When The Going Gets Tough, The Tough Get a White Chocolate Chip Cookie

A long time ago, when I was young, strong willed and, if I'm honest, a bit of a dick, I would take to the moral high ground in my bid to do the right thing.  I paid scant regard for the threat of violence, tact or diplomacy as I crusaded for what I felt was the right reasons.  As my peers and superiors seethed at my exposure of their weaknesses and incompetence, I blundered on until silenced by the sight of my colleagues falling asleep or the unreasonable command of my superiors to 'take it offline'.

In my early days, of course, taking things offline would have made no sense at all, I grew up in the age of rented TVs, fixed landlines and using my imagination when playing games (quite a bit of fun too).  It used to be 'we shall discuss this later', which was their way of saying 'you twat, stand by for a shoeing'.  How I managed to avoid beatings in my youth I do not know.

Age has mellowed me somewhat and now when I come across people who are unwilling to listen to reason, be they peers or superiors, I calmly set out my case and take an objective look at the issues when finding a solution.  When I am subsequently browbeaten into submission, as is often the case, I then have to resort to alternative action.  It is often not helpful to express what is inevitably swirling around in your mind and the strong desire to go back to the schoolyard and shout 'don't come running to me when it all ends in tears!', or other words to that effect, will not ease the frustration.  It is at this point that I have learned that it is better to walk away, away to the nearest purveyor of white chocolate chip cookies and gain solace in those. 

Often grumbling unintelligibly as you pass by innocent colleagues on your way to the coffee shop.  It is an unfortunate error of judgement that one of them, especially the older ones, will ask politely and unsuspectingly, 'hi, everything good?' 

Oh dear,  as their smile vanishes when you answer truthfully that no, things are not good.  They desperately look for cover and hope someone calls them on their mobile, passing staff get rolled in as the original colleague begs them (it's in their eyes) to rescue them.  Before you know it you have a rebellion as sympathisers come out on your side and readily acknowledge the shortfalls of the offending person.  I tend to ask if people would like the truth when I am in cookie mode, that way they have the choice of not listening to Eeyore and then trying to slash their wrists later on.

There are times when a cookie is not enough and I have two other levels of food sulk, bag of liquorish allsorts and packet of wagon wheels.  Often though one must make do with what is available and it is like being in the Sahara without water when the shops are closed and you have no change for the vending machine.  If you are like me the vending machine eats your money anyway and give you nothing in return, technically a breach of contract, but in reality it is an extension of the offending person rubbing in your being placed firmly and securely in your box.

I don't like being in boxes, not because I am claustrophobic, but because my best thinking is done outside the box (did you like that?).  I am an optimist at heart and I often recover by putting myself in the shoes of others, quite tricky if they are deep sea diving boots or stilettos for that matter.  Still I try to understand and accept that I cannot control or influence everything that goes on.  Persistent twats are another story, but then that is why we have Mr Kipling.

One of the things I have become quite adept at is recognising when my colleagues and peers are facing the same tensions.  Recognition, coffee and listening is often the best way of bringing them back down, being careful to keep them away from bottles, staplers or any other potential weapons that might be lying around.  It is critical to avoid sarcasm at the early stages when approaching your colleague on the ceiling, they might well strike out in reflex and it is difficult to explain a split lip to the wife when you get home.

If it all gets too much then a large creamy trifle is probably best, this is not for you, but for the offending person.  The idea being to locate the said trifle centred on the face and delivered with insane laughter and a twitching eye.  Unfortunately and probably for the best, trifles are rare items indeed in these environments unless of course there is a staff party going on nearby.  In the absence of trifle I recommend comedy from a range of well known stand up comedians or indeed a spot of writing.

The Lonely Traveler - Arrival

Boarding The Aircraft

I am welcomed by the ever smiling crew, regardless of the fatigued and frustrated figure that stands before them.  They announced that premium paying passengers and those with special needs should proceed first, but as with any other queuing system in Belgium, it is every man for himself.  Queues are for mugs, clearly.  It is somewhat a turn of fate that the departure of the aircraft is held up because the airport services have not provided the required equipment to enable some wheelchair bound passengers to embark.  The rest of us file onboard past the glorified bus drivers as they do their checks in the cockpit.  One of the checks they seem to miss is that of their departure time and their watches being synchronized, but more of that flippancy later.

