Staying Lost

When I moved from Australia to the UK ten years ago, one of the biggest challenges was deciding what to do with my books and music. Like many collectors, I'd accumulated far more than I could comfortably justify, yet each item had seemed important enough to acquire in the first place. Even after a fairly ruthless cull, dozens of boxes departed for my new home.

Once we arrived, we moved into a small house and virtually all my music and books went straight into storage. They were there, in limbo, far longer than I would have liked.

We moved into our current home a few years ago.  I was able to unpack my vinyl, and realised immediately that several hundred records were missing. Somewhere between Australia and the UK, a few boxes had gone missing. It was immensely frustrating, and so I started a spreadsheet of the missing titles, or at least those I could remember.

As I wrote in my last post, I've finally been able to start unpacking my book collection. Now that the cataloguing is almost complete, I can see that half a dozen titles are missing. I therefore assume that at least one box of books disappeared as well.

Insurance can’t come into play, as I didn't discover the loss when it happened. I discovered it years later. Even so, I have managed to replace a fair number of the missing records. I pick them up when I see them at a cheap price.  That is, if I still want them.

That’s the unexpected realisation. Faced with the knowledge that certain items had vanished, I found myself considering whether I actually needed them back. Some, certainly. There are some items that still matter enormously to me, but I’m no longer the completist I used to be. 

There are still parts of my collection where I want it all. Not every edition, variation and release, but one of each. I don’t need five copies of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, or the French, German and Peruvian releases of Abbey Road, but Philip K. Dick and The Beatles, amongst others, are an important interest that has been constant for many decades.  These are authors and artists I adore, so I do want all their titles and I return to them often. As a result, some titles are on a wants list and have already found their way back onto the shelves. Others have remained absent, and I no longer feel any urgency to track them down.

Some of the missing items I'd owned them for years, perhaps decades, but if I was honest with myself I hadn't listened to them, read them or even thought about them for a very long time. Their disappearance was annoying at the time. Now, not so much.

That distinction has become increasingly important. As I continue unpacking, I'm finding myself making decisions about what stays and what goes. That's not a judgement on their quality. Some excellent books have left the house recently, while others almost certainly will. It's simply an acceptance that shelf space is finite.

The younger version of me viewed a collection rather differently. Back then, ownership itself had value. There was satisfaction in complete sets, in knowing that a particular series, author or artist was fully represented. I still understand that desire, but I now recognise that I don’t need everything. I just don't feel a need to replace all that is gone.

Age? Experience? A changing philosophical viewpoint?  I don’t really know. What I do know is that the collection emerging from those boxes and enduring my cull is much smaller than the one that left Australia. The shelves are becoming more relevant, more manageable and more meaningful. The books and records that remain are the ones I genuinely want to live with.

The Sense of Wonder.

I've recently been unboxing books that have been in storage for years. There were always books on my shelves. There had to be. I could never manage without being surrounded by at least some of them. Many more, though, spent years sealed away in boxes in the garage. Now that I've finally sorted the shelving, they're gradually making their way back into the house.

I always knew what I owned. My database kept track of that for me. What I didn't have was easy access to much of the collection. As each box is opened, I check every book against the catalogue, confirm the edition, correct the occasional mistake, update the tags and replace cover images where necessary. It's wonderful to be reuniting with these old friends.

This process throws up the occasional surprise. Every now and then I find a duplicate, a book that somehow slipped through the net and never made it into the catalogue in the first place, or a forgotten signed copy. There are also those books that, despite the database, had completely slipped from my memory.

I've found myself pausing a lot to look at the cover art. I know we can't judge a book by its cover, but we do anyway. When I was younger and trawling second-hand bookshops and market stalls for science fiction novels, the cover often played a significant part in my purchasing. If the book was by a favourite or familiar author but the title was unknown to me, the decision was usually easy enough. Venturing into completely unknown names was different. Then I was relying on a combination of an intriguing blurb and a promising cover.

Looking at these old paperbacks again, I'm reminded just how much the artwork meant to me. I have vivid memories of lying on the living room floor with an Asimov novel beside me and staring at a Chris Foss cover until the image was permanently lodged in my imagination. Those vast spacecraft, impossible structures and alien landscapes promised a whole universe of exploration and discovery.

I once saw a comment that modern covers are designed, whereas older covers were art. Sure, the old covers didn't always match the story, but that almost seems irrelevant. They weren't simply trying to tell you what sort of book you were holding. They were trying to capture a mood, an idea, a sense of wonder and awe. A Chris Foss cover didn't need to be an accurate depiction of anything, it just needed to excite your imagination.

Perhaps that is why so much modern cover art doesn't appeal to me. Digital artists can create images of extraordinary complexity and detail. Yet many modern covers feel as though they have been assembled rather than painted. What they rarely do is stop me in my tracks and make me wonder. When I look at an old Foss, Pennington or Elson cover, I don't just see a book cover. I see a universe waiting. Forty years later they still make me want to pick up the book and see where it will take me.

I think the same distinction applies to the stories themselves. Modern publishing often feels highly designed. Writers have access to endless advice on structure, pacing, character arcs and plotting. Manuscripts pass through rounds of drafts, workshops, beta readers and professional editors. The results are often technically excellent, but I sometimes feel as though the life has been edited out of them. They are polished, refined and carefully constructed, yet most don't excite me the way older books do. The rough edges have gone, but so has some of the spontaneity.

