A Natural End

As you have probably noticed, this blog has become redundant and unused. After nearly 2 years to the day, and 436 posts, I think a natural end has come to this blog.

It's been a difficult few years, as I'm sure you will work out if you, for some reason, have enough spare time to read through the very up ups and the incredibly down downs that grace these pages. It used to serve as a tool to vent frustrations, whether it be incredibly honest accounts of friends' shortcomings, the frustration of working nights with that hideous human being, the occasional recollection of refereeing or just an outpouring of desperation at times. Now though, I feel it is best left to gather dust, as it does little but decrease the mood that means everything in my life at the moment.

The road to recovery is still long, with a great distance to travel. Thank you to all of you who have passed comments on to me, offering support and friendship, simply through reading the words in here that have sometimes sounded like a grumpy man complaining of the shortcomings of life. I'm very surprised how many people did read, given I sometimes felt like I used this tool as a way of talking to myself.

I'd like to leave you with a final thought. Everyone in life has their own troubles. Very few people can walk this Earth and claim to have the perfect recipe. There are lots of people out there, who have a darkness within them, unbeknown to the world outside and most of the time, these people have learnt to cover it up. These people are the world's best actors, and these people need not be judged by their actions from the eyes of people who have little idea how it feels. Depression can hit anyone, at any time, and it takes great courage to face up to it. I have started the long road to recovery. Anyone out there who is reading this, at any time, who feels as if the blackness is closing in on them, I am here if you need a consoling shoulder to cry on. Because I know what it feels like. And I don't want anyone to feel the same.

I know that's a sad way to end a thing of beauty, (if I say so myself), but it needed to be said. For the times in this blog have been dictated by the illness that lingers. It will be fixed, in time, but support is needed. Soon, two mittens will become one.

Wembley Way

Today was an exciting day, as I popped my England full international cherry, as we went to the "new" Wembley to watch their international friendly against World and European champions, Spain. How long can you get away with calling it "new" before it genuinely isnt? Or has that stage already passed and I'm late catching up?

The only matches in big stadia I had been to before all included long trips up north to my most visited city in England, Manchester, to watch The Red Devils. The buzz around matchdays, in and around the stadium, is a feeling you have to experience at some stage in your lifetime. The anticipation, the build-up, the excitement of a big matchday. The differences between it and simply sitting at home watching it on a cinema screen, are vast. At Old Trafford, there is a monotony of chippies, pubs and the like along Sir Matt Busby Way, which has become the walkway to the Theatre of Dreams. Today, we got out of the underground station, to be greeted by a huge arch in the distance and a long stretch of pathway. Wembley Way. All part of the experience, and walking up it sent a little tingle of presentiment down my spinal chord. Touts attempting to gain any "spare" tickets, food stands, with their inviting smells, to either side and merchandisers selling everything from scarves to hats to flags to poppies. Surrounded by proud Englishmen waving flags, and singing songs. It was only a friendly, but it was an occasion to savour none the less.

As we approached the stadium, finally, we found our entry point and went in. The temptation to buy a drink and something to eat was big, mainly because I had had very little lunch, but I had been warned about the prices. As I found out, when the man behind the counter had the cheek to charge Father Mitten £5 for a bottle of Carlsberg. My jaw nearly hit the ground. I didn't want to chuck my money away like that, so I went to the bookies and put a bet on. Oh ok, shut up! Looking at the odds, I went for a half-time score of 1-0 to England and a full-time score of 2-1 to Spain.. Ambitious? Yes. Were Spain going to kill us? Yes. Would we even score? I doubt it.

We made our way through to the main stadium, and was greeted with a sea of red seats and loud music. I was slightly underwhelmed if I'm honest with you. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it just looked like your average stadium, albeit it with 90,000 seats in. Still incredible, but lacking that punch that made it a fortress. A lot of waiting around then happened, before the best bit of the whole lot and the national anthems. The last time I had gone to an England match, (Under 21s), we had got there so late, that we missed the anthems. That was not going to happen again, and as we belted our way through a rendition of 'God Save The Queen', around 87,000 other Englishmen, I felt I had ticked one of life's boxes. It was highly eerie that we went straight from 87,000 singing voices to complete and utter silence however, as everyone graciously followed the minutes silence for our fallen heroes.

The game itself? As most of you will probably know, it wasn't a cracker. More like a game of 'Piggy in the Middle' starring Spain as the bullies and England as the boys chasing shadows. It would be interesting to see the stats actually, because I'm still not sure how we escaped with a 1-0 win. The goal itself wasn't incredible either, as I'm pretty sure my my dead goldfish of 10 years ago would of scored it. We were sat right behind that goal, about 5 rows back, so we were probably on TV! I'm used to it...