As I shuffle to the rear of the aircraft I engage in the lottery that is gambling on an overhead locker being available near my allocated seat.  I mostly win, but then I often chicken out and take an early space some distance from my seat.  I check my ticket again to make sure I know which row to go to.  There is the choice of three seats, the one by the aisle, so you get banged and bashed by conveniently aligned backsides, the window with a view of the clouds and the middle seat.  In order of priority I would take the window (and compromise my chances of escape), then I would take the aisle (enduring the arses) and finally I would lump it with the middle seat and spend the flight (because of my good manners) with my elbows on my lap.  Sometimes I am lucky and have a seat free next to me.

Having settled in the crew give their safety brief, which some would argue, is a complete waste of time.  I, on the other hand, am very attentive, despite having seen it so many times before

The Lonely Traveler - Departure

Standing at the entrance to the private driveway, the doubt as to whether the taxi will arrive or not takes up it usual place of residence in my mind.  Booking a taxi to arrive at 04:30 is, despite assurances, a risk.  The chain of events from getting to bed after midnight, setting, checking and re-checking the alarm time of 04.00, waking up during the night and having the same old being late dream, it all contains elements of risk and mitigation.  This chain of events led to the flight departure from Manchester airport en route home to Belgium.  Until my bum was placed firmly in the seat at the rear of the aircraft, it is almost always the rear, I would not be content and even then the onward trip from Brussels to Aarschot would then be reviewed, checked and monitored in line with the connecting times of the various modes of transport at my disposal.  But back at the drive...

Although I would regard myself as a seasoned traveler, this is not to say that I am a globe trotting, jet setting, free spirit.  No, it is functional, a factor of work and living.  In my case I work in Knutsford in the UK and I live in Belgium and it is economically viable if somewhat complex from a tax residency position and convenience.  As an ex-serviceman I am accustomed to roving the land and temporarily laying down my hat, living at arms length for what can be regarded as my permanent home.  I will tire of it eventually, I will reflect and regret how little time I spend with my family and friends, but for now it is an economic necessity.  In terms of convenience and expense, it is a matter of what you are used to or what you come to expect.

...The taxi pulled in to collect me, pretty much on time, the chain remained unbroken.  As I sit there chatting to the taxi driver, in this case about his interest in UFOs, my mind is firmly fixed on the cost agreed and route being taken.  The contract, it can be argued, was formed when I booked the cab, but I distrust taxi drivers the world over, regardless of any evidence for or against.  I am deposited at the entrance to Terminal 3, having paid the agreed fare.  I am tired and irritable, but it is not particularly evident for the time being.  It does not take much to escalate my impatience to DEFCON 1, even though this is only in my mind, the look on my face delivers the message, more often than not.

My first hurdle is passing through the security check, the entrance to which is a choice of two options for mere mortals like I, I have never used the VIP lane.  Invariably I choose the wrong one and end up snaking back and forth through the empty corralling area, like a skier doing a frustratingly inefficient slalom down an empty mountain, dragging my battered but erratic case behind me.  I go to DEFCON 4 when I see those, who have chosen wisely, speed happily by as though I am out on a Sunday drive.

As I approach, and in reality well before getting to the airport, I have already considered the passage through the x-ray screening.  I am practically down to my underpants as I get to the conveyor, which is more than can be said for the annoyingly chippy holidaymakers who have left it until the last possible moment to fart around with their toiletries and other accouterments.  I move to DEFCON 3.  Due to the understandable desire to deter or intercept those wishing to do us harm, we now have to take all electrical items larger than 20cm out of the baggage and have them x-rayed separately.  This is a challenge to prepare for in advance, unless you are blessed with more than one pair of hands.  There is always the risk that I drop one or more of my delicate electrical items as I answer the usual questions about liquids, deodorants and other toiletries.  As usual I answered all of these questions with a firm and restrained no, which on this occasion drew a rude comment from a fellow chimpanzee about not wishing to share a seat next to me, the feeling was mutual and to all intents and purposes most unlikely.  My DEFCON state remained at level 3, but not for long.