Many of the older science fiction novels sitting on my shelves feel different. Not necessarily better. Often they are far less polished. The dialogue can be clunky, the characters sometimes thin and the plots occasionally held together with little more than enthusiasm. Their imagination is front and foremost.

It was more difficult to produce eighteen drafts when you were hammering away at a typewriter and producing carbon copies, and I suspect that's a big part of it. The writer reached a point where they were simply done. By modern standards that almost sounds reckless, yet some of those books still contain ideas and images that have stayed with me for more than forty years.

And so I continue to return to them. I still read contemporary science fiction and occasionally discover something wonderful, but when I think about Science Fiction, it is usually those older paperbacks that come to mind. I have found my niche. They speak to me. They still carry that sense of wonder that first drew me to the genre.

As I unpack these boxes, I'm finding books that I haven't really seen for many years.  And those covers still have exactly the same effect on me that they did when I first saw them. That sense of wonder has returned and I once again want to dive into those pages, to go and explore the universe..

Life, the Universe and Everything.

I went to a double funeral during the week.

My mate's wife passed away about a month ago. He passed away five days later. He was 92, she was 91. It wasn't really a surprise as neither had been well. I last saw him about six weeks before he died. He'd been in hospital and looked tired. The sparkle had gone from his eyes and he seemed like he'd simply had enough. Not in a dramatic sense. More that he was weary and was ready.
It wasn't a shock when I got the call, but a realisation. He was the first of the gang to leave us.

A few years ago I started going to the club once a week, hoping to meet some people, to make friends. I'd sit in the corner with a pint and a book. A bunch of people played backgammon in another corner, while a few groups of people huddled around small tables chatting and sipping their beers. One week, a guy in one of the groups told me to put the book away and come and join them. We became friends quickly, and now they are my gang, the guys I see each week for a drink at the club. There are seven of us who sit and chat and laugh. And we laugh lots. Our regular table, our regular seats. The in-jokes, the local news, restaurant reviews and so on. 

I'm the youngest, but in any group someone has to play that role. One of the guys, a year older than me, is a huge music fan as well.  I'm Beatles, he's Bowie.  And so the two of us discuss music, releases and rumours. The others are older, and we discuss life, the universe and everything.

Like all good friendship groups, ours has developed its own personality over the years. You know who will arrive first, who will tell the longest story, who will have an opinion on whatever topic comes up. The conversations wander all over the place and often end somewhere completely unexpected. My friend had his own place in the group. His own stories, opinions and observations. He had a dry wit and shared my sense of humour. We "got" each other. There were times I'd say something, and the others would nod, but he'd glance over at me and smirk. He'd throw out a line, and I'd look over to see him gazing back, wanting to see if I'd caught it. I sat at his funeral. To my right, only a few feet away, was a floor-to-ceiling window looking out onto a stone garden with a small beck running through it. For the entire ceremony, two ducks were no more than fifteen feet from me. One paddled in the beck. The other wandered over the stones, pecking around as if it had important duck business to attend to.

My eyes and mind kept returning to them. It was calming and comforting. While we sat inside reflecting on lives that had ended, the world outside was simply carrying on as normal. The circle of life, of being alive.

His seat at the club still sits vacant. It's not sacred, it's not a memorial, it's just that no one has moved into it yet. But I do find myself wondering who will be the next recruit. The next person who walks into the club looking for company and ends up being told to put their book away and join us.

Groups like ours can't stay the same forever. We've talked about this, my music friend and I. One day we'll be the elder statesmen and others will be occupying the seats. They'll never know the man who used to sit up one end, but they'll become part of the tale. They'll inherit the stories, the jokes, the restaurant reviews and the discussions about music.

And before long they'll be sharing stories of their own around the same table.

Frozen in Time.

It's ten years since I moved from Australia. My friends and I try to keep in touch, but the truth is we're in different worlds, different time-zones, and our lives are moving in different directions.  It's always great to see them when I visit, but then I get back here and we fall back into our quite irregular contact.

Last week I was thinking about people I knew before I  moved here. Not friends, as such, but people I worked with, people I saw at social events, even students. Some of them I see online.  It's great to see ex-students, for example, getting older, finding careers, getting married and having children. Not all the people I knew back then are online or in my friendship group.

I found myself wondering how an old student was getting on, and I realised that for me that person is still about 16 years old.  I've not seen or heard anything about them since I last taught them, so in my mind they haven't aged at all. They're not going to be like that now, of course, but that is how I see them.

This happens to everyone when we move out of their circle.  We preserve them in time, at the age and stage of life we knew them.  The teacher at school is still 35 and eating a packed lunch out of a paper bag, the neighbour is still listening to the Allman Brothers at high volume, the student never quite leaves school.

But we move on. We grow, evolve, change. We gather experience and learn. Misfortune occurs and our worldview alters, and sometimes our personalities. Careers advance or change, children are born, grey hair appears.  Decades pass, and my high-school friend is still a sixteen year old lover of football,  not the CEO of a tech company.

Surely there is someone in Australia who remembers me as the twenty-five year old colleague, the 40 year old student, the 50 year old teacher. They have no reason to update that picture, and I can guarantee they wouldn't even be able to imagine much of what I do these days.

Soon I will be catching up with an old friend, my best friend from High School. We last spent any real time together when I was around nineteen. Over the years we bumped into each other occasionally, and it was great to chat and laugh. He's not on social media, but we've kept in minimal contact through his wife. Now they're coming here, and we'll be catching up over dinner.  Our first proper catchup since the early 80s.

