A quiz is a quiz

So normally on a Thursday night I used to run the pub quiz. But since Christmas I haven’t really been up to it, then I got another contract in etc. So I’ve been doing ‘Jays Virtual Quiz’, the one we all did during covid. It’s still a quiz, but I don’t drink seven pints.

Update on the sleeping thing. Listened to a podcast earlier that was doing a review of activity tracker watches. It concluded that the sleep tracking isn’t that accurate. Oh well, if I’m awake I’m awake and boy I was awake all of last night. Still one more night to go and then back on th booze for the weekend. Just try not to binge.

Where there’s a will there’s probably a way

So I’ve been trying to update my will. Should be straightforward. It isn’t. First off I refuse to pay for it. If I’m going to make a large donation to a charity then they can pay for it, call it ‘pay it forward’ if you like. So I’ve been trying through Battersea Dogs Home, so far they have put me in touch with a company that called me back eventually and told me to ignore all the website warnings and use the online form. I did this to the point where the form was not able to apply my wishes. Send an email, get an email back asking what additional ‘features’ I require, replied. Got an email back stating how much it would cost. Emailed back and said ‘Battersea will cover the cost of a phone will’. Got an email back saying ‘oh yes they will’, please book an appointment on this link…. it was the same link I started with. Joy.

Wicked little letters

With Sky cinema I get two free tickets a month, so try and go and see something. Sometimes not so great, but other times fantastic. Tonight’s offering was ‘Wicked little letters’, a story based probably about late 1940’s. About poison pen letters. I won’t give the plot away as it’s well worth seeing. Olivia Colman was outstanding and the swearing was out of this world. And as they say….it’s a night out.

To sleep or not to sleep, that was the question

So I was convinced that when I did not drink, I could not sleep. Awake all night, watching the clock. Then I bought a new Apple watch. Was going to trade the old one in, but decided to keep it as the battery was good enough to last over night and measure my sleep patterns.

A couple of weeks have passed, so I have quite a bit of nightly data. I was expecting to see on the nights I hadn’t drank anything quite a lot of ‘awake’ time, very little ‘deep’ sleep and not much of anything else either. Now here is the strange thing, there is virtually no difference. Takes about the same time to fall asleep (20-25 minutes), same number of deep sleep periods and awake times. So there we have it, it’s all in my head. I think the only difference is I’m conscious of the awake time when I’m coherent and not when I’ve been drinking.

Now I know this knowledge, I have no real issues getting to sleep. As long as I’m relaxed and have a clear head, all is good. I found reading for an hour before lights out is a good way to unwind. I did try some of the ‘sounds’ and meditation stuff, but that just kept me awake.

So at the moment I’m trying to be ‘good’ and not drink on ‘school’ nights. Lets see how long it lasts.

The blog is back, be warned

So no new posts for over a year? Okay, lazy shit, or maybe just busy on other things. So here we go on a new iPad (well refurbished). Keyboard hasn’t arrived yet so using the touchscreen for now. A lot has happened over recent years and no doubt I’ll waffle. But good to be back.

One last show

So now I’m sat listening to Scott Mills and Chris Stark’s last show. Scott has been on Radio One for the past twenty-four years and with Chris for the at least the last ten. I must admit I haven’t listened for the past few years, nothing to do with the show, more to do with the playlist, it’s certainly not me.

Scott is moving to Radio Two (God’s waiting room for presenters), Chris is off to some commercial station. Never again will we have ‘innuendo bingo’, with talk of thick beef curtains. Never again will we have ‘Scott Mills the musical’.

Scott is one year younger than me, I’ve basically spent the best part of my working life listening to him, we’ve kind of grown up together weirdly. I will listen in on Radio Two when he moves there (Replacing Steve Wright), but the chemistry will be different.

It’s been a few years of familiar shows moving on. First it was ‘The organist entertains’ and ‘Listen to the band’. The former is now available as a sort of podcast, the latter is as well if you want to pay for it. Then just last week it was Paul O’Grady after fourteen years.

I’ve enjoyed listening to the last few shows this week, there have been a lot of ‘lol’s’. Especially when I was just out walking the dog, I was peeing myself through the commercial estate. It’s brought back a lot of fun memories of times past.

But times move on, we all age, our tastes change, we can’t stay young forever, no matter how much we try, or want to. You can’t stay a Radio One deejay forever, it is after all a station for fifteen to twenty-four year old’s, being forty-nine, it’s time to go.