Passing through the body scanner I noted that my case had been diverted for some further inspection.  I queued with the other specially selected travelers.  Time was pressing as it was unusually busy, I waited as patiently as I could, given my sleep deprived state.  When it came to my case the searcher discovered that I had packed a tool into my bag, which was not allowed.  I faced a choice, to present a well structured and considered justification would serve as much purpose as Charles I trying to debate the finer points of constitutional law with his executioner, so I had to revert to the obvious two: check the luggage in (and pay a punitive fee for doing so) or bin the tool and buy another one.  I did not realise this at the time, but the reason was that it could, quite rightly, be considered a blunt instrument, much like the TV camera that the gentlemen before me had re-packed and taken with him or indeed my rather heavy laptop.  Maybe even a bottle of whiskey from the duty free could be used?  All of these thoughts entered my mind as I uttered the words agreeing to check in the luggage and registering my protest at having to endure the very long queue to get back through security.  He assured me that I could leave and re-enter via the special assistance lane, which was quiet at that particular point in time.

I was now concerned that my fragile chain of activities was at increased risk due to the proximity of the departure time.  It was only when I got to the Brussels Airlines check in desk that I went straight from DEFCON 3 to 1.  I lost my rag as the desk clerk pointed out my transgression and the fact that I had not paid for checked luggage, all of which wasted time and was unnecessary, as I rudely pointed out. To add insult to injury, I could not pay at the check in desk and was re-directed to pay at another desk before returning with the receipt to check in my bag.  To say that this caused me a degree of frustration and resentment understates my incandescent anger at the situation.  It has to be acknowledged  that this was in fact a problem of my own making.  By the time I returned the check in desk I had reflected long enough to offer my apology to the clerk.

The special assistance lane, by the time I arrived back, had a long queue of passengers requiring special assistance and I was almost blocked from re-entering.  People requiring special assistance by definition take a long time.  I patiently waited, watching for the mildest irritation, as the people were screened through.  I was now watching the time and despite all of the delays, I made it to the departure gate before the flight had started boarding.

Arriving in time and without baggage, my usual assessment of the number of passengers and the amount of their hand luggage was unnecessary.  As I would not be fighting for space in the overhead lockers I could relax and get ready to board the aircraft.  This flight, like 7 others of the ten that I have taken, would experience a delayed departure.  The only saving grace is that now I was in the hands of the airline and had little influence on timing and events until I got to my destination.

 I did intend to work from home so any delay at this end added to the delay after arrival and then impacted on my start time.  There was not much flexibility

Social Media and Political Division

I do not consider myself a political activist or as someone holding particularly strong views

The Distraction of Attraction

As I get older, broaden my horizons and increase my experience of life, I often let my mind wander to far ranging and sometimes deep topics.  More recently as I have made my daily commute I have been considering the title The Distraction of Attraction.

I have long since realised that when these fleeting thoughts pass through my mind, on their journey through time and space, that they in fact pass through the minds of a great many of us.  Those thoughts passed my way recently and I had an epiphany (I also had to check the meaning of that word so feel free to google).  I realised that, for most of my life to date, I have been incredibly distracted from more fruitful pursuits by the almost persistent attraction to members of the opposite sex.

Now, one needs to understand that fundamentally, being attracted to members of the opposite sex is somewhat essential to the continuing success of the human race.  In my case I won't be contributing to the ongoing population growth of the planet (I can hear sighs of relief all round).  I am still afflicted though.

I think, although if I am honest I cannot make up my mind, that I am envious of those who can dedicate themselves to a calling in life, other than procreation that is.  I wish I could

The Dying Club

I thought I would set up a dying club, but then it has been around long before I ever thought about it.  The great thing is is that we are all members with a time limited membership.  I don't think formalising the membership is necessary.

