Still smiling

LittleBear and I had an Awfully Big Adventure a couple of weeks ago. We went on a "yomp" with one of the bear cousins. A "yomp" being a multi-day, multi-peak, wild-camping* walk** in the Lake District. This is something my CousinBear has been doing for years, and is the means by which he has completed all 214 Wainwrights. Which means not only does he know what he's doing, but he has All The Right Gear. And LittleBear idolizes him, which is really rather lovely.

Our original plan was, shall we say, ambitious. But planned with escape routes and alternatives ready and willing to be deployed. Which was fortunate, as we ascended into cloud not long after our 10am start in Skelgill, and did not see the sky, or very much else, until we reappeared near Moss Force about seven hours later. By which stage we were largely soaked through, and had distinctly squelchy boots. I say "largely", because to the chagrin of LittleBear and CousinBear, it turns out that my comparatively-new and eye-wateringly expensive Goretex waterproofs were considerably more waterproof than anything they were wearing. I retain a sneaking suspicion that my admission that my feet were still dry somewhere round about Robinson was a contributory factor in the acres of ankle-deep bog that CousinBear proceeded to find for us in the next mile.

Original possible route

Suffice to say that, after Robinson's best efforts, and the constant wall of rain and cloud encountered, not to mention the unaccustomed exertion of walking with a fully-laden pack, we were all more than willing participants in the decision to reduce the second day's route.

Actual route

Which gave a still-quite impressive ~22km (13.5 miles) over two days, with over 1600m (5250') of ascent.

Elevation profile

There were, of course, Incidents and Misfortunes en route. There was the point at which LittleBear slipped and stood in a stream, and declared himself unable to continue. A Mars Bar and some cheerful (but lost) Germans got him back on track. And CousinBear incredibly nobly then piggy-bagged LittleBear and his pack across the next stream to avoid a complete collapse in morale. But the story of the first day is best told in the pictures taken of LittleBear conquering each of the six summits.

10:40am Catbells - barely wet at all, and definitely happy

11:40am Maiden Moor - an underwhelming cairn, but still triumphant

12:30pm High Spy - a proper cairn at last

2:15pm Dale Head - the fell that nearly defeated us

3:00pm Hindscarth - I'm not even standing up to celebrate

4:00pm Robinson - is these even a different place?

6:10pm Warm(er) and dry(er) and smiling again

Though the pictures are largely doing the talking here, I feel the utter relief in LittleBear's face on actually getting to the top of Dale Head deserves a minor explanation. We had, as mentioned, found some lost Germans. They had an inadequate map and no compass, and had been unable to find their way to Honister Pass in the cloud. So CousinBear offered to guide them, as we were heading mostly that way. 

It rapidly became clear quite why they'd been unable to find the path. Even with the help of OS maps, compass, and GPS, there was no path to be found anywhere near where the OS claimed it would be. We zigged and we zagged our way up the fellside where the path should have been, hoping to intersect it. But no. Instead we ended up fighting our way up 200m in a mere 400m of horizontal distance. And somehow, despite that incline, a large portion of the ground beneath our feet was bog. How? Why was that water not at the bottom of the hill?***

Perhaps most impressive was the fact that our lost Germans solemnly, doggedly and trustingly followed the crazy English people up the non-path, in the cloud and rain, in the hope of ending up in the right place. Cresting the slope and finding the top of Dale Head exactly where it was meant to be was a definite triumph. And we pointed the Germans onto the path to Honister Pass.

And despite the rain, the cloud, the boots that took three days to dry, the exhaustion, the slips, the trips and the midges, LittleBear absolutely loved it. And the moments in which he lost morale were overcome with a resilience that genuinely surprised me. He kept smiling, and wants to do more next year. Especially if it means skipping tooth-brushing and being allowed chocolate in bed.

Bed chocolate is definitely A Thing

 

* For those of my friends who have expressed concern about the legality of wild camping in the Lake District... it is not something to which one has an automatic, legal right, it requires permission from the landowner. And in this case, the landowner being the National Trust, permission is given for sympathetic, responsible wild camping above the intake: Wild Camping in the Lake District

** I have a peculiar allergy to word "hike", though it would be what many of my readers would describe this adventure as. However, I go fell walking, not hiking. So this was a walk.

*** This is a rhetorical question. I am fully au fait with the ability of both peat and moss to hold staggering quantities of water, no matter the angle at which they are suspended.

The history of my life in one graph

Hello again! It's been a while hasn't it? Six months or thereabouts, in which I've either had nothing to say or lacked the energy to say it. Mostly the latter, as my life has been utterly dominated by football for months. I've eaten, slept, dreamed and wept football, to the exclusion of everything else that I enjoy doing. (Of which more, possibly, another time).

But I've just spent two weeks on holiday in the Lake District, in which not only has there been No Football, but there has been plenty of time to do things I love with LittleBear. And among the things that LittleBear and I both love are climbing fells, obsessively collecting things and messing around with data analysis. To our great joy, we are able to combine these particular passions... (bear with me, all will become clear!)

For those not familiar with his oeuvre, a gentleman by the name of Alfred Wainwright lovingly and laboriously climbed, and wrote about, the fells of Lakeland, creating seven gorgeous pictorial guides to the fells. In these, he provides a multitude of ascents, descents, ridge routes, maps, line drawings and opinions. Across the seven books he describes 214 such fells, now collectively known as Wainwrights. A collection that some people attempt to "bag" by climbing all of them. A perfect opening for LittleBear to climb things and collect them.

