Line

When you stand in line, you see modern man at his worst.

Off

Sooner or later it all had to grind to a halt, as any idiot could have said. The problem is that no idiots did say, and nor did any (or many) experts, until after the fact. Maybe the experts knew, which is why they kept quiet. What could have been done anyway, except to make themselves look like idiots? When you're at a party, it's rude to complain about the food and drink. It's considered polite to wait until you get home and put your pajamas on, when you can moan a little before nodding off.

So this was a party that no one wanted to moan about. And why should they have? The food and drink tasted fine, as is normal just before an epidemic.

Suit yourself

When you are a child you are encouraged to talk about what you want to be when you grow up. I don’t remember really wanting to be anything when I was a kid, and now I am most certainly grown up in the physiological sense of the expression I am sure that I really don’t want to do anything at all, in a professional way. What is more, I’m equally sure that anyone who really does want to be someone or something is mad and should be locked up to protect the rest of us. Careers and professional ladder-climbing are just rather sophisticated ways to distract us from the simple, shocking truth that not much, really, is that important, and what matters most, in fact, is the love we feel for others.

Noise

So we went out. It had been a hard day, for us. We don't work with anything special. We are not scientists or even MBAs. We don't even have jobs, in fact. We have no professional qualifications at all, to tell the truth. It is fair to say that most people we meet in everyday situations have more measurable skill than we do. You'd have to go a long way to meet someone less qualified than we are.

But what we do is hard to pin down. Any certification of it would imply a measurable standard, and so far that hasn't been found. We are not artists but we aren't that far off, either.

What we do is not important. We do it, and we do it better than most. It had been a hard day.

And then we sit down in a restaurant. The owner is a friend of ours, but he wasn't in. I was happy about that. He needs some time off. Works all the time.

So do we.

We are happy to be out. It's a break from what we do. A change is as good as a rest, and all that.

The bad news is that the beer is off. Broken pump, or something. This is swiftly forgotten as we opt for wine. Close. The night had almost been ruined.

And then we enter that meal default setting. The food arrives and is good, and we just enjoy eating and sitting in front of each other. We've been together for sixteen years, almost. They should change the rules nowadays and call that Golden.

Not that it would make any difference. We are not stacking matches. Striking them, sometimes, for sure.

It was a good night after a hard day. I just wish I could have found the courage to stab the guy next to me. He might've shut up then.

List no. 1

10 things I hope not to become (random order):

- An embarrassment to my younger self.
- Convinced of anything.
- A defeatist.
- Blind to absurdity.
- Interested in Richard Dawkins.
- Consciously unable to take care of myself.
- A cook.
- A statistic.
- The last one standing.
- Resident in England.

Good

This picture is of part of the GR20 - also known as the Corsican High Level Route. I walked it when I was 18, about twenty-three years ago, with three friends. It is reputed to be the hardest long-distance walk in the world, but I can tell you it is not.

But it is impressive, and has stayed with me every last minute of those last twenty-three years.

Recently I have found myself indebted to the days I spent as a teenager in such places. I was as free as anyone can reasonably expect to be without becoming a hunter-gatherer and perhaps making the local news one day after being found dead with a very long beard and no friends. I've never been one for long beards and whilst I am nowadays part of a very small circle of friends, no friends at all would be unbearable.

Nevertheless, on odd days when I struggle to make sense of the things I see and hear and read and am told, the wilderness seems civilized and good, maybe too good to be true.

Perception

Ideas - that is the root of all the trouble. We get ideas that something may be in some way good. When I was seventeen I and three friends had a great idea - let's do the Pennine Way. The idea was good. The perception of the Pennine Way was good. See England, get some exercise. Maybe have some fun. All good stuff.

It rained for 22 days straight, almost all day. One friend didn't even start because he broke his leg in a parachute jump just before the beginning, and another friend fell about 70 miles short of finishing, the victim of blood poisoning picked up through infected blisters.

I sincerely recommend it to everyone. Reality and perception rarely cross paths and the Pennine Way, after you have seen photographs like the one here, has a way of reminding us that this is no picnic, this path we have chosen.