Still. A win's a win, even if it doesn't make us World Champions, and come the full time whistle, we filed out... Slowly... As we walked back down Wembley Way, with about 15,000 other football fans ahead of us, we thought it was going to be an incredible amount of time before we got home.. By this point, I could of literally eaten Red Rum, so I succumbed to the hideous prices and bought myself your average burger and chips plus a bottle of Ribena and a hot choc for Father Mitten, at the combined price of £12.90... These stands might aswell just take your wallet and physically empty it of all its contents. Then punch you in the face and call you a "muppet".

It didn't take as long as we thought it would. I hadn't even finished off my chips when I walked through the barrier in the underground station, and slowly but surely, we made our way home. It had been a good day, and despite the scandalous prices for food and drink, I'm glad I didn't spend TOO much money! And we had the Barmy Army behind us aswell!

Next week, I PLAN to begin preperation for my Met Day 1 Assessment Day, but whether it happens or not is a different story. Come Monday morning, I may actually feel like I'm employed. Tomorrow, I'm refereeing what I'm pretty sure will be an interesting match, before not doing a lot at all.

Cushty.

Turning That Leaf Over

You may have noticed a distinct lack of blog posts in recent times. Yes, some of this is down to a loss in inspiration for typing in here, but most of it is down to a change. A change that I reckon will do me more good than bad, and a change that will hopefully keep me in good stead for the times ahead, (rhyme!)

I've finally worked out that typing bad things in here does little to increase any bad stage that may trample it's way across my mind. It used to, but these days, it doesn't work that much. I find it much better to get out and about, even it is simply a walk to the shops or to town. Fresh air does you good, and as the air gets fresher as the darkness approaches, I find that is a more sensible and sure fire way of getting into good spirits.

What's happened recently? My initial application into the Metropoltan Police Special Constabulary has been accepted, meaning I move on to the next stage and the Day 1 Assessment. This happens on the 14th December, so I have plenty of time to prepare for it. I have a 'Team East' meeting on Monday at the Volunteer Centre, which, to be honest, I have no idea what it is. Nevertheless, I shall go down and see what it's all about. It must be better to get out of the house instead of staying in, flicking through the constant never ending TV channels, attempting in desperation to avoid Jeremy Kyle on ITV2.

In the world of refereeing, I was on the line this afternoon in a very one-sided Senior Trophy tie, which finished 9-1 to a rampant Crawley Green and tomorrow I'm in the middle of an Under 15 county cup tie, before the busy(ish) times of next week.

What does the future hold? Apart from the Met assessment, I'm off to Wembley with Father Mitten next Saturday for the England friendly against Spain and yesterday, a trip to Nottingham was confirmed with Billie, Beddoe and possibly Kettle! Makes a change from boring old Manchester hey... (joke Beddoe!)

As I say, this blog won't be updated with the horribly frequent nature it was before. I will write if something needs to be written, otherwise it's the turning of another new leaf. The amount of leaves I've "turned over" in the past couple of years is probably enough to de-leaf the local park. But given it's November, and the signs of anything bad seem a while away, things might just be different this time..

Phil Jupitus - The Clairvoyant

It's been a while since I last put anything in here, which is probably a good sign that I've been a bit busy recently. However, I feel too much has happened since Friday to document, so I shall give you a brief summary of the goings-on, before moving on to the main event!

On Friday, I left at roughly 10:30am for my 2pm presentation meeting at the Metropolitan Police Service Training HQ in Colindale, North London. It was a very good afternoon, with me meeting a couple of other potential candidates and learning a lot about the selection process and the stages to go through before becoming a fully-fledged member of the Special Constabulary. I even learned that, at a random stage throughout the training process, you will get sprayed in the face with CS Spray. Lovely. I got home at roughly 7pm, and despite being rather tired, we went out on the town. It was a pretty average night, with the only "highlight", (if you can call it that), was a rather long and irate justification from a man who looked more like he should belong in My Chemical Romance. His argument was how Robin Van Persie is the best striker in the world, and plays for the best team in the world, Arsenal. No.

Saturday was a bit of a non-event, as plans for a karaoke session blew up as people dropped out like flies. I was sort of expecting it to be honest, and even I was still a bit tired from the night before. I wouldn't have been able to give it 100%, and quite frankly, my amazing singing voice needs to be saved for a time with a bigger audience. Sunday was also a non-event, with the only highlight being correcting a horrific mistake from a losing manager on the laws of Association Football, before the pub quiz, and another session of, "Who Could Cheat The Best".