And having climbed a fell, LittleBear and his mother require a means of tracking which ones we've climbed, how high they are, which books they appear in, when we climbed them, and indeed how old we were when we climbed them. (First ascents being what counts here, there are many old and dear favourites that we've climbed multiple times, and fully intend to keep climbing). We spent many happy hours, while the rain sheeted down outside, playing with spreadsheets and finding ingenious ways of representing all the data we were accumulating*.

And this graph was particularly illuminating. It shows the accumulation of new Wainwrights as I age.

There are five distinct stages to my life:

The Early Years

From just before I turned five, until my late teens, I gradually climbed new fells, under the care and guidance of my parents. I didn't choose them, I just went where we went, mostly enjoying it, but with a tendency to grumble about only having little legs. I was very much a camp-follower.

First Marriage

Then I became an independent adult, going on holiday without my parents or brother, but instead with TheEx. From twenty to my early thirties is the period of my life when I lacked/lost all confidence. I didn't trust my map-reading to navigate my way on new fells; I didn't trust my driving to manage the mountain passes over to new valleys; I remained stuck in the familiar and the routine. Not helped by TheEx's view of me that I wasn't capable of being intrepid or confident or brave. I lived down to his expectations. The lack of new fells was only one expression of that stagnation.

The Arrival of BigBear

With the arrival of BigBear as a partner, and not just a friend, I began to discover the pleasure of doing new things, of exploring and of challenging myself, while sharing it with someone who believed in me. I drove over Wrynose and Hardknott passes for the first time. I climbed Scafell Pike for the first time. I stretched by wings and began to discover I was capable of so much more than I had believed.

LittleBear's Earliest Years

My wings were clipped a little with the arrival of BabyBear at age 37. While carry-able in the early years, it was a heavy carry and not conducive to tackling much in the way of a significant fell. I got the occasional day pass, during which time BigBear or a noble grandparent would look after BabyBear for a day, but those were the days to re-acquaint myself with my favourite, nearest-and-dearest fells, and not to branch out into the unknown, alone. And the weight of motherhood, while carry-able in the early years, was a heavy carry and not conducive to tackling much in the way of a significant new challenge.

LittleBear Starts Climbing

And finally a couple of years ago, after conquering almost all the nearest-and-dearest fells with us, LittleBear's obsessive streak had him begging for new Wainwrights, which demand I happily conceded to. And by exploring LittleBear's interests, and enthusiasms; by needing to reach outside my comfort zone so that I can be the mother than I think he deserves, I have become even braver.

* For those who might wonder how it is that I know the exact date on which I have climbed fells stretching back to my own earliest years - at the cottage my family own we have always kept a "Log Book", in which every visitor writes a diary entry for the day's activities. This provides a lovely record of our family stretching back over half a century. Perhaps my favourite entry, by GrannyBear, was the terse three-worder: "Rain. Children horrible." I have no doubt she was right.

Mining the past: episode 1

I have been spending a couple of days at GrannyBear's house this week, and among the things I have been doing has been sorting through piles and boxes and heaps of paperwork. Some of this is her paperwork (for example scraps of paper recording the mileage per year of every car she'd owned for the past twenty-something years...) And some of the paperwork is mine, covering everything from my Year 5 history books to my university exams. 

Some of these old records contain modest surprises - my handwriting was very neat when I was ten, and has been going down hill ever since; I remember absolutely nothing of my GCSE maths coursework; my GCSE English teacher had very high expectations of me.

Others contain even more startling surprises. Information that not only don't I remember the content of, but I don't remember receiving. One notable example of this is a letter from my Director of Studies* that I received at the end of my second year at University. 

My second year was not one that ended well. While my first year wasn't great, featuring the death of my father; my second year was more academically disastrous. I arrived at my first exam, prepared for, and expecting, three hours of Quantum Mechanics. It was a Thermodynamics exam. it would be fair to say I didn't write a great deal in that exam. I did, however, shed a lot of tears, and I also chewed my index finger. I chewed it so much I suffered severe nerve damage in the finger. It recovered. Eventually. With five 3-hour exams spread over only three days, I didn't exactly psychologically recover before the remaining exams. The miracle was that I finished the year with a third. And only missed a 2(ii) by a whisker.

Which brings us to the very kind letter my Director of Studies sent me, letting me know my mark breakdown, and also giving me some feedback on my Supervisor's reports. And what gems they contained...

"Some of her supervision work was excellent and witnessed independent thinking as well as sufficient ability. At other times she gave up rather quickly."

"She is bright and able, but seems a little unconfident of her abilities as a physicist. In fact, she's much better than she thinks she is! Hopefully as she continues to work independently at the courses she'll acquire a greater confidence in herself: if she does she could do quite well."

"She continues to try hard and participates fully in supervisions, questioning almost everything. She tries to understand things at a very high level, and by and large succeeds, only occasionally missing the point. She could do very well."

Obviously, it's in my nature to notice the negative more than the positive, but I'm genuinely entertained by the fact that I have sufficient ability, occasionally miss the point, but could do quite well. There's an epitaph...

* Some of the details of this post will make more sense to those who also studied at Cambridge. A Director of Studies is someone who oversees all of your academic progress. A Supervisor is someone who provides small-group tuition. In the physical sciences, this would be with only two students at a time, for an hour, once a week. You would have one Supervisor per specialist subject. To add confusion, we also had a Tutor, who did no teaching, but was responsible for our pastoral care.

Micro-blogging: dealing with idiots

I never, ever, ever learn.

I keep making the same mistake.

I keep attempting to explain a complex problem to someone who is clearly a moron.

