Forced unemployment: the introductory rant

Being unemployed, without any say-so in the matter, is a sack of cack..

Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. I wouldn't have believed me two years ago either. I haven't usually dissed my previous employees on this blog, mainly because I didn't mind working for them, but of course, should they have read this blog with its hypothetical employer whines, I'd possibly have been up before HR. This has happened. But on the occasions when I have mentioned particularly crudola circumstances where work has just been TOO MUCH, I've often thought to myself...”hmm, the life of leisure....how pleasantly desirable that might be”.

There was this time, not so long ago, when I sat cooped up in a windowless office in Barking, away from the sun, and most definitely, the fun. Or rather , the perceived fun that you , being cooped up, isn't experiencing by dint of that fact. This and being fuelled by the notion that the whole world (on those days off you took for annual leave) seemed to be occupied by leisured, well dressed personages having a jolly good time away from the office – perhaps forever away - and (so one thought in one's bitter way) probably looking at the likes of you, on said pathetic measly day off and let out for the afternoon amongst the rarefied air and privileged, permanently-on-holiday majority (it seemed) in the way which said, “ah, poor guy. Bet he's going to be cooped up tomorrow in some stinking trading estate”...and so on.

When you are stuck somewhere you haven't actually elected to, given a hypothetical choice, be – and despite the fact that my last office actually was in Barking (on the unglamorous trading estate side of what is not actually a glamours place even *on* the glamorous side of town, if you catch my drift) and yes, the office was indeed completely windowless, there was a reason to get up in the morning, whine, scratch your head about the pointlessness of working for a piffling salary (and by the standards of equally unworthy people like Fred The Shred, one could only wonder why my mum was who she was and why I, Adam R. W. Holdsworth, could not have been born to parents who, if not wealthy and privileged, were smart enough to take you to where the influence and smart money actually is. Working as an intern for your uncle's law firm. Or at least naming me Miles or Giles or Charlie. Oh I dunno, this all sounds like envy, and for heaven's sake, it is frigging envy, I know, I know, but this is my RANTS and burblings site and that's what I'm doing. Don't try to convince me I'm selling you a pup here, you came willingly to this joint to hear me fart on and on and on. No, please don't click the back button, honest, I'll be more measured and circumspect from now on....

OK, back to the plot, the one I haven't lost. I'm going to write, over the next few days, an article per day; and please don't hold me to this, life has a habit of getting in the way of a this blog; about how my life has changed since becoming one of the Big Society, without an excuse not to be part of the volunteering, kind, airy fairy bollocks* enabling me to actually have an opt-out excuse. Er, sorry guv, I'd love to work with little kids in wee homes, little cuties who are being whacked around by junkie parents but I have this commitment called a job which steals 37 hours of my week, then adds another 15 hours worth of travelling, then calls me to work when I get home, then means I have to be on call over the weekend, and yadda yadda blah. I, ladies and gents, don't have the opt out any more. I'm at home, cooped up on in front of of the computer, often with Tweetdeck chirruping sweetly every couple of seconds, with the very real option of watching Jezza Kyle for three hours per day, should I choose.

And because unemployment is so rubbish, sometimes, JK is the only cure. It's the only reason to get up, knowing that with the press of the on button, then the three button, you can see how your life, shit though it is, could become a few steps further down the bell-curve on the detritus index.

And so, over the next few posts, I'm going to explore what it is like for a 42 year old, partially sighted male, neither especially stupid but who has managed to live by wits much of the the time, over qualifications; one who used to have ha degree of self respect and at least could hold down a job for years on end with no question...just what goes through one's head? What do us scroungey types do all day? And more seriously, a few words on disability and unemployment. So join me, sweet workers of the world and celebrate your employment. For tomorrow, there is the Big Society, Jeremy Kyle swamp life, and an email in box full of Guardian job ads to brighten your day.

Next: I ask the Talking Heads question: “How did I get here?” And follow up with another song title, this time a Beatles one: “A Day In The Life”.

* By the way, I don't in all seriousness for one nanosecond, have any beef with volunteers, especially those working with kids in such vile conditions. My dad was one for a long time (and he had his own business to run full-time too). I have the ultimate respect for you and indeed for anyone who gives up their time for a good cause. I obtained my first full time job after volunteering too, so I can see its financial, as well as the altruistic value. I do hate this issue being force fed us by the present lot that we are all duty bound to work for free - “we're all in this together” malarkey. We're not. Simple as that. You volunteer because you're a good person or because you have a particular affinity with a cause. Not because some wanker in a suit, attempting to save some government cash, cash you've already paid in, tells you that you should. That's all.

Those Eden Kane Moments

My mum, quite a hip chick in her day and still pretty lively for an old girl, used to own a record by a band called Eden Kane, whose main refrain went something like:

"Boys cry
Where no-one can see them
When no-one can hear them cry
No-one can see them cry".

I used to rather like this record, mainly because it had rather a jolly tune counteracting the somewhat plastic sentimental lyrics. So the Edens may not have been the "new" Beatles or Stones, but the record was a workmanlike enough piece of 60s filler to have been stored in my memory from about the age of 4 when music started really meaning something to me. BTW, I can also remember advertising jingles and slogans from when we had a black and white telly as our only telly. How very pointless, but there you go.

