Offended and Insulted

I've decided that I need to belong to a minority group of some kind. As a middle class, heterosexual, white male I don't get automatic membership of a repressed cadre and, as such, I feel like I am missing out on one of the joys of twenty-first century life: being offended and insulted out loud about the utterances of others and having people take my umbrage seriously. As it stands, the general attitude to my complaints seems to be "get over yourself", which is not something we're allowed to say to groups about whom we feel a vaguely defined ancestral guilt.

The problem, however, is finding a group whose membership criteria I satisfy. A recent data entry error at my university has seen me become indigenous which could be an in. I've even been invited to participate in the Indigenous Games in Perth. The ruse wouldn't last long, though. Partly because the idea of me participating in any kind of competitive sporting activity is laughable and party because I'm about as indigenous as Helen Demidenko.

Maybe I could become female? There are pills and operations these days and surprises are what keep a marriage fresh! Then, after a few moments' thought, I have to rule that out because they don't make high heels in a US14.

Well, if I can't buy an estranged and enraged group off the shelf, I shall just have to make one of my own: carve out my own shoulder chip, as it were.

I'm tossing up two of them:

Firstly, people who think. We appear to be in something of a minority as evinced by the number of people expressing outrage over this shooting of a wild animal by Stephen Spielberg

We also have a history of being persecuted. Various regimes that built legitimacy based on populist slogans and handy scapegoats and whose arguments didn't stand up to too much scrutiny made sure that such scrutineers never stood up by sending them on sabbatical to the salt mines or saving themselves the train fare and just shooting all those geeks right where they lived - in the head.

Good, I've got myself into a minority.

What then would such a group be insulted and offended by?

Where do you want me to start?

I think I'll start with talkback radio. Every day there is a never ending stream of candidates for this year's Grand Prix des Idiots Blithering who, despite being battlers who know all about hard work, seem to have all the time in the world to wait on hold to deliver their thirty seconds' worth. And they know nothing!

I am offended by you taking up my time with opinions that you haven't even thought about, let alone done any fact checking on or road tested by running them past someone that might not agree with you. I am insulted that my tax dollars and those of many others in my minority were spent providing you with thirteen years of free education and this kind of pig-ignorant, small-minded idiocy is what we got for it.

I'm also a person with a constitutional preference for calling a spade a spade, rather than a "delightfully bucolic colonial winner, facing north and offering a unique opportunity for the handyman". I have a charmingly naive view that people should state a position and their honest reasons for it, rather than trying to pull the wool over my eyes and those of my fellow citizens. Of course, such a preference has gotten me into real trouble in the past with people to whom unvarnished honesty is a fair bit like kryptonite to Superman - really ruins the fantasy that they can fly - but we, none of us, can help the way we're born.

Gay marriage is my current favourite. I think the real arguments against come down to:

1. God said he doesn't like poofs;
2. Gay sex is just way too icky to think about let alone officially sanction; or
3. I've had to stick with my shitty marriage for thirty years for the sake of the kids and, if gay guys get married and don't get kids, they won't have to suffer like I have for the social prestige of a thirty year anniversary.

For the record, I think none of those arguments stack up but they're at least better than the incomprehensible gibberish coming out of the mouths of the conservative right who are spending their time trying to pretend to be flexible, compassionate, rational people. I hear things like "Marriage is primarily a religious tradition and we shouldn't interfere with it.", "The purpose of marriage is to provide a stable home for children that obviously gay people can't have" and "Society just isn't ready for such a move". I am offended and insulted. The runners up in the year 9 regional debating tournament could put paid to those before the second speaker had even heaved himself to his hind legs to address the audience.

If you don't like homosexuality, just say so. I will be checking, however, to see what you've been looking at on the internet. If more than one woman is involved, I think I'm within my rights to question the moral basis of your stance.

I am also insulted that you, our national leaders, would think that I would accept that the review you've commissioned into the state of the economy / school sector / trades unions or whatever is actually honest, unbiased and at arms length. Every government since I can remember has had a face like the amazed housewife in the detergent ads when they get into office and see the state of the books.They then hold an inquiry with all the judicial credibility of the Salem Witch Trials and announce, reluctantly, that they won't be able to afford any of the things they promised because of the parlous state the other guys left the finances in.

The fact that you go on TV and pretend you knew nothing about it and that your inquiry was anything but the purest show is offensive.

In fact, I think I'll join both groups. I'm looking forward to bathing in the warm glow of self-righteousness - and suing talkback radio hosts.

Sound and Fury is published every Monday and Thursday mornings, Australian Eastern Standard Time.

Notes

Helen Demidenko (aka Helen Darville) caused a minor scandal in Australia when she published a book called "The Hand That Signed the Paper" and won some awards for it. At the time she claimed she came from a Ukrainian family - Ukrainian people being the subject of the novel. It turned out that she was about as Ukrainian as Mao Tse