Five Things…

…I learned too late to make any difference to the outcome…

1. If you sleep on a metal framed bed, you will, one day, whilst holding your breath and longed for release, overhear your parents at the foot of the stairs say, “Is that him wanking?” There is no recovery from this. Just avoid the temptation at all costs!

2. If, in your late teens, you join a revolutionary organisation just because you want to get into the pants of the blonde Mata Hari that knocked on your door selling her wares in the form of an Engels-esque leaflet (running to 30 A4 pages); and subsequently rise up the ranks of said organisation because you ‘suddenly’ realise what a noble cause it is to fight for the equality of a proletariat already lost in anticipation of the next wide-flat-3D-bigger-than-your-room TV promised by the capitalist propaganda machine (whilst completely ignoring the impoverished servitude endured by their fellow proles manufacturing said object of desire) your phone WILL be bugged by the secret service of your country of residence. For at least 10 years after you leave said organisation; all be it the leaving be under a cloud of suspicion centred around the possibility of your role as an MI6 agent because you “ask too many awkward questions”. Just accept, in that moment of idealist fantasy, that the proletariat are long lost, and you don’t have any chance, whatsoever, of making first base, never mind get into the pants of Mata “How could you not know I was a lesbian?” Hari! Go down the pub instead. Or, at the very least, learn about the dress, culture and habits of lesbians…

3. If you find yourself in charge of a vehicle for the first time, and, approaching a bend on a narrow lane, hear yourself say out loud to your passenger, “I seriously hope there isn’t anything coming the other way”, brake. Hard! Stop at the side of the road, and wait for the expected unexpected vehicle to pass safely. Dragging the entirety of its side panels 100 yards down the road, as you struggle to work out how to get all 4 wheels back on the ground (whilst thinking “Why don’t they teach this in Driving School?” as you view the tarmac streaming past your side window, idly wondering how you will explain this to the headmaster of the school playground you are obviously going to roll into, possibly with Van Damme explosive ending), is really NOT a cool first outing without L-plates. That, and your passenger will never travel with you again. Ever.

4. If you decide to change career in your late twenties, make sure you investigate the probability of an imminent collapse of your chosen field before investing an entire year of your life retraining for a job that won’t exist by the time you graduate. Unemployment is one thing, unemployable is another entirely.

5. If you find yourself tempted to start a blog, you will invariably spend days, weeks, oft-times months, wondering what to write about, and worrying that you aren’t investing enough time and effort in getting what you want to say out there. The vision that you once had, for a grand repository of readable, interesting prose, on a subject dear to your heart will lie shattered around your desktop in half writ documents, failed plans, and abject, broken misery.

Or you could just go with the flow, forget that there was ever a grand scheme to follow, and just write, dammit!!!