I know what he's been doing, I know where his life took him.  I have some idea of what he's doing now.  But to me there is still so much of him that is the eighteen year old friend who shared so much time with me.

I'm really looking forward to it.

I'll Take The Low Road.

A few weeks ago, I quietly slipped up to Scotland for a week. This was not just a holiday, a trip to catch up with relatives, or a spur-of-the-moment getaway. The journey was conceived in the week after my dad passed away at the end of last year. I could not get back to Australia for the funeral, so I decided instead to visit Scotland, to honour his life and spend some time in reflection. And to explore my own legacy, my own history, my own origins.

While planning the trip, I chose not to visit Aberdeen, where Dad was born and raised. I have been there several times over the years and I love it, but I realised that he was more than his hometown. There was also my own connection to consider. I was born in the Highlands, where Dad was posted as a policeman.

I made a list of places I wanted to visit and explore, each chosen with care for its connection to him. Many were places I had not seen since the mid 80s and barely remembered, yet each carried some association with Dad, something meaningful to me.

The west coast, for example. I know he loved that side of the country, and I have a lasting memory of us there together in the 80s. Pitlochry, where Mum and Dad honeymooned. And, of course, Inverness, where I was born, and Nairn, where I lived.

There were also a few places I wanted to visit for my own interest, places where I might stop for an hour and have a look around, so I added them to the list.

 
I was stunned when I mapped the trip out and everything fell into an almost perfect loop. Nothing I had chosen needed to be cut for being too far out of the way. Everything seemed to fit. It all just fell into place.

Planning what to bring followed naturally, items to accompany the journey. A book, one of Dad’s favourites about Scotland. A playlist of Scottish music, from traditional through to modern. Photographs of Dad and me, Mum and me when I was a baby, and so on. A few other things to help me reflect. And a journal to record the entire trip.

Everything I set out to do was achieved. Every planned stop was visited. All I was looking for was found - in places, in things, and within myself. I learned a lot, and I came to a lot of realisations about my own identity - including things I have carried and struggled with since I was young.

 
Dad was with me, in… well, I suppose “in spirit” is the closest I can get. I could visualise him beside me as I drove, as I stood outside his now derelict police station, walked his old beat, and looked up at the window into the room where he once held me in his arms. Mum was there too, through messages and video calls, even walking with me around the streets where she had lived as a young wife and mother.

The trip exceeded all expectations. Just the right length, just the right stops and stays, and just the right balance of exploration. And then home, enfolded back into my regular life, now possessing a deeper sense of who I am.

A Non-Post.

Every few weeks this blog reminds me it wants an update. It did this morning, and so a few hours ago I sat down to write a post. I stared at the screen for a few minutes before I wrote a few lines, deleted them, wrote a few more, deleted them, and tried once more before turning the machine off.

Some days are like that. Either the idea you have doesn't pan out, or you've forgotten the brilliant idea you had last night, or the inspiration you so hoped for as you stare at the screen simply chooses not to arrive. I'd rather not force it when nothing immediately pops into my brain, but later in the day that itching returned. I then sat down and tried again, so here we are - writing about how I have nothing to write about.

Fiction writing can be like that too. Nothing for a long time, then recently, suddenly, a moment of inspiration. Sat down and wrote 600 words in a single session. I shaped them, teased them, tweaked them, and juggled them into words I really liked. And then a couple of days later when I returned to them, they were gone. I'd saved them, and I was able to recover the file, but it had been written over and so the words were not recoverable. I'd accidentally deleted it somehow.

Now I have to work out how to recapture that writing. I was really happy with those words, and now I'm worried I won't get near them again. I just need to overcome that concern and just go for it - new, better words, I hope.

After all, they are just words.

The Times They Are A-Changing.

There's a lot going on at the moment, although I probably could have said that any time in the past fifteen years or so. But it truly does feel like it's busier than ever.

Partly it is because there is a lot going on.  The University is going through yet another round of redundancies, and so there is tension and stress. It's not always obvious, but it's there, lurking underneath. People leave, and are not replaced so everyone needs to cover those roles, even though most are already overloaded. Colleagues look tired.

My role at work has changed, and so has the structure around me. And while it is ideal for me and I enjoy it, the role has its own challenges. 

Generally, work isn't what it used to be. And all must be measured. Everything seems to be data driven these days, and I'm not convinced it actually leads to better outcomes. The resulting data might say it has, but some of the best outcomes can never be quantified. 

It's no wonder so many colleagues are accepting packages and leaving.  But this is true across the board - it's not just my employer, or even the Higher Education field. It seems to be work generally.

As we speed towards (or has sped past?) the technological singularity, the world is changing rapidly. We need to recognise that, do our best to adapt and hang on for the ride.

There's a lot to be excited about.

Arrive Without Travelling.

Back in the 90s, I lived in Tokyo for more than six years. It has now been over twenty‑five years since I last visited, but last week I spent some time there again. It turned into a kind of nostalgia trip, revisiting old neighbourhoods and re‑walking streets I once knew intimately. Not in real life, but using a mouse and keyboard, I tracked down the places where I lived, worked, and simply spent time.

The house I lived in for most of those years has gone, replaced by a skyscraper. The flat I moved into after that is still there, although it took me a while to find it. The neighbourhood is not laid out as I remember it, yet the buildings do not look new enough to have been built in the past fifty years, so I suspect that is memory at work. The flat I lived in after that has also gone, replaced by newer apartments.