I keep including more than one piece of information in an email, and my tame moron appears unable to process more than one piece of information, so they latch on to one thing, and write a knee-jerk reply.

The thing about complex problems is that they require groundwork to be laid in the form of multiple pieces of information. I need to state the three or four pertinent facts and then explain how these combine to form a knotty issue.

But moron insists on reading the first fact, and replying to tell me that this fact is fine.

Please, for the love of all that is good, READ THE WHOLE EMAIL.

Micro-blogging: time-saving or slatternly?

This morning when I got dressed I opted for a three-layer, chiffon, handkerchief-hem skirt. But when I got downstairs I noticed that the chiffon was still rather wrinkled and needed ironing. 

This particular skirt has those teeny, tiny buttons with fabric loop closures that fumble-fingers hate undoing.

So I got the iron and ironing board out, and ironed my skirt while wearing it, rotating it round my waist to be sure of ironing all of it.

I'm not sure if this was a genius move, or teetering on a Joey-from-Friends level of life skills.

Micro-blogging: danger, sadist at work

There are some jobs that are definitely suited to sadists, but one more so than all others...

"What is it?" I hear you cry.

Prison guard?

Royal Marines bootcamp instructor?

CIA torturer?

No, no, it's none of the above. It's a dental hygienist. Someone who appears to take genuine pleasure from sliding a long needle into your gum, and then between tooth and gum, before telling you that your gums are bleeding. Of course they're fucking bleeding you demented psychopath, you've been practising your embroidery skills on them!

I've never had a problem with going to the dentist. I had many, many years of orthodontic treatment, some of it quite painful. I've had 4 adult teeth removed under local anaesthetic (to make room in my mouth for the rest of them). I've had my wisdom teeth removed. I have never hated a dental process as much as I hate visiting the hygienist. Dangerous sadists the lot of them.

A letter to my MP

I admit that my political posts appear rather less popular than most other things I write about, but I thought I'd share this one anyway. My MP is Conservative. Her voting record suggests she is a staunch follower of the party line, with her only rebellions being on the subject of abortion in Northern Ireland (which she voted not to criminalise) and Assisted Dying (which she voted to permit). The general feeling amongst those I've spoken to is that she was parachuted into our constituency from CCHQ and shows little interest in her constituents. But my sample-set is rather biased.

I've written to her a few times in the past, and always been graced with a cut-and-paste answer that parrots whatever it is the government are claiming. This time, three weeks have passed and she hasn't even favoured me with that paltry offering.  

Dear Ms Local MP,

It has been clear for some time that the Prime Minister is a man with only a passing acquaintanceship with truth, integrity or honour. What is becoming more clear is that he has fostered and led an atmosphere in 10 Downing St in his own image, with a contempt for rules, and for the people of this country.  

The behaviour of those elected to lead this country is a disgrace and an affront to all the people who have suffered and sacrificed so much throughout the pandemic. Every Conservative MP who fails to speak out, and who fails to condemn the actions of Boris Johnson and his office, aligns themselves with this arrogance and contempt. Every day you are silent is another day in which you condone a grotesque parody of leadership.

“Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion. Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing. He is not a good man who, without a protest, allows wrong to be committed in his name, and with the means which he helps to supply, because he will not trouble himself to use his mind on the subject.”

John Stuart Mill, 1867 inaugural address, University of St Andrews.

Of the seven Nolan Principles, perhaps now is the time to remind you specifically of the final two:

Honesty – Holders of public office should be truthful

Leadership – Holders of public office should exhibit these principles in their own behaviour and treat others with respect. They should actively promote and robustly support the principles and challenge poor behaviour wherever it occurs.

Boris Johnson manifestly fails in both these respects. Do not pacify your conscience by thinking that forming no opinion, looking on, and doing nothing you are doing no harm. You are not a good woman if, without protest, you allow wrong to be committed in your name.

Yours sincerely

PhysicsBear, with a collection of impressive sounding letters after her name.

Micro-blogging: a simple observation

Therapist: So people do say good things about you?

Me <small voice>: Yes

Therapist: And do you remember them?

Me: <sounding like Boris Johnson>: ah, um, well, yes, I mean, I do remember but I don't, well, I suppose, I kind of find ways to dismiss them....

Identifying my dysfunctional thinking is going to be a bit like shooting fish in a barrel.

But I liked her, and I think I'll be able to work with her. Though she did warn me that if I revealed anything to her about terrorist activity or laundering drug money, she wouldn't be allowed to respect client confidentiality. So there's that.

Micro-blogging: mental collapse and the art of football management

 As is so often the way in life... I spoke too soon...

Having had a warm and positive start to the footballing new year, things have now spiralled downwards.

I have lost any zen-like equilibrium I once possessed. I have, in fact, more than lost my equilibrium, I have tumbled, swirling and spinning, into the abyss. Any confidence I had that I knew what I was doing is shattered and if I feel anything about football it is that I am a failure. A charlatan who has no place coaching or managing a team. 

For the past ten days, there hasn't been a single day when tears of despair and hopelessness haven't poured unbidden down my face. 

I've thought, several times, about trying to put my feelings into words here, but I can't. I can't bring myself to write them down, to confront them, to open the floodgates to the tears that I may not be able to stop. 

I've thought, several times, about walking away from coaching football, but I can't. I can't bring myself to abandon my boys and give up on something I want to achieve. 

Is it really football, or have I simply burnt out at last?

Maybe it's football. Maybe it's life. Maybe it's me. 

I want to be perfect, and I'm not.

I want to be proud of myself and I'm not.