Some of us, unfortunately, have our membership terminated way too early with all of the attendant grief and sorrow that that entails.  I admit that I am afraid of the day that I have to cut my membership card in two and hand it back.  During my time so far in the club I have been quite lucky, firstly I am still a member at the age of 44!  I often think of those who were in the club before me and wonder where they are now, I dream often of family members but it is always surreal.  I have a special VIP membership that includes all the good people I have had the good fortune to know.  I have been touched by their lives and I hope I have touched theirs.

There is no escaping the fact that the Dying Club is the most popular club (by membership terms at least).  Many though would rather not be members at all, there is no choice, yet.  The fee for membership can and does vary.  It is not monetary, well not really.  It is quite an individual cost and can be quantified in terms of emotion, experience, misfortune.  You can profit quite easily too, in terms of happiness, fulfilment and pleasure.  You can lose in terms of sadness, sense of loss and depression.  All of us gain and lose depending upon what we do during our time limited membership.

The Duration of our membership is, by most measures, rather short.  Many have observed the relative probability of having been given membership of the club at all as being incredibly miniscule, so we are lucky really.

I do wonder that when I leave the Dying Club, what, if any, shall I move on to and for how long?  I am really not that sure, but I feel certain that there is another one, at least one, I hope.

I was not dying to join the club but I was born a member and although I would not say I am dying to leave, I will have to die to leave the club.  It is a paradox of the language to say that I am dying to be happy, I am certainly not happy to be dying but I must accept that it is the rules of the club.

Most people hope that they remain members until they are at least 100 years old but statistics show that the majority will leave before then.

I don't quite know what brought me to write about this, but then I am often inspired by unknown forces and imagination and I feel compelled to write.  I am not mad, well no more than any normal person can be considered mad.  (What is normal, someone who conforms to the norms of society, in which case I am most certainly not normal, some of the time).

To those of my loved ones who may be reading this, don't worry.  I think my membership is due to last for a while longer, I am not yet (to my knowledge) on any fast track scheme.

Do please make the most of your membership by finding the happiness, fulfilment and reward that it can offer and please do not keep that to yourself.  It is so much better to share these things.

The Poland Visit 4th December 2016

Opportunities come and go and when they are there you should max the best use of them.  I have been fortunate enough to enjoy able to visit Poland for reasons connected with work.  What is more is that I have been able to fulfil a long term aim to pay my respects to the victims of the holocaust in my own way.

For six days I was lodged in the Polish city of Wroclaw.  I arranged to fly in on the Friday late on and I had booked a hire car and hotel for the two days of the weekend.  What is more when one of my Polish colleagues heard that I wanted to visit the concentration camps of Auswitz and Birkenau he very kindly offered to be my guide.

I have read only a few books on the subject of the holocaust and I have seen several films that retell those awful events.  I was not sure how I would react and I was torn as to whether or not to take my camera.  In my mind it is clearly wrong to refer to visitors to the camps as tourists, perhaps pilgrims, mourners, those seeking forgiveness, those who simply want to bear witness or who are determined never to forget and to ensure future generations never again allow such a thing to happen.  In my case it is an individual act and, despite having my guide I wanted to be left in my own world with my own thoughts as I bore witness.

Birkenau

What I thought was the camp of Auswitz and one that I think most people imagine to be a typical camp is in fact Birkenau.  The notorious arch thorough which passed the cattle trains and the single railway line, known the world over through the many documentaries and films, rises out of the flat surrounding countryside.  It marked the central dividing line between two vast halves of the camp, themselves surrounded by barbed wire electric fences, watch towers and a ditch.  The arch through which the trains passed is also the area where the victims were herded and then underwent selection, divided into those who would work until they died, be used for enforced medical experiments or simply marched to their immediate death by gassing.  Children and in particular twins were sought after for grotesque experiments and ultimately murder.  There was never any protest as the incoming victims were processed and later I reflected on this unknowing compliance.  