The buildings where I worked are all still standing. One of the companies is now out of business, and my former office is used for something else. The other two offices remain, but the company later reduced its footprint, so they are no longer occupied by my ex‑employer.

I also looked up restaurants, places I used to visit with friends. All my favourites seem to have disappeared, although I did find some of the ones I visited less regularly. The same goes for shops. Many are different now, though some areas have retained their feel, while others are barely recognisable.

The pockets of Old Tokyo have gone. Even then they were small pockets, but places that had remained largely unchanged since the 1950s. Dark wooden buildings, tatami floors, sliding paper doors. I lived in one of them for four years and feel privileged to have done so. There were times it felt magical, moments when it seemed I had been transported into the past. Times I will never be able to revisit.

Societies move on. Cities develop, change, and adapt. The old is no longer always practical, and I understand that. I really do. And yet the pull of nostalgia is strong.

If I could visit Old Tokyo, the Tokyo I knew, just for one day, I would be over the moon.

Waiting to Be Noticed.

The season has now most certainly turned. The days feel longer, the air is crisp and dry, and for the past few days we have had clear blue skies. It is that time of year when the light feels beautiful. The colours are bright and clean, and I am reminded of the British jigsaw puzzles and calendars I saw in the 70s. As a child growing up in Australia, those images always looked wrong, as if they had been processed badly. It was only when I moved here as an adult that I realised those colours, those more primary greens and blues, were completely accurate. I had grown up with a palette shaped by Australian trees, red dirt and harsh sunlight.

From my house I only have to walk a few hundred yards before I am surrounded by fields and trees, with hardly a house in sight. For the past few evenings I have really enjoyed soaking in those colours and that light. As I walk the dogs, I try to take in everything. Not only the scenery, but the birdsong as well. It is gentler and calmer than the calls of many Australian birds, far less frantic.

We cross paths with the regular dogs and their humans. We stop and chat, the dogs stop and sniff each other. Everyone comments on the weather.  Everyone seems brighter, happier than they did last month. Their shoulders have lifted. They’re standing taller.

Every few days I see someone. I don’t know them,  I don’t even know their name, but they are always on their phone, constantly scrolling.  The dogs they walk lead the way, but the owner never even glances at them, never looks up, not even once.

I can’t help but feel they are missing so much.  There is so much beauty around them waiting to be seen. You don’t even have to look for it.  It’s right there, within and without.

And that is what this time of year does best. It nudges you. The season change doesn’t shout for your attention. It simply is, and it softly asks you to notice. A gentle whisper rather than a wild gesture. The light falls in a certain way, the air sharpens, and the world feels a little more vivid. You look up. You breathe in. You remember where you are, and who you are. Sometimes, even glimpses of why you are.

The dogs certainly know. They pause at every scent, every rustle, every tiny shift in the bushes. They stop and stare across the fields at the slight movement of some small animal I can’t see. They remind me that attention is something you allow, not force. You need to open yourself, your mind. When I follow their example, I sense so much more. All five senses working overtime, even on the quietest evening.

So I keep walking. I keep noticing. And each time I step outside, I try to make space for the simple things that are so easy to miss. The changing light. The softened birdsong. The lifted shoulders of strangers. The easy rhythm of the dogs as they pad along the path.

You can live in the world with your nose in the phone. You’re still outdoors, getting some fresh air. But if you pay attention, if you look up even once, and open yourself to see, you might just feel the world turning.

And often, that is more than enough.

What Could Have Been, What Could Be.

The seasons in the UK are much more defined than back in Australia. There isn't a gradual shift, no crossfades like in a movie, just a morning where you look outside and the world has changed. One day you're wearing a coat and scarf while you walk the dogs, the next you're wondering whether to even bother with a jacket. It's a clear shift in light, colour palette and mood. Even the sounds seem different. Birdsong shifts gear, the air seems more alert. And each time it happens I find myself pausing, taking stock, wondering whether these quiet sudden seasonal pivots happened back in Australia and I just missed them, or whether the seasons over there truly blurred.

Maybe as I get older, I pay more attention, am more aware. Maybe the landscape and the climate make it more obvious. Or maybe living this far north means you can’t help but notice when the days start to stretch, when the mornings are brighter a little earlier, and the afternoons are reluctant to let go of their light. The change slowly settles in, but at some point it simply feels as if the new season has crept in while you were looking the other way. That point was during last week.

Perhaps it's the changing seasons, but I've had reason to reflect the past few weeks, thinking back to things that have happened and what might have been. Times when I made decisions - sliding door moments - which led me to where I am now. Opportunities ignored, missed or lost. And for the most part I have few regrets. I was disappointed on a couple of occasions when plans fell apart or simply didn't come to fruition. A few I stretched for but was either not skilled enough or couldn't reach high enough to grasp.