I want to believe, deep inside myself, that I'm doing a good job, but I don't.

I want to stop constantly needing someone else to reassure me that I am good enough, and I don't know how.

Tomorrow I have an initial consultation with a therapist. There's no magic wand that will change how I feel about myself, but I have to start somewhere.

I feel faintly absurd to be seeking professional counselling to learn to cope with volunteering with an under-10 football team, but in truth, it goes far deeper than that. I suspect that football has simply ripped off the sticking plaster I'd slapped over the open wound of anxiety, depression and low self-esteem that has been festering for many years. 

I might write about some of it here, I might stick to politics and cats. Who knows?

Micro-blogging: telephones

When we were at secondary school, BrotherBear and I both went to school by train. To different towns. In opposite directions. GrannyBear dealt with this in the mornings by simply dropping us both at the station in time for the earliest journey. In the afternoon/evening, we might miss the train, or there'd be a delay, or one of us had an afterschool activity, so the exact time at which we'd reappear at the station was unknown. The station was well-equipped with telephone boxes (invariably reeking of stale urine), but every phone call, no matter the duration, cost the princely sum of ten pence. But, if one inserted one's coin, rang a number, and it wasn't answered, one's ten pence piece was returned. So, we used to do that, and hang up after exactly three rings. GrannyBear would hear the phone ring three times, and come to the station to collect an unspecified member of the family. Strangely, this system worked remarkably well.

This week, I collected LittleBear from afterschool football. My mobile rang, but I didn't hear it. My friend's mobile rang, and she answered. Another mum was running late, and needed someone to prevent her 9-year old escaping unaccompanied. I scampered down the school drive to retrieve the already-escaped 9-year old, and friend retrieved her own boy and LittleBear. We all convened at the end of the school drive and waited until late-mum arrived, and all was well.

The world has changed a great deal, and while it's possible to bemoan the degree to which we're all tethered to our mobiles, the ability to retrieve small people from school is definitely a lot easier than it used to be.

Micro-blogging: age-appropriate reading matter

For his ninth birthday we gave LittleBear a book that had been recommended by one of my colleagues. Said colleague also had an only boy-child, about 15 years older than LittleBear, but one who'd been very similar to him in his younger years. So, I took the recommendation. It was a mighty tome of mythology - Arthurian legends, Ancient Greek, Norse, Roman, the Mabinogeon and the legends of Charlemagne. And, being written in the mid-nineteenth century, it didn't really pull any punches in its language or contents. And LittleBear hoovered it up, and continues to return to it. 

We have many family jokes from it now - such as on the frequent appearance of fountains in forests in romantic legend, or the use of the old "bag of wind" ruse in Greek and Roman myths. (Our personal favourite, however, is Rogero being "distracted by an adventure" on his way to the cathedral to marry the long-suffering Bradamante. That's quite some distraction.)

Today, LittleBear was required to dress up as an Ancient Greek for a history day at school, so I made some casual throwaway remark about being wary of Greeks bearing gifts...

LittleBear: Actually Mummy, the quote is that, "I fear the Greeks, even when they are bearing gifts." Laocoon said it.

Me: Was that in Homer? <desperately trying to salvage something from the conversation>

LittleBear: No, it was in the Aeneid. By Virgil.

And now I wish I'd never given him the damn book. Being corrected on a quote from Virgil when I studied the Aeneid at school is pretty bad. Having LittleBear assume that he needed to tell me that it was Virgil who wrote the Aeneid was just a step too far.

Micro-blogging: arguing with my diary

Since getting involved with LittleBear's football team, I have used a week-per-view diary for all football matters. I keep a list of the boys' contact numbers in the back, I note down meetings and matches. And, most importantly, I always have a diary with the days on one page, and a empty page for "notes" on the facing page. And this is where the starting line-up is jotted down, the subs, the scorers, the assists, the injuries, the times. Enough to scrape together some kind of match report after the fact.

Being a creature of habit, I now must have a week-per-view, with notes, diary each year. For some reason, it was difficult to find one this year. Not Smiths, not Rymans, not Waterstones, not Letts. In the end, I bought a random one from Amazon. It's not plain black, which irks me a bit, but not half as much as the insides irk me...

Useful to whom?

Seriously? What is this diary? The paper format of a phishing scam? My First Identity Theft?

Don't mock me

I do not buy diaries as an exercise in personal growth. The only correct entries in these fields are, "I'm still alive, what more do you want from me?" Not to mention - what the hell is the difference between "Triumphs and Successes" and "Major Achievements"? Even if I were inclined to write down how awesome I was last year, I'm not sure I could summon up two different types of awesomeness.

 Now you've gone too far

I don't think I can stretch beyond, "fuck off with your personal goals shit, I hate you, you unnecessarily upbeat, perky, bastarding book". And literally the only reason I am not writing that on these pages is because there's a fair chance that one of my small boys will read it.

Micro-blogging: the power of great actors

This morning* I listened to Mark Rylance being interviewed on the radio. And I was reminded that I have seen him live on stage. It was 1997, and the first full season of the newly built (re-built? re-created?) Globe Theatre on the banks of the Thames. The production was Henry V, and Mark Rylance had the title role. I was there with GrannyBear and my aunt and uncle. We had tickets as "groundlings", standing in the pit of the theatre. We stood, if not at the front, within a few rows of the front, and gazed upwards onto the stage.