Which brings us to today. I had told CC that I would accompany him to a rather strange event happening in Milton Keynes. A mix of comedy, music and... clairvoyancy. A strange combination, I'm sure you'd agree, and despite me being possibly the biggest sceptic going, I went along with an open mind. Maybe these people were genuine? (Don't laugh). On the journey up there, we speculated as to what would happen, minorly excited at the prospect of the psychics getting it right. On arrival, we were greeted into the hall by a man who might have been half man, half beast and took a seat. We weren't expecting a bumper crowd of thousands, but were pleased to see roughly 20 people seated at small circular tables with a candle and a bowl full of crap advent calendar chocolate. The event started with a scary looking woman who offered to have our Tarot cards read, (to which we agreed), waited for her to go round other tables, before coming to us. In the meantime, we listened to a decent country singer, (despite her few hiccups), and the beginning of the main act, (which by the end of the night, was to be more entertaining than we expected).

After about 20 minutes, the time had come for our Tarot cards to be read. Me and CC both went into a side room, and chose a card for this scary looking woman to analyse. I chose the 'Authority' card, and listened as this woman vaguely skirted around some of the issues that had come up in my life, especially recently, but never really put her finger on the problem or possible solutions. I was neither impressed nor unimpressed by what she said, and chucked some money at an owl before leaving. Apparently it's superstitious? Whatever. We went back outside to the "main event" and started listening to the host, who would begin an "experiment".

He asked for 5 volunteers, so seeing as I was here to find out what it was about, I put myself forward. I went up to the front, along with 4 women. The host, (who was rather eccentric and... not funny throughout), said something along the lines of, "This young man is a lucky one, in a line full of ladies!" I didn't say anything, as I didn't know what to say, and then he said, "This is the point where you're going to tell me you're gay aren't you?"

I replied with, "Exactly that!" ... There was an awkward silence.

This experiment involved holding a pendulum out in front of you at arms length. If the pendulum started swaying, there was a spirit in the room, making it move. The only problem with this is, after about 10 minutes of holding a pendulum out at arms length, your arm starts to hurt and ache quite a lot. If your arm starts to hurt, it becomes more unsteady, so obviously the pendulum is going to move. The meer fact that they tried to prove that this fact of science was actually spirits, was the beginning of the end for me. I sat back down, and the host did another God awful "experiment" on a lady, that was so bad it made her walk out, before a break.

After the break, a chap called Martin Roberts, the clairvoyant, came on. Martin Roberts had crutches despite having the ability to walk perfectly fine. Martin Roberts is a carbon copy of Phil Jupitus. And Martin Roberts is the worst clairvoyant you can possibly imagine.

I have never been to an event even similar to this. I wasn't sure what to expect, but after witnessing this, I am now pretty sure that I will never be attending anything like this again. It wasn't boring. In fact, it was quite the opposite. It was so bad and so obviously fake, that it slowly got more and more laughable before CC and myself were trying, (and failing), to hold back laughter. This man, Martin Roberts, claimed to hear a lot of voices and spirits in his head. The problem was, that every one of these people was either a woman, always 5ft 2, called either Liz, Edith or Emily. Or a man, always 5ft 11, who was called Bill, Bob or Mark, wore metal-rimmed glasses, smoked a pipe and was in the Army. Every single time. There was even your customary fake crying from a girl at the front, who was so obviously in on the whole thing, it was almost as if these people thought we were mental invalids.

Every now and again, the acts changed, as the country singer came back on, and the scary looking woman came on and did her Tarot Card thing on a member of the audience who was also in on the act. By the end of the night, both CC and I were convinced we were the only members of the audience who were not in on the scheme. By the time Martin Roberts had come back on, for his 3rd attempt at trying to connect to imaginary spirits, connected to the same members of the rigged audience, we had given up. CC was beginning to laugh at the ridiculousness of it all, and this set me off. Time passed, and the same people were being dreamt up by this Loony Tune of a clairvoyant, before CC and I could take no more. We were both trying to tell the other to stop laughing as it was embarrassing, but we couldn't help ourselves. The turning point was CC predicting that the woman who the clairvoyant was "speaking to" was 5ft 2 and called Liz, and when Martin Roberts said exactly that, we burst out laughing to a point it was more embarrassing to stay than to get up and leave.

As we stepped outside, I could feel the tears of absolute joy streaming down my face. It was so bad, so outrageously stupid and fake, that it was quite possibly the funniest moment of my 2011. Even CC was crying with laughter, and despite telling ourselves we would stay for the midnight seance, we climbed into the car and drove off. God knows if we had stayed for the seance, we might have actually snapped in half through laughter. Either that or we'd have been kicked out.

On paper, tonight was a complete and utter failure. I could very easily have gone out into town, and enjoyed  a foam party whilst drinking lots of Jack Daniels. In reality though, despite it being astonishingly bad, it became one of the most enjoyable evenings I've had in a long time. The very fact it turned from a dodgy evening, and quite possibly a scam, into a scene of uncontrollable laughter and enjoyment was a recipe that cannot be forgotten.