I hear people say that it ‘would have happened if it was meant to be.’ I've always felt this is a mantra we repeat when we need to make sense of a disappointment, a way of trying to rationalise the things that never quite materialised. But when I look back at those disappointments, and realise that for the most part it was for the best, I start to wonder about whether those near misses I took to heart were actually narrow escapes in disguise. The past month has held a sliding door moment. A decision made which I have since realised would probably have led me down a path I wasn’t meant to walk, a path I wouldn’t have wanted to walk, and I imagine the passing of time will confirm that. But I woke this morning feeling strange, imbued with something I haven’t felt for some time. I had to poke it and prod it, explore it before I could recognise it. I found a strange calm in my mind, a sense of hope, as if something had finally settled inside me, a quiet reassurance I couldn’t quite explain but didn’t want to question too deeply. A weight I didn’t realise I was carrying had gently lifted, leaving more than a hint of optimism in its place. Was it the recent near miss? The lighter mornings creeping in? Or was it that the Brits around me, many of them recently weighed down by the winter blues, had begun to thaw? They’re chirping again, like the birds I hear each morning, and it’s hard not to notice. And perhaps, in the end, it is none of those but a combination. A blend of things. A quiet relief at a near miss, the promise of a new season, and the faintest changes stirring both within me and without me. A change in the light, a change in the air, a change in the people around me, and a change in me. The seasons turn whether I am paying attention or not, yet this one arrived with a clarity I could not ignore. As the world around me begins to brighten, with mornings growing lighter and people shaking off their winter heaviness, I feel something in myself brightening too. Not loudly or dramatically, but enough. Enough to notice. Enough to carry. Enough to trust that whatever comes next, I am stepping into it with a softer tread than I had before, with a growing sense that things will work out, and that I will end up where I am supposed to be.

All I Have is a Photograph.

I lived in Japan in the 90s for more than a few years.

A wonderful experience, and a wonderful memory. And yet quite surreal in many ways.

Sometimes I feel as though I slipped sideways into a version of the country that barely exists anymore. Not the neon one in travel blogs, not the tourist one with noh masks, nor the pop culture one with cosplay, rock and roll dancers in Yoyogi kōen, and bosozoku revving through late night intersections.

I experienced all that, of course, but when I think of Japan, I think of the quieter one, the hidden one. The Japan behind the façades and the polite masks, where old timber creaked in the night and even the dust seemed to belong.

I lived as part of a Japanese family in a traditional wooden house. Dark beams, paper sliding doors, tatami floors that whispered gently when you walked across them. It wasn’t musty, exactly, but it had that old Japan smell; a kind of gentle stillness baked into the timber. My father‑in‑law was a woodcarver who sat cross‑legged downstairs and created objects, decorations, and statues for temples. Real temples and shrines. It felt like living inside history, and I felt honoured, as though I was trusted with something sacred.

Next door was a tiny karaoke bar. The sort of place where the mama‑san fussed over the patrons while pouring brandies, where last trains were missed and salarymen sang enka with more emotion than melody. Younger people sang pop songs, trying to sound like their idols. Occasionally someone would take a run at an English song. The bar only had five in total; I know this because I sang only four of them. There was no way I was going to stand on a stage and sing the fifth, Happy Birthday to You.

The whole neighbourhood was like that. A little worn, a little out of time, and full of stories that didn’t need telling because everyone already knew them. It was home. I knew my neighbours and they knew me. I walked those streets and, for a few years, felt like I belonged.

I looked it up on the internet recently. I felt saddened to see that much of it has gone. The house, the bar, most of the block. New high‑rise apartments stand where those memories resided. Memories that now live on only through those of us who belonged.

But beyond the memories, there’s something else that survived because I took it with me.

One night in the karaoke bar, I went to the men’s room. High up on the old-fashioned cistern, far higher than anyone would naturally put anything, I noticed the tiniest corner of something white. I reached up, stretched, and managed to get hold of it.

A small, laminated photograph. Black and white. About four centimetres across.

On the back, a rubber stamp of a figure; some kanji and other characters within. No date. Nothing else.

The image itself was strange. A person in darkness, just the arms and part of the chest visible beneath, a burst of light obliterating their entire shoulders and head. It's as if someone had taken the photo just as their flash went off. Or a self-portrait with an instamatic. No other clues. Just a frozen moment with the context missing.

I remember standing there for a long moment, wondering what it was. Why it was there. Who had put it up so high. Whether it had been hidden or forgotten. Whether it was meant to be found. Whether I should leave it where it was.

For reasons I still don’t understand, I kept it.

A few weird things happened around me in the weeks that followed, and I briefly wondered if I’d pocketed something I shouldn’t have; a charm, a curse, a joke, a ritual object misplaced by accident or design. Or was it something else. Maybe the owner came back for it and wondered where it had gone. Or, in some weird kind of way, was it left there, intended for me.

I’ll never know.

Life moved on, the curse faded, I left Japan, and thirty‑five years passed. I haven’t thought about the photo for a long time. Four or five years, at least. But this morning, out of nowhere, it surfaced in my mind, clear as it ever was. Quietly. As if it had returned to that karaoke bar waiting for me to once more notice its corner, patient and unchanged, just biding its time in the shadows.

I still have it, that small, laminated square. One of the last surviving fragments from a life that now feels dreamlike, slightly unreal, as though I lived it in someone else’s memory, or passed through a room I was never meant to enter.

I do wonder if the photo remembers more than I do. If that captured burst of light held something I was too far outside the culture to understand at the time. If the event it froze now exists only inside that tiny frame, sealed away. If even the players and the photographer have long forgotten the moment it came from, vanishing into the years and leaving the photograph, and me, as the final interpreter of an undeciphered moment no longer anchored to anything or anywhere.

It’s strange, the things that choose not to stay with us. And stranger still, the things that do.

Phenomena (Do doo be-do-do)

Every now and then my life seems to wander back into the mildly weird lane. Not the “Scully, you’d better see this” kind of weird. Just strangeness. High strangeness at times. Eyebrow raised, but not calling a priest.