It was one of the most powerful, and immersive, pieces of theatre I have ever been part of. When Rylance stood on the front of the stage before the battle of Harfleur, to rouse his men "once more unto the breach", I swear I would have followed him anywhere. Unlike the hushed reverence of many theatres, the Globe unleashed a rawness and immediacy that allowed the crowd to shout and cheer and be the soldiers ready to Cry 'God for Harry! England! and Saint George!' It was an inspiring moment in which the power of a genuinely great actor was revealed to me for the first time.

* "This morning" is now two days ago, because it turns out I'm pretty crap at even finishing a short blog post.

Micro-blogging: zen and the art of football management

Whether I've just been writing this blog for too long and run out of things to say, or I've been stuck in the house for two years and run out of things to say, or I've taken on too many other responsibilities and have run out of time to say whatever it is I might have to say, I couldn't tell you.

So, in another attempt to re-ignite my blogging mojo, I'm going to have a go at "micro-blogging", try to overcome my natural verbosity, and write short posts about random things on a much more frequent timescale. Maybe even daily.

And I'll be avoiding politics (sometimes). There's a definite downturn in my readership when I write about politics. When I say "downturn", I mean tumbleweed blows across the barren wastelands of my stats page.

So...

Last night I slept well. I didn't wake up at 5:30 and lie awake for two hours. This is notable because this is the very first time that I've been in charge of my football team, and not woken early fretting about it on match day. 

Every other match I have lain awake in the wee small hours, going over and over and over who is playing where, for how long, who's subbing on, when, into which positions. What warm up to do. What to say in a team talk. When to set off. Where to park. Whether the parents actually all hate me. Whether I will have to Have A Word with my co-coach about his habit of running up and down the touchline shouting at the boys.

I'm not sure that this is a sign of huge personal growth and a new-found zen-like approach, but it was a nice change. It was definitely helped by some really positive exchanges with most of the parents in the few days beforehand. And a good training session on Monday. And knowing co-coach wouldn't be there, shouting. Which is a less good sign.

Time for a revolution

Fore-foreword: after the horrific attack on David Amess, I decided not to immediately publish this post. It seemed like a time to reflect on what I was writing, and whether the level of anger I feel towards our government is something that it's acceptable to post online. I have a very, very small readership, most of whom I know personally, so I hardly think I'll be inciting acts of violence. But on the other hand, I am contributing to a wider malaise of rage and intolerance, and maybe I shouldn't be. But what is it that I'm intolerant of? Not race, or gender, or sexuality, or religion, or age, or ethnicity, or nationality. I am intolerant of hypocrisy, of a cavalier attitude to facts, of lying, of greed, of cruelty, of lack of empathy. And honestly, I don't want to become tolerant of those things. I don't want to sit back and stop caring. So I stay angry.

Foreword: I found a draft of a post I started writing in November 2020. At the time it all got a bit rabid and then petered out and I never quite finished it. Nearly a year later, and not much seems to have changed within my opinions. So to maintain my eco-credentials, I'm just going to recycle it with a few updates that take account of the passage of time. For the sake of historical accuracy, I'm going to make those edits obvious.

I'll start today with an an observation and a warning.

My observation is that it's quite apparent that in the dark and troubling times* we're living in, people are looking for positivity wherever they can find it, even if that's in random whimsical blogposts by some woman they once met outside the school gates. In the past, when looking at the statistics from my blog posts, I consistently had a higher readership for my political rants and introspective anxiety-bleats than anything else I wrote. If I ever produced anything light and fluffy, it was generally met with a bit of a "meh" response. Now, Last year, however, my ten days of positivity each garnered twice as many page views as my grumbles about the shit-weasels governing the country. So, perhaps I should try and stick to some more positive posts - give the people what they want eh? 

And now for the warning:

This post is going to be absolutely rammed full of expletives. I shall curse, swear and profane profusely. If you think this is an impoverished use of language that reveals a lack of imagination and creativity, or if you're just plain offended, tough. Piss off and read about kittens instead.

Back on track...

I cannot write positively just for the sake of it. I'm not positive all the time, and even writing 10 days worth of good cheer was seriously difficult. There were a couple of days I dreaded having to stick to my self-induced schedule. 

I've had enough. I've fucking had it. I'm pissed off. I hate everything about the way the world is. I hate our lying, conniving, self-serving, contemptible shits of politicians. I despise every fucking Brexit-supporting moron who thought "taking back control" was such a fucking good idea they chose to condemn us to becoming a pariah floating in the North Sea. There was never any positive outcome to Brexit. Never. Every sodding thing I wrote about before the referendum was right. I'm not saying I'm some kind of genius. Far from it. I'm pointing out it was blindingly fucking obvious that leaving the EU was the most half-arsed, blinkered, navel-gazing, dim-witted thing we could possibly do, and that it absolutely didn't take a genius to spot that. And if the fact that it was a stupid idea didn't put you off, the fact that the campaign to leave was led by the biggest bunch of lying, power-crazed, wealth-obsessed shit-gibbons this country has ever seen should have been a bit of a clue.

But never mind Brexit, eh? Not while we've got over 500 100 people a day dying of a pandemic (again), while the Brexit-cock-wombles' friends are lining their pockets and failing to answer questions before a Select Committee. How many billions have we spaffed** up the wall on contracts for nothing, or PR campaigns, or "consultants"? How many more people have to die while our government refuses to learn any lessons from the first 50,000 160,000 dead? What the fuck is wrong with these people? Is anyone actually able to stomach listening to Johnson's bullshit waffling at his press conferences everywhere he goes. Waving his arms around, randomly clenching his fist, burbling pointless, frequently military, analogies. Why the fuck did anyone vote for this scum? THIS IS YOUR FAULT.

