy, very defiantly wavy.  In an ideal world I would have a live in hairdresser, short of winning the lottery it ain't ever gonna happen, I must tolerate my hair as best I can and I do but not often with either a smile or anything that could be described as humour.

It is long.  It can't decide if it is gray, brown, near black or white and it arrived at this lack of decision all by itself.  Once I wanted to see what my natural colour, after so many years of bleach and other expensive whatnot, looked like.   Now I know it looks as indecisive as the rest of me.

Usually now that its long I can pin it up in a not unattractive pile and go off doing my thing with hardly a care. Not so today for some reason I can't get it into its pile.  I just can't.  Its down my back, around my shoulders and were it not for strategically placed hair pins in my eyes.

Such is my distress I am seriously considering a trip to the hairdressers but not today, today I have to meet a friend in town and by the time I'm finished trying to control my hair it will almost certainly be well past closing time and getting on for chucking out time in the pubs, that's if I don't chicken out altogether and hide in here for the rest of the millennium.

Do You Ever

Do it?  Talk about money I mean, for a long time I've consciously avoided any mention of it except in the most careless and dismissive way, as if money doesn't matter, well we all know that's a lie!

I suppose it was inevitable that I would grow weary of the pretense I'm like everybody, there are things I need and can't afford, things I wish for and can't afford, people I would love to help and can't afford.   So kinda typical of everyone and I'm bored and becoming contemptuous of my cowardice, because that's what it is when we pretend our world is other than it is.

Such pretense is usually made worse because we're not pretending to ourselves we're pretending to anyone who may pass by, as if they are important.  Fuck that. You know I never swear except when I'm on the internet and that's another thing that's beginning to bother me!

Oh, I'm not saying I'm poverty stricken!  Far from it but I'm the same as all of us and there is as I grow older and slightly breathless, anxiety about those I love and can't help, and about the things I consider important and can't afford.  Once it would not have bothered me at all, which in itself was a mistake money should bother all of us, but back then there was always the availability of more, work longer hours, get another job and so on.   It was, well, I suppose it was normal.

Not any more, now I want to keep my home here and return to England.  I can always go back for holidays and stay with friends and relatives but I can't live independently there not as easily as I would like. Its not about the cost of property although that's obviously a consideration its more about running two homes, gas and electricity would have to be paid for two houses, maintenance would have to be done for both, and of course all and increasing govt charges would have to be paid for both.

So not a big deal just the difference between what a working person thinks is possible and what a retired person thinks of the same situation.   I'm not complaining but I've grown tired of what was feeling like a lie is all.  If I'm broke one month because of for eg...the piggin household charge or a household problem I want to be able to say so honestly and not pretend that such expenditure doesn't affect me.

I'm bored with pretending I don't worry about money or that I don't covet, actually I covet a lot just not my neighbours wife...And, whilst not flat broke I have all the money worries shared by many people of my age and younger here in Ireland

Antinous

Is there any evidence to suggest that Antinous didn't for eg commit suicide?   What was he but the plaything of a great man and much of  that man, Hadrians, subsequent actions could conceivably be categorized as remorse. The lad Antinous appears to have been a gentle, loving soul who lived a blameless life and died as so many of us do too soon.

Interestingly there is no evidence to say he didn't commit suicide.   All that is certain is that he drowned in the Nile on the same day, 24th October, as the local villagers were commemorating Osiris.  At the time there were rumours of murder or even that Antinous committed suicide to protect Hadrian, just plain drowning doesn't seem to have been given much credence.

I don't know but from all I've read, and I've read a fair bit, if written by what might be described as heavily biased opinion, there is no certainty around Antinous death but equally no apportioning blame, except I wonder if Hadrian maybe blamed himself.  

And then I thought what if it was a crime of passion?   Hmm what if the passionate person had this time been Vibia_Sabina?  Hadrians wife.   I can't be sure but I definitely lean toward the idea that whatever the men thought or to this day think wives and girlfriends take a somewhat different view of affairs and when that affair is with someone of the same sex?

Yep I can see a passionate response there right enough, but maybe not, maybe the marriage was one of convenience, they were cousins and such marriages would be common enough more a joining of wealth and power than lovers plighting their troth.  Perhaps extra marital affairs meant nothing to VIbia, maybe Antinous death was just an accident, they do happen.

It's possible to go to a dozen maybe a hundred sources, all of them will be more expert than I, but I chose this one they generally know what they're about:

http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/themes/leaders_and_rulers/hadrian/life_and_legacy.aspx

The signs were there from the beginning, remember?  I didn't think it necessary or advisable to say anything then you chose to open another closet door, why was that I wonder? Beltaine ring any bells...

No More!

Right!  That's it I've made a decision:  I'm not going to buy chicken again, ever.  Its not worth it and its not as if I like it that much.  This week I bought chicken for the first time in a couple of years, that doesn't include the precut pieces of chicken I buy for herself.   This is proper chicken what you cook in the oven.  I always roast chicken/turkey with butter not oil or lard so there is another reason not to buy it.

Aaanyhow, being eager for some roast chicken I cooked the first piece on Tuesday evening and I've been paying for that little mistake ever since.  Olly has decided to up sticks and camp outside the fridge door and herself has decided she won't eat the tasty, and expensive, chicken bits I buy just for her, apparently the chicken bits are not as moist, nor do they have the jelly that properly roasted chicken develops when its put in the fridge.

My life is a shambles it revolves around which tasty little morsel herself might fancy closely followed by which less favoured bit might be counted upon to pacify the rest of them.   I didn't eat much of the chicken.  The thing about cooking for five is that by the time you've fed the other four you're actually not hungry and in fact food of any description tends to look a bit, well, nauseating...I would say vomit inducing but sure we all know where that led.

Club Members Only

I recall the 'peoples peers' introduced by Tony pathological liar Blair in the early days of his premiership.  It was intended he said to bring real people into the Lords.  Yep, all us oiks were going to get the opportunity to apply to become peers and speak for the people.   I think the payment for such arduous duties was then £100 per day just for turning up plus of course expenses.

The first selection was announced and you guessed it it was packed to the beams with those who have never had their grubby little paws out of the public purse.  Yet another lie nailed.

I was reminded of this little PR success earlier today when I noticed that Jacqui Smith, former labour minister has been chosen to become Chairman of University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Trust.   Another nice little earner.....

Adorable

Adorable and, totally believable.

Game of Thrones

I like this so apt.

Always

When I was a little girl I loved beads and jewels, in those days the jewels were plastic or glass it didn't matter to me I loved them anyway and had long rows of what we used to call pop beads, they were plastic beads that clicked together.

I made daisy chains of both real and plastic daisies.  I had glass crystal pendents and fools gold necklaces and bracelets I made brooches of flowers and garlands for my hair.  

All my life if it glittered I would see it and I have discovered that age hasn't changed me a bit.  I love gemstones and as with everyone the years have taught me to be a little discerning but I still love pop beads and daisy chains too.