Over the past couple of years, that kind of weird has started happening again. For starters, I’ve seen a few more UFOs. No close encounters of the third kind. Not even close encounters of the second. Odd‑shaped craft without wings, jets or rotors. A few lights in the sky doing things that lights in the sky aren’t supposed to do. Sudden stops. Hovering far too long. The sort of thing that makes you go, Hmmm.

Then there are the dreams.

Every so often I’ll have a dream about something completely mundane, and a few days later it happens in real life. Nothing world‑changing. Just little moments,  but so strangely specific they simply cannot be coincidental. Odd enough to make me wish they came with lottery numbers.

Objects have been joining in the fun, too. A book shifted when no one was near it. It moved in a way that felt pointed, like it was trying to get my attention, or like something was sending a message. I flicked through it and found a friend’s old business card tucked inside. I spent a while trying to find meaning in that. Nothing. Then I explored the title of the book, hunting for clues. I suppose can just about build a case, if I really try.

And then there are the synchronicities. Convergences. A name that pops up in four completely unrelated situations. An image I’m thinking about suddenly appearing in real life. Not dramatic enough to build a conspiracy theory around, yet, but persistent enough that I’ve started paying attention. One or two is coincidence. Three is interesting. Five or more feels like the universe is telling me to wake up and pay attention. None of this forms a pattern I can point to. Nothing adds up. And I'm not try to force a solution. I’m definitely not in the garage with photographs, files, and red string, but I am sitting here and listening.

Sometimes the world just gets a little frayed around the edges. A bit more alive. A bit more playful. It starts to unravel, and we catch glimpses of its other layers. As I said, this has happened before. It reminds me of other times in my life when odd things clustered together; Japan, certain periods in Melbourne, a few moments in Lincoln. Someone seems to crank up the strange from time to time, and I can’t help but notice it.

I’m not worried. I’m not looking for explanations. I’m certainly not looking for Cancer Man. I’m just paying attention and listening, because sometimes that’s all you can do. Wait. Watch. See what occurs next. Something is happening. Something is building. Something odd. Something curious. And, I hope, something wonderful. 

Honestly? I’m kind of enjoying it.

The Ducks Are Not What They Seem.

I started thinking about a Gary Larson cartoon this morning. One of the many Far Side cartoons that I know and love. You probably know this one. Its the drawing of a businessman sitting at a desk, looking startled or worried. Behind him is a large glass window, and across the street is a high rise building In one of the windows there is a bird.  The caption reads, "Anatidaephobia: The fear that somewhere, somehow, a duck is watching you.

This isn't just some random thought, a memory fragment that flicked into my mind for no apparent reason. No, there is a cause and reason for it.

Like many, I work from home several days a week. I sit at my desk, in front of a large window, and can see the world pass by as I create PowerPoints and prepare documents.  It is a lovely view - old walls, a church, a house or two. All built hundreds of years ago, made with the stone for which the village is known.

This week, on three separate occasions, I have noticed a duck sitting on the rooftop directly opposite me. 

In my experience, ducks do not generally sit on peaked rooflines. Having webbed feet and all makes it seem like and unnatural and uncomfortable position to perch.  And yet on three separate occasions, on three different days, the duck has been there. And, I swear, it seemed like it was looking directly at me.

In many cultures, a duck on a roof is a good omen, bringing good fortune. And yet I'm not feeling the luck. I just think back to the Larson cartoon.

Why is the duck there regularly?  Why is it watching me?  Should I be worried?

Ah, paranoia. Philip K. Dick would be proud.

Dad.

My Dad, Don Cameron, passed away on New Year’s Eve at the age of 88.

It seems to me there’s a huge dose of symbolism there. A day that is traditionally seen as ringing out the past and welcoming the future. A day for remembrance, but also for hope.

Growing up, I thought Dad could do anything. And even in the last few years, as he struggled with breathing issues, arthritis, mobility and dementia, I found it difficult to reconcile the reality with that image.

He taught me many things; values, resilience, admitting failures. But mostly he taught me about being honest, about doing what’s right, even when no one is watching.

Dad was generous, gentle and compassionate, and I think he became more so as he aged. Scots have a reputation, undeserved, for being tight with money. The truth is that Scots in the north were generally poor and had to be thrifty in order to survive. But even now I am hearing stories of Dad’s generosity which I never knew. That’s who he was: quietly giving, never seeking recognition.

I wish Dad’s last words were “Franco Cozzo”, (google him, if you don’t know Franco) which would have made for a great tale and wonderful epitaph for years to come. And although it was only a few days ago he did blurt that suddenly and for no apparent reason, he went on to say other things before he passed. But that moment, like so many others, reminds me of his humour.

I last saw Dad in June. I had planned to visit later in 2025, but as he was declining I gathered my remaining leave dates and went earlier. I was fortunate to sit with him for several hours daily, to tell him how I felt, and to listen to his stories. There were even days he had moments of knowing who I was.

Sleep well, Dad. I love you always.

All the way to Nort-a Melbourne, Brunsa-wick and Foot-a-scray

Kicking It Old School.

I write a lot. Almost daily. And almost all of it is by hand.

This feels almost sacrilegious in this computer age, particularly when my job role specialises in digital tools, but I already spend too much time staring at screens.

It’s slower, yes, but that’s part of the appeal. Slowness forces you to think, to feel the words as they form. There’s something deeply satisfying about the physical act of writing by hand. It’s tangible.