I'm just so fucking angry with everything. I'm trapped, and fed up, and powerless and it's all just so bloody exhausting. We have a government of incompetent, ill-informed, immoral lickspittles, who kowtow to a stupid, narcissistic, man-baby whose expensive education has left him with nothing more than a veneer of pseudo-intelligence and the mistaken conviction that he is entitled to rule. A man who is incapable of listening, learning, understanding, empathising or indeed leading. A man who escapes on holiday to his billionaire-friends' homes as often as possible, apparently oblivious to the fact that his presence or absence has absolutely no impact on the efficiency or effectiveness of the governance of the country. A man who has no strategy, forethought, policy or direction beyond feathering his own nest and being patted on the back. A man who will say or do absolutely anything for a cheap laugh or a round of applause, but who will renege on every promise he's ever made, personally or professionally.

And this personality cult that's masquerading as a political party has an overwhelming majority in the House of Commons. A majority that they're busy trying to make unassailable by changing voting laws, banning protests and limiting freedoms. A majority that is baked-in to our antiquated FPTP voting system. A majority that is still, gobsmackingly, approved of by some 40% of the voting public. 

Where the hell do we go from here? Where are the decent Tories who will stop this nonsense? Are there any? Because it's only Tories who can currently do anything about this fiasco of a corrupt, incompetent government. 

And then it's time for a revolution, and the creation of a mature democracy fit for the 21st century. Who's with me?

* A year on, and a question for the reader - are times more or less dark and troubling now, or is it much the same?

** For those who are not followers of the Parliamentary sketch-writer John Crace, he habitually refers to Johnson as "spaffer" after his obscene complaint that money spent pursuing historic cases of child sex abuse was being "spaffed up the wall". He later attempted to claim he was not aware that the term was synonymous with ejaculation. He is an utter, irredeemable shit.

Imposter Syndrome (or just an Imposter)

I have previously mentioned Imposter Syndrome as it applies to my work as a physicist.  On that happy occasion, I was revelling, slightly, at discovering that I perhaps wasn't as shit as I'd always thought I was. Since I'm a glutton for punishment, it was not enough to finally feel confident and secure in my abilities, so I have found new and interesting ways to feel useless.

It is unlikely to have escaped anyone's notice that I am reasonably firmly embedded in LittleBear's grassroots football club. I have not gone into a great deal of depth here about the degree to which I am embedded, or how and why. As with many things in my life, the full story is too much someone else's story for me to be entirely comfortable writing about, so it remains just "one of those things". However, suffice to say that, while I started out four years ago helping with the administrative side of running LittleBear's team, I'm now the manager. I'm a qualified FA Level One coach. I run training sessions, with the original manager assisting me*. I run match days, planning team-sheets and line-ups, making substitutions, encouraging, coaching and supporting the boys**. I'm the First Aider. I'm the administrator. I'm the accountant. 

Some of those roles I take in my stride. Managing a bank account is not beyond the wit of PhysicsBear. Applying an occasional ice-pack is quite do-able. And despite a certain amount of swearing, I even survive the vagaries of fighting with the tentacles of the FA websites to undertake the arcane aspects of team management. But the training, the teaching, the coaching, the football?

I am lost.

I am at sea.

I have less than no idea how to maintain any semblance of control, or convey any teaching points, to a rabble to 9 and 10 year olds. Occasionally a training session has the air of running smoothly. This largely occurs when the stars align and I happen to ask the boys to do something they wanted to do anyway. When I try and get them to do something new or, heaven forfend, something involving applying brains or concentration, the chances are that I will spend 50% of the session telling them to stop interrupting and to listen. 

I am not a teacher. I have never wanted to be a teacher. I have never thought I'd be a good teacher. And yet, here I am, teaching. If I were teaching something that I felt secure in, like physics or chemistry, I would find it stressful (as indeed I did) but at least I'd be sure I knew what I was talking about. Instead, here I am teaching something about which I know almost nothing. 

We have all seen, over the course of the past two years, how rapidly people assume a mantle of expertise on subjects about which, quite frankly, they know bugger all. Everyone's an epidemiologist these days aren't they? Football has always had this feature, well before it was fashionable. Football is populated by the kinds of people who have no qualms at all about phoning national radio stations to explain what exactly Pep Guardiola has done wrong in his tactics this week. Football is also an immensely popular sport in this country. Which means across a squad of seventeen boys that I train, at least fifty percent of them are in possession of parents who have firm opinions about football. Parents who will express strong views about Klopp's choice of starting 11, how to play against a high-press, and (ad nauseam) the impact of VAR on the Beautiful Game. Parents who certainly appear to know an awful lot more about football than I do. Most of them have the advantage of having played the blasted game, which is more than I've ever achieved.

I watch football. I enjoy football. But I have a guilty secret. I always end up watching the ball. For those non-football-afficionados here, this may not seem such a stupid thing to do. It is football after all. But for those who actually want to understand what's happening on the pitch, watching what the players without the ball are doing is key. And I don't. I try, but I'm very easily distracted by the ball. 

So I know, deep in my soul, that I am not an expert. And without an expert's level of understanding and knowledge of how to play, I have absolutely no idea how or what to teach my boys. I try. I really do. I watch YouTube videos. I read FA training plans. I study books of training ideas. I want to know what to do. I want to get it right. I want to be good at it. But I'm not. I know I'm not. And I know that it's only a matter of time before the boys, and their parents, realise that I don't have the faintest idea what I'm doing. If they haven't already. 

I'm just about keeping my head above water this season, coaching 7-aside football with an under-10 side. But I find it hard to imagine being able to offer any technical or tactical insight as we progress through to full-blown, competitive 11-aside football.