And one other thing about Scott, he’s gay, but not once has ever flaunted it, not once. He is a fantastic role model and went on to prove an important thing, you can be a gay man and have great relationships with straight men.

It’s now coming into the last half hour of the show, there is a bit of a tear in my eye (I don’t think it’s a hundredth of what’s in theirs.) And he’s just played Mariah Carey’s ‘All I want for Christmas is you’, after all, it’s only four months to go.

And Chris Stark’s song choice, perfect, ‘The Streets’, ‘Dry your eyes’.

Scott’s choice, ‘Christina Aguilera’, ‘Beautiful’.

The final song? Something came to me this morning, I’m not a gambling man, but if I was going to put fifty quid on a track it would be, ‘Green Day’, ‘Time of your life’.

Would I have won the money?

No.

It was ‘One direction’, ‘Night changes’.

Love you, bye.

It’s not real

So Sunday I went out drank five pints then got home and downed a bottle of wine and watched Britain’s got talent. Next morning I couldn’t remember almost any of it. On Monday I decided enough was enough so didn’t drink anything. But then I had to solve the sleeping issue. I came up with a system, based on ‘hours awake’ and involved a combination of Zopiclone and L-Theanine. Thankfully this actually worked, but Zopiclone is known to block out the important R.E.M. sleep, so knew payback was in order.

Wednesday I was in two minds, but ended up doing gates at the track, going to to the pub to do the first part of quiz and downing a pint of coke. I then drove back home, got changed out of my racing kit and then walked back to the pub. I then consumed four pints over the next three hours and boy did I struggle with the last one, I think I spent an hour just on that.

When I got home I had one of those mini pizza things, I’d already had a cheese burger at the track. I then went to bed. Really I should have had a shower as I probably stank. And then it started, the tossing and turning, went on for about five hours. I then popped a L-Theanine tablet and R.E.M. finally popped in. Now strange things started to happen. You are afraid to close your eyes as you know your brain will play tricks on you, you can’t distinguish between whats fake and whats reality. It’s a very strange state to be in. You do have to stop yourself and go ‘It’s not real’, then you suddenly wake up, or do you? You may go through multiple levels of waking up. Who knows I may even not actually be writing this, I may wake up again. After an hour or so the strangeness stops and you can actually close your eyes in confidence.

I’ve got no plans to drink this evening (I have made a little promise to myself if I keep everything under control), roll on reality, or lack of….

Derren Brown – Showman

Always enjoyed Derren Brown, seen many of his shows live over the years. This one though was a bit special and more personal. It was dedicated to his dad who passed during covid. Being from Bristol this was the show he was supposed to come and see. I won’t reveal anything about the show other than during the second half there was something that just completely amazed me, I can work out how most of the stuff is done, but that was just mind blowing.

The one thing that struck with me is there was a number of ‘end of life’ statements given by people. ‘I wish I lived the life I wanted’ and ‘I wish I took more risks’, quite poignant.

Redemption day

So on a (probably) cold January day in 1997 I moved into my first house and paid my first mortgage payment. Twenty-five years later I’ve just paid my last. It was an interest only mortgage that has been offset for years so has never cost me anything. The capitol has slowly been cut down as they still take the interest amount, so been acting like a small repayment mortgage. But today is the so called ‘Redemption day’, they give you a figure and you pay it and bye bye mortgage. That payment has now been made. Where did that twenty-five years go? The endowment came out last December. That’s it now, apart from the final balance (I think they owe me some), it’s over, the house is mine. Aged fifty. I supposed I should be happy, but one form of anxiety soon replaces the last one. I’ll now just be obsessed with pension pots and fund portfolios.

Then something strange happened

Phone pinged at 22:40 on the 6th. It was a message from the ex. it was an ‘opener’, or throw away comment if you like. But we then proceeded to have the longest conversation (albeit by text) that we’d had in about four years.

I even asked the question……and got the reply ‘I changed faith not positions’, which made me crack up. I said I’d take them both out to dinner when they get back from honeymoon, it will be nice to catch up, banter. The only things I can recall these days are all the great places we visited around the world and adventures we had. I’m sure there are arguments and bad times, but they’ve all but faded from memory.

Then I began to realise something. You can’t erase someone from your timeline. Trying to cover up twelve years of your life is like having those ‘missing six months’ in a CV. Whoever is looking at it will not worry about the other thirty years but will be digging to find out what happened then. He wouldn’t be where he is now if it wasn’t for me, if it wasn’t for those twelve years. The stars would not have aligned, I was part of that journey, and he will always be a part of mine.

I look forward to that dinner.