Handwriting changes the rhythm of my thoughts, and allow me time to change and adapt as I go. I pause more. I choose words with care. It’s in the “now”. Alert and mindful.

And then I have the satisfaction of seeing volumes of journals and notebooks lined up, filled with my words, my scratchings.  And that’s a joy you don’t get from a hard drive in a machine.

It's not for everyone. When I first started out, or re-started, my hand ached.  I was using muscles I hadn’t used since High School.  But as I wrote more often and for longer periods, my stamina increased, my writing became more legible, and my hand ached less and less.

I love it. And once you go back, there’s no going forward again.

The Quiet Power of Ritual

Our daily lives often hold rituals, small repeated acts that shape our minds, our moods, our wellbeing, our days.

For me, it’s the morning coffee and my word puzzles. I wake early, make my brew, and dim the lights. I sit in my armchair and, after checking my emails and Facebook feed from overnight, I do my word puzzles. There are several I do, and there is a particular order in which I like to undertake them.

The dogs are still sleeping, and I sit in the quiet. A moment of stillness, a pause before the day roars at me.

I think we underestimate the value of rituals. They may seem ordinary, even trivial, but they anchor us. They remind us that life is about presence. I feel settled and well once my morning rituals are done. I feel ready to get prepared for the day and for work.

But there are other rituals I have. Walking the dogs, a book before bed, selecting the soundtrack for my drive into the office. These aren’t just habits, they are structure in a chaotic world. In a world that feels like it’s out of control, there is something revolutionary about repetition, about gaining some control and saying, “this time is mine, this action is mine.”

So today I’m raising my mug to the small rituals.

What are yours?

The Path Continues.

My uncle John also shaped much of my taste in music - or at least he guided it.

When I was around 11 or twelve years old, he gave me a cassette tape. He had recorded two of his records for me - one on each side. The Essential Beatles, a quirky Australian compilation, and The Monkees Greatest Hits.
 
I already liked the Beatles, having watched the cartoon series. While the cartoon show focussed on the earlier years, although it did include Strawberry Fields and Penny Lane (and, most disturbingly, Tomorrow Never Knows), the cassette included songs right through to Let It Be.  The Monkees Greatest was, and still is, just a really good selection of songs.

I'm not sure, but I think it was probably a year or so later, he gave me two purchased cassettes - The Most of the Animals, and The Beatles & The Rolling Stones. The Animals tape had, for me, intriguing track titles, although at the time I didn't play it as much as the other tapes. The Beatles and Rolling Stones cassette was, in hindsight, my first bootleg.  A pretty average sounding tape of a few tracks from the Beatles 1964 Hollywood Bowl show, and the rest from BBC recordings.  I remember falling in love with the energy of Twist and Shout, but I did play the tape to death.

Unfortunately those tapes were lost in a fire in the early 80s, and until about 6 months ago I couldn't remember which Animals and Monkees tapes he had given me. I spent a bit of time researching, and by looking at album artwork and tracklists, it had to be these two. I've had the Essential Beatles on vinyl since the 80s, but I've now found copies of the other three. 

I've had a lot of fun revisiting these four albums.  I only wish my uncle was still around.  We could share a beer, listen to the albums, and talk music.

I Join The Path.

The first album I ever chose for myself was Suzi Quatro's Can the Can. I was about ten, and I asked Dad to buy it for me for Christmas. He was a little concerned, as the men on the cover looked a bit "rough", but he bought it, and I loved it and played it a lot. I still do. It had fantastic songs, a great sound and it rocked. I thought Suzi was the greatest. I even had a Suzi poster on my bedroom wall. I wish I still had that poster as it's quite rare now.

A year later I was lucky enough to score two albums for Christmas. I had really liked The Night Chicago Died and Billy Don't be a Hero, and so my parents bought Paper Lace And Other Bits of Material for me. My mum quite liked it - she even told me that it was better than she thought it would be. Not knowing who they were, she was probably basing her ideas on the sounds of the Suzi album from the year before. 

Unfortunately, Paper Lace hasn't aged too well. Many of the songs were dated even then, although at the time I thought they were really good.  Forgive me. I was 11 years old.

The other album I received was a compilation, Explosive Hits '74. It's a fantastic snapshot of the Australian music scene from that year. It's amazing how many music fans still consider it to be a great album.

Somewhere in the middle of all this, at a school fete, I bought a Simon and Garfunkel compilation. It cost me 10 cents or so. I had no idea who they were, but I liked the cover. I played that album a lot. I remember listening to I am a Rock, and thinking how deep the lyrics were. As an adult, I am amazed at about the age of ten I understood its meaning so well. 

And then a year or two later, an older friend lent me Rolled Gold. I was a Beatles fan, he was a Stones fan. I played the album a lot, preferring the later sides. He asked me what I thought of side one. I told him I didn't like it as much as the later, more poppy stuff as the production sounded "dirty".  He told me it was meant to be like that. It took a while, but over the next few years I really got into the Stones as well.

There were singles in between, one or two other albums, but in my mind, apart from the Beatles, Can the Can, Explosive Hits '74, Simon & Garfunkel and Rolled Gold put me on the path to where I am now, musically. 

And I still listen to these four albums.

From Windy Hill to Sincil Bank.

Sport has always been part of my life, though the shape of that connection has changed over time.