I don't want to give up. I don't want to abandon my boys. I don't want to fail. 

But I don't know how to be better. I don't know how to learn the huge amount that I don't know. There aren't enough hours in the day to be physicist, mother, wife, daughter, football coach, friend and me. I can keep going, being a bit shit, hoping nobody notices that I'm a bit shit. Hoping the boys learn something by magical osmosis from somewhere else. Hoping they don't see through me too soon. Hoping the parents don't think their boys would be better off elsewhere. Or I can walk away. With my head down and tears in my eyes, betraying my son's faith in me, and his team's need for someone to run things for them. 

My name is PhysicsBear, and I don't know what I'm doing.

 

*Yes. I find this as toe-curlingly awkward and difficult as it probably sounds

** I do have a lovely assistant for this, and she is supportive, kind and helpful, and does everything I ask of her, and more. But my own over-developed sense of responsibility means that as the one with "Manager" written next to my name, I take emotional ownership of it all. 

PSA: graphene

I would like to say that the world is full of idiots, except apparently calling people idiots is not a good way of winning an argument. So, instead, I shall assume the world is full of people who are a little bit scared of science. People who've never had reasons to know about or understand nanotechnology. People who aren't necessarily educated in the realms of materials science or chemistry. And that's OK. Nobody is an expert at everything. But... (and it's a BIG but)... if you're not educated in these areas, and you don't understand, and something sounds big and scary and weird... maybe the thing to do is to find a reputable source of information and try and educate yourself?

That in itself appears to be a challenge. Reputable source of information. Reputable source of information. Not someone with a diploma in aromatherapy. Not someone whose grandma felt a bit funny after a flu jab one time. Not someone who wants to explain to you how the moon landings were faked. Not someone who writes a blog you quite like... oh... hang on... Seriously though, I could be anyone. I happen to be a Fellow of the Institute of Physics whose professional area of expertise is in chemical analysis, with a focus on material structure. But I could just be saying that. 

So... you probably shouldn't just believe me... you should probably follow some of my references if you really want to know whether I'm right. And I have deliberately chosen not to reference Wikipedia. 

Today's little piece of science will address one of the more bonkers theories I've read about the covid vaccines. The claim goes something like this: the vaccines contain graphene, and once the graphene is in your bloodstream, it self-assembles into a nano-bot that can form a brain-computer-interface and thus control/intercept your thoughts. 

Graphene eh? Nano-bots? Sounds pretty scary doesn't it? 

Would you like to make some graphene? I bet you can do it(1). Grab yourself a pencil, and some sellotape. Start with one piece of sellotape and press the sticky side against the "lead" of the pencil. Peel it off. You should have a grey smudge on your sellotape. That's graphite. Not quite graphene yet, but you're getting there. Now you need to repeatedly fold the sellotape in on itself and peel it apart again. Ten to twenty times should do it. Apparently Scotch tape works particularly well for this, as the peeling apart stage is easier. Any low-tack tape will do though. I'm not being paid to advertise. 

Each time you stick and peel, the smudge of graphite is pulled apart a little bit more. The graphite becomes thinner and thinner until eventually you'll have fragments of graphene. Because graphene is simply graphite in a single, one-atom-thick or "monatomic", layer. 

But what is graphite? And is a monatomic layer of it scary? 

Graphite is carbon. That's it. Just carbon. Carbon arranged in a nice, neat lattice. Each atom one member of a hexagonal ring, and many rings together forming a stable sheet (2).

So, there we are. We now know what graphene is - one layer of graphite. And we know what graphite is - a hexagonal lattice of carbon atoms. I don't even need to address whether covid vaccines do or don't contain graphene. Maybe they do, maybe they don't. Instead we're going to think, just a little bit, about whether little hexagons of carbon atoms are going to find each other, assemble themselves, and create a robot, nano or otherwise. I'm hoping that this thinking isn't going to take us too long. I'm hoping that it will be but a fleeting thought that will allow us to realise that the chances of fragments of carbon assembling themselves into anything is about as likely as your IKEA Billy bookcase assembling itself, or your pencil becoming self-aware and writing down its Christmas wishlist.

So, there we are. Hopefully one stupid covid vaccine myth debunked. There are no self-assembly graphene nano-bots in your blood-stream controlling your thoughts. 

(1) https://physicsworld.com/a/how-to-make-graphene/

(2) Fig 1 in https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlehtml/2019/cp/c8cp07592a  

Never did me any harm...

There is a prevailing, and to me misguided, view that often gets expressed that those things one has experienced oneself, and survived, can reasonably be inflicted upon the next generation.  I hear it about student debt relief - that cancelling student debt for this generation is unfair on those who did pay off their loans. As though one's own suffering justifies others' suffering. I've heard it about unpaid internships, or about appalling working hours for junior doctors. About corporal punishment in schools. About cold baths in boarding schools. Any number of unpleasant, or downright dangerous, experiences that could justifiably be left well and truly in the past.

It will come as no surprise to hear that the arena in which I'm currently hearing this is football coaching. And more specifically, the coaching of young children. How much is it OK to shout at children? How much yelling is too much? How much stick is "needed" compared to the carrot? Those who know me, know that my own style is not to berate children, or tell them they're not good enough, or yell and scream from the sidelines*. 

I've had several people lately tell me that being yelled at and intimidated by your coach, and told you're not good enough, is just how it is in football. That it's what their own experience of youth football was like. That it, "never did me any harm".

And, for me, there are two obvious responses...

Firstly, how do you know it didn't do you any harm?