At the opposite end of the  entrance building with the archway are the remains of two crematoria, which the Nazis destroyed in a futile attempt to hide the evidence of their crimes.  It is maybe 300 metres from the arches to what is left of the gas chambers and as I stood on the selection ramp where some 1.3 million victims, mostly Jews of course, had passed, I found it hard to absorb the scale and gravity of the crimes.  I still reflect and cannot quite grasp the numbers and horror.

As you look towards the gas chambers down the ramp there are noticeably brick built huts on the left side and wooden ones on the right.  With many former huts marked out by the still standing chimneys, usually two per hut, if they have survived intact.  The original design of the huts was to accommodate 52 horses but in fact contained around 1,000 prisoners.  That comparison of the regard that the perpetrators had for horses over and above their fellow man is staggering.  It did not escape me and I wondered if anyone else had noted the numbers.

The camp is well organised, as distasteful as that may sound.  You can identify the kitchen blocks and shower blocks by features.  There are warehouses for the possessions, cruelly they have bars on the windows presumably to have prevented the prisoners from being able to steal back their own clothes.

The camp was peaceful and the weather was cold and foggy, there were not many visitors when we were there.  Our visit passed by the memorial between the two piles of rubble marking the crematoria.  Signs respectfully instructed visitors not to climb on the rubble, I cannot imagine anyone even thinking about that.  Perhaps children who would not understand the significance of the act.  I like to think that anyone who visits these places already has the deepest respect for the meaning of the place but I do suppose there will always be some who will not think or care.

The last thing I noted of significance for me was next to the specially commissioned memorial which has large brass tablets in multiple languages each marking the remembrance of the holocaust.  I noted that there was a tablet in English and although I have no doubt that British victims are included in the loss it struck me that Britain as a whole had not been cleared of Jews and yet here we had a brass tablet to make sure we could understand.  As I write I think of the Channel Islands as an exception.  The experience thus far was an individual one and my guide and his girlfriend left me in my own thoughts, for which I was grateful.

We departed the camp in a rather more sombre mood than when we had driven down.  Our next location was a few kilometres away to Auschwitz.

Auschwitz

The camp of Auschwitz is next to the local town and used to be a Polish barracks before being brought into use as a concentration camp by the Nazis.  The first think you note is that it is much busier than Birkenau.  There are queues of people waiting to enter the camp and there are lots of small food and book stalls in the immediate area outside the camp.  There is no charge to enter either camp and there are tours that are available in multiple languages.

The camp is much more compact than Birkenau and the rows of barrack blocks look deceptively ordinary.  It takes a moment to begin to appreciate again the horrors that took place here.  A number of the blocks have been given over to particular displays.  I cannot remember the order in which we visited and so I will just outline my thoughts and feelings as I recall them.

Some of the blocks are dedicated to the nations of those who lost their lives and we visited two in particular, that of Poland and Belgium.  In the Polish block there was an overview of the war as it impacted upon the poles and one of the most striking things was the number of camps and ghettos that were situated in Poland.  I have to be be honest in that I believed that there was only 1 ghetto, the Warsaw ghetto, but that is probably because it is the most well known.  Effectively these ghettos formed a kind of open prison prior to the victims being transported to the camps.  The final Solution  evolved if I can use that term.  The mechanism and challenges of the tasks the Nazis had set themselves required refinement.  The intent was always there of course.  Having read and learned a bit about the holocaust the images and stories of the atrocities have evolved in meaning to me from when I was a child to my adult understanding.  I don't think I can ever take in the scale but when you put it into personal terms then things become quite different.

In the Belgian block the main display gave a rather cold and tragic statistical analysis of the victims who left the transportation centre in Mechelan.  Each transport number was given with those dates that they left and arrived, how many were transported, how many died on the journey, how many were killed and how many survived.  The latter rarely if ever broke into double digits and anywhere between 700+ victims were transported with each load.  I have visited Kazzerne Dossin, it is an innocuous place.  The fact that I had seen and stepped in the same place as these victims gave greater meaning to me.  I thought of my family and friends, they were to come to mind later as the visit progressed.