As a kid, my uncle played for our local soccer team. He even helped coach, I think. I’d tag along to matches when I could. For a while, I trained with one of the junior teams, but circumstances beyond my control meant I couldn’t continue. Slowly, my interest in soccer faded.

But football, Aussie Rules, was different. I fell in love with it around the age of five. I chose Essendon, the Bombers - my uncle and aunt’s team - as my own, and sometimes he’d take me to matches. Those outings were wonderful, and they’ve stayed with me. Years later, I bought a season membership and went to every home game for a few seasons. It was a ritual, a rhythm.

Eventually, though, commitments made it difficult to attend. AFL games are long, and the travel to and from the stadium made each match a five-hour affair. It became harder to justify, even though the love never left.

I visited Lincoln a few years before I moved here, and went to a local derby. It was cold and damp, and about 1,500 people turned up to watch a draw. I enjoyed it, but the mood was subdued. It was the kind of grey afternoon that leaves its mark long after the final whistle.

After relocating to the UK, I started following Lincoln City more seriously. I read match reports, kept up with club news, and went to a few games. It turned out to be a good time to get involved. New managers arrived, the club reconnected with the city, and results began to improve. The energy shifted. Attendance grew. Optimism returned.

I didn’t have anyone to go with, but I started going anyway. At first occasionally, then more regularly. Last season I went to quite a few matches. This year, I splurged and bought a season ticket.

Lincoln is a small city, tucked among farmland and often overlooked. Getting here isn’t always straightforward, though the new direct trains to London help. It’s not a place people pass through, you come here on purpose. But that’s part of its charm. It’s a place with its own pace, its own pride. That distance also fosters a kind of fierce local pride. The football club is more than just a team; it’s a symbol of the city’s identity. The fans don’t just support Lincoln City. They defend it. There’s a territorial edge to the loyalty, a feeling that the club belongs to the people in a way that’s deeply personal.

Match day has its rituals. A sausage in a bun. A quiet ale. A chat with fellow fans. And then, inside the ground, something shifts. I become part of something larger. The chants, the songs, the shared celebrations - and, as I said, football here is deeply tribal. It's us against them, the home fans against the visiting fans. It’s not just about the game; it’s also about belonging.

There’s something else,  something oddly poetic. Lincolnshire is known as Bomber County, a legacy of the many RAF bomber squadrons based here during the Second World War. Lincoln itself is closely tied to that history, especially the legendary 617 Squadron, the Dambusters. On match day, that legacy comes alive. When Lincoln score, fans stretch out their arms like Lancaster bombers and sing the Dambusters theme. For corners, they wind up an air raid siren. The ultras call themselves the 617, and the stand bears a mural of bombers in flight, along with the slogan “After me, the deluge” in both English and French.

It’s tribal, yes, but it’s also mythic.

And strangely, it echoes my other footballing love. Back in Melbourne, my Essendon Bombers also play the sound of aircraft engines and an air raid siren before matches. It’s theatrical, stirring, and deeply rooted in identity. Two cities, two sports, two teams - half a world apart, both shaped by aviation history, both rallying behind teams associated with Bombers. It’s a coincidence, but one that feels meaningful -  a thread running through my sporting life, tying together past and present, Australia and England, memory and belonging.

I still love my AFL, my beloved Essendon Bombers. That will never change. I stream as many Essendon matches as I can. But there’s something irreplaceable about live sport, about watching two teams battle it out, surrounded by people who care just as much as you do. It’s a connection to the city, to the crowd, to something bigger than yourself, and to the person you’ve always been, shaped by sport, place, and the people who shared it with you.

The Ferry, the Frames, and the Flavours

Last weekend, we took the ferry from Hull to Rotterdam, and then a bus on to Amsterdam. 

There’s something quietly calming about travelling by sea - no airport queues, no anxious crowding, just the slow churn of water. We arrived in Amsterdam with minimal plans, just a shared sense that we’d walk, look, listen, and eat well.

We visited the Van Gogh Museum. I’ve always enjoyed Van Gogh – at least the bits I’ve seen. But too often, his art disappears behind the myth - the tortured genius, the ear, the sunflowers. But standing in front of his work, you see his efforts to hold his world together with brushstrokes. The colours vibrate. The skies swirl. It’s not all madness - it’s effort.

MoCo was a surprise. Banksy, Basquiat, and Robbie Williams – now that was one I didn’t expect. I’m not a fan of the person, but I loved his artwork. A small museum with a large impact. A sense that art doesn’t need to whisper to be profound.

We visited the Anne Frank House. It’s hard to write about that experience without sounding trite or overly solemn. The space is small, but the silence inside is vast. You feel it in your chest. The creak of the floorboards, the pencilled growth chart on the wall, the photos of movie stars Anne admired - it’s all heartbreakingly ordinary. And that’s the point. An incredibly emotional experience.

I went vinyl hunting, of course. Amsterdam’s record shops are tucked into corners like secrets. I found a few gems—some Stones, some Beatles, and a Dutch pressing of a Dutch band.

And then there was the food. Indonesian at Blauw. Rich, fragrant, layered. The kind of meal that makes you pause mid-bite just to appreciate how all the flavours are talking to each other. We didn’t rush, and neither did they. We let the evening stretch.

It was a short trip, but it felt full. Not just of places and things, but of moments. The kind you don’t photograph because they’re too quiet, too personal. A glance across the table. A shared laugh in a museum gift shop. The ferry ride home was smooth. We watched the sea and said very little.

Sometimes, that's the best kind of travel.