Who would you have been without that experience? What might you have done differently? How might your interactions with the world, and the people you love have changed? None of us can know the path not taken.

Secondly, forget about yourself, some things aren't just about whether you were fine. What about all the other children? What about the boys and girls who were terrified by the shouting, intimidated, made to feel useless or worthless? What about the children who couldn't handle it and who left the sport? The ones who stopped playing football because they cried after every match where they were shouted at. Football, sport, life, none of those are only supposed to be for the thick-skinned, the robust, the supremely self-assured. We should be making space in life, and in sport, for those who are not sure, those who have self-doubt, and building their confidence, not breaking it. 

Maybe, once you reach the top-flight of international sport, a certain resilience is required. The ability to believe in yourself, despite what others may say, is almost certainly needed both to rise to the top, and to stay there. Even there, the honesty of people like Marcus Trescothick, Ben Stokes, Naomi Osaka and Simone Biles reveals that it's not that straightforward. That even at the top, doubts, fears, depression and anxiety may be an ever-present enemy. But when we're talking about children playing non-competitive, grassroots sport? Inclusive, open, sport played for fun, should be, well, fun.

And if we can nurture today's children, and show them that it's possible to participate in team sports, and give your all, even when you're not the best, without being demeaned and belittled, then maybe when today's children grow up, they will be part of a kinder world.

“It's not our job to toughen our children up to face a cruel and heartless world. It's our job to raise children who will make the world a little less cruel and heartless.”

L.R. Knost, Two Thousand Kisses a Day: Gentle Parenting Through the Ages and Stages

 

* Obviously, I do yell from the sidelines, but it's generally anodyne stuff like, "Well done!" or "Keep it up!"  or occasionally even such tactical gems as "Man on!" It's possible that at a recent training session the phrase, "you wouldn't like me when I'm angry" was also used...

Pleasing none of the people none of the time

The thing about random memes on Facebook is that most of them, aside from being poorly spelled, poorly punctuated, and frequently involving utterly invented quotes, are complete tripe. They sometimes make me wonder whether I really know my friends when I see the things they link to. On the other hand, there's the odd thing that pops up that stops me in my tracks and actually makes me think.

Here's one of them (with apologies for spelling, punctuation, grammar and colour-scheme):

And the problem is, I am absolutely not OK with not being liked. In fact I spend an inordinate amount of emotional and mental energy contorting myself attempting to be liked. I volunteer, I help, I smile, I cook, I step up, I try so damn hard all the time to be a person other people will like. And, perhaps unsurprisingly, it doesn't work. The people who like me, like me anyway. And the people who are either indifferent to me, or don't particularly like me, are not going to have their minds changed by me spending hours of my free time doing things for them. They'll just willingly soak up my kindness and carry on with their lives, not liking me any more or any less than they did before. I am an irrelevance to them.

It would now appear that I have engineered myself into a hole. I have spent so much time contorting myself in desperate and futile attempts to be liked, that now if I stop being the ever-biddable, ever-self-sacrificing, ever-helpful me, I am resented for not bending over backwards. I am now expected to be all things for all people, and I am burnt out, unable to keep offering more and more of myself. And yet I keep doing so, because to stop, and to risk not being likeable enough is still unthinkable to my needy little mind.

Every day I receive emails, WhatsApp messages, text messages, phone calls, taps on the shoulder, all asking me for something. Sometimes it's a simple question about a date or a time, sometimes it's a request for information, and sometimes it's a request for help. But it's always something. Always requiring an answer, or effort, or work, or commitment. Worst of all is that sometimes it requires a decision. A decision that I know is not going to please at least one other person. And then my need to please slams up against my need to do the right thing, or my need to be clear and honest, or my need to be organised. It's not possible to be honest, and honourable, and moral and also please everybody.

I have to find a way to tell people things that they won't like. I have to find ways of telling people what I think or believe without worrying about whether they will or won't like it. 

I have to find ways of saying "No", without being paralysed by the fear of being disliked. I have to find ways of doing what I know to be right without spending hours agonising over the wording of the email that needs to be sent, and then days agonising of what I have (or more likely haven't) heard in reply. 

I have to find ways of accepting that I cannot please all of the people all of the time. I will be lucky if I can please some of the people some of the time. 

At the moment it feels like I'm pleasing none of the people none of the time.

 

Perils of cycling

 For those who like a bit of levity in their day... picture the scene... I am cycling LittleBear to school early for triathlon club. We're in a hurry, as we're always a little late for the 7:55-at-school start. Suddenly, there's huge resistance to my pedal stroke, and my bike slams to a halt. My long skirt has caught in the chain and wound itself round the rear hub. I lurch onto the pavement dragging my bike, and clutching my skirt to prevent it being pulled off entirely by the weight of the falling bike.

I try to contort myself, my skirt and my bicycle into position to disentangle myself, and then hear the dulcet tones of an Angel of Mercy. The neighbour whose house I have stalled in front of happened to be looking out of the window and has rushed out to help. 

She turns out to be dextrous and of delicate touch. As she gently eases the wheel round, inching the oily fabric out, a van pulls up and the slightly-less-dulcet tones of the chairman of our football club ring out, offering help. I sternly wag my finger and forbid photographs. To my surprise, and relief, he complies. Though he also mocks me. Deservedly. 

My Angel of Mercy completes the extraction of my skirt, without once needing to reveal my bottom to the world AND she then gives me a hair tie with which to bundle up the ill-advised skirt and complete my journey. We even got to triathlon club before they closed the gates.

I will not be riding in that skirt again.