So to the lead-in to the blog article de jour. Music and crying. While I was thinking about it a few weeks ago while trundling round London, iPod giving my tinnitus something to think about, that bloody arsehole student betraying Judas Nick Clegg spoiled my very show by admitting that he cried to music. Well Nick, old china, old pal. My horse had been stolen by a more famous person than me, making *my* bloody idea appear unoriginal and me-to. Not the case, believe me, I got there first, just for the record if only by a few hours.

Music, is the ONLY fricken thing which has ever touched me in the crying department. Nothing else can. Some old bit of American country song wisdom says that a man is entitled to cry only when his "mom" or "dawg" dies. My mum is fortunately still well and able. I cannot guarantee for sure that I won't shed a tear or probably more like a bucketload when she does pass away, but hopefully she's a few decades left on the mileometer yet. Let's hope so. Unfortunately though, in the weeks between starting and publishing this post, I have had a mutt pass away, the sometimes q.v.'d Nicki – and yes, I bawled quite a bit over that, so buy me a Stetson, a car with no wheels, yet with enough battery power left to play the still- working eight-track of Willy Nelson best of moments and let me gurn into my bourbon glass.

Get me on a tube in the rush hour, in the right (or wrong) mood and then insert one of the following tracks between my ears on a decent set of Bose (or just a cheapjack piece of shit will do) and…………blubberitis, here we come. Help. Public embarrassment doesn’t come into it. Not being able to remember what stop I’m approaching doesn’t come into it either. I’m a lost cause, and sometimes end up actually lost.

Sad films can do it too. But the music has to work with the film. No sad music, no saltwater from moi. I don’t think, for example, that the admittedly moving plot of Atonement would have worked half as well if the Dunkirk soldiers’ singing hadn’t magically – in a moment of almost breathtaking pathos inducing beauty – morphed with the orchestral soundtrack. I almost fell over when I heard this, except I couldn't because I was in Goa, on a hostel bed, so not too many places to fall. Partly wonderment is down to the sheer skill and artistry demonstrated by the person responsible for bolting soundtracks together, and partly because it was just so fucking poigniant.

I don’t come from a particularly macho family – as an older brother to three sisters, that was always gonna be a hard one to pull off anyway, but I can count my dad as introducing me to one of the bawl-tracks mentioned below. Whether or not he cried when listening to is, I’ll never know because I wouldn’t ask him. It’s mostly a private business this crying to music bolllocks, and the only reason I’m sharing it with the world is that I doubt I’m alone. But fear not, I shall return shortly to the joys of assembling flatpacks, the trams of Croydon, or something else more prosaic.

So there it is, my confession. And also below, is some of the music that does it.



Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto in A Major, Adagio
Surely one of the most gorgeous pieces of music ever committed to score? So, its Mozart. So, you’ve heard it a thousand times before. For a reason.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsvgIW2YMWA&feature=fvst


Wendy Carlos/JS Bach – Brandenburg 3, part 3
Two things turned me onto electronic music. The second thing was discovering under a Chiswick bed and covered in dust, the Moog Prodigy, belonging to my then-girlfriend Nicola's dad and just having to footle with it. The first was being played this, aged 4 by my dad who I think was as besotted with it at the time as I became later. Works on so many levels. I’m so glad myself and Ms Carlos met while I was such a musical virgin . It was the best selling classical music record of 1968. Not surprising.

I could not find the exact track on Youtube – Ms Carlos seems rather precious about copyright for whatever reasons. Here's something from the the other end of the same concerto “in the style of”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJo5q-SbvT0


Livin’ Joy – Don’t Stop Moving
A complete change of tempo and style here. Early 90s dancey,ravey floorfilla with heaps of Korg M1 piano, one of the most evocative sounds from this generation. This track is actually a piece of utter smileyness and never fails to put a humongous stupid grin on my face even during the depths of depression (and there have been some prize moments). And it makes me bawl out of sheer euphoria. One of the most positive lyrics going methinks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIbFO-kXeyU


One Day Like This – Elbow
I can’t think of a more poetic, beautiful love song than this - I tell you, when I look at these lyrics, I suffer from extreme song envy. Guy Garvey sure knows how to sum up what it might be like to grow old with someone. And the orchestration, my goodness! Overflows with joy and optimisitc good vibes. Guy Garvey might have a show on 6 Music known as his “Finest Hour”, but this was easily his finest 6 mins, 51 seconds. If someone ever wrote me a song like this, I'd be boholden to them for-bloody-ever!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfVejpYc8Zc



Little 15 – Depeche Mode
It's the key shift DOWNWARDS starting n verse 3 wot does it. Aaaarrrgghh.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfA2U4V2DZY


Nervously – Pet Shop Boys
Chris Lowe, the “other half” of the PSBs, knows how to combine textures in sound and chords to break the heartstrings of the toughest hod carrier. The schmaltzter is aided and abetted by one of the kings of analogue synthesis, Harold Faltermeyer, let loose on this number.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eS30s3X5ccM
(as an aside, I've just noticed that these two last songs are in the same key – coincidence?)


Set You Free – N-Trance
More dancey stuff that shouldn't fit into the mould of a classic bawl song but does - for me. This is a kind of lament to lost youth and quite likely reflects possibilities never fulfilled. Can almost see myself, aged 24, wondering in a scratching head, “doh!” sort of way what would happen next and not fully recognising the opportunities being dangled. I have relatively few regrets, in life, but there *are* some, and this is one of those songs which can transport me back to that less responsible, almost but not quite carefree period.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWbmmsH4SJU


Please comment and add your tracks if you're man (or woman) enough to do it. Come on, I am not alone, am I?