As we stepped out of one of the blocks we saw a long queue of people filing into the basement of another and so we dutifully joined this queue and quietly snaked down the steps and along past holding cells to the very end of the corridor where we found some unusual brick features, which may have been some kind of punishment holes for prisoners.  The three of us wondered why we had just queued as there was no display or information.  My personal thoughts turned to the selection where those going to their deaths would have queued and filed off in a similar unquestioning manner, it made me shudder.  By the time we realised we could do nothing but follow the snake back out, at least we came out.

We moved to another block but on our way we stopped to use the lavatory.  I thought about the conditions the prisoners would have endured.  In Birkenau the latrines were open and maybe some 100 or more holes, where my host told me there were given 30 seconds to do what they needed to do.  I went to wash my hands and the water shocked me as it was hot.  Usually in most public toilets hot water is rare.  I thought of all places and in one of these barracks it really surprised me the contrast of having hot water as a luxury compared to what would have been available back then.

We came to a block that had displays of hair, shoes, cases and kitchen utensils.  This was perhaps one of the the most moving for me.  I stopped and gazed at the shoes thinking that at some point the men and women to whom they belonged would have been shopping and deciding  over them much like we do when we buy our own.  Each shoe representing a very personal choice, pleasurable experience and maybe a special gift from loved ones.  Buying shoes will never quite be the same for me, I will without doubt reflect each time I look into the shop window or dither over which pair to buy.  There was a display which has a vast mesh of round spectacle frames and lenses, my first thought here was that it could have easily passed for art in a gallery, but of course these belonged to real people and were not based on the imagination of an individual.  

There was a room with hair, lots of pigtails and shaved hair. The signs indicated that the hair was used to manufacture fabric and that in a lot of cases the residue of zyklon b could be detected in the fabric. I thought of how I like to run my fingers through the hair of my wife as she lies resting her head on my chest. I thought of those victims and their mothers, wives, husbands, brothers playing with their hair, making pigtails, caressing it, smelling it.  It was a difficult part of the display for me to absorb.

The girlfriend of my colleague was moved to tears when she saw the photographs and heard the translation of how female victims arrived with healthy weights and were severely underweight by the time the camp was liberated.  I remember seeing 80, 65 and 56kg ladies reduced to half or a quarter of that.  The images gave visual reference to this.  As I looked at the images I had become kind of conditioned to expecting images of near skeletal figures when looking at concentration camp victims.  The emphasis for me was the accompanying descriptions with the figures.

We needed to get out into the fresh air and temporarily have a break from sadness of the displays.  We elected to leave but our last stop was perhaps the most chilling.  A simple waist high black tablet politely reminded people entering that they must show respect for what had gone on in the building.  We entered the crematorium, it was bare brick and in a dilapidated state, there was no real information on display as we entered a large room.  I noted the black marks and some pipework and wondered where I was, looking up to the ceiling it suddenly came to me that this was the gas chamber and I was looking directly up to where the zyklon b tablets would have been dropped into the chamber.  It chills me more now than it did when I stood there.  We exited out past the ovens and back into the fresh air.

We had all seen more than enough and wanted to leave, we had a long drive back and    plenty of time to reflect.  I bought some more books on the subject from one of the several small bookshops next to the camp.

As I finish up on this I find myself not quite sure what to say.  I feel deeply that people should be aware of what went on and the significance of it, with its attendant perversion of society and corruption of human behaviour.  That said I also feel that it is an individual choice as to whether you would wish to visit such a place as this.  I have spoken briefly to friends and family about the visit and I shy away, not because I think it should not be a topic of conversation, but because I don't think there is ever an appropriate moment to discuss the subject in conversation without making people feel sickened by it.  Maybe I am wrong to feel inhibited, usually I am not.  One of the reasons for me writing this is that it is my narrative and allows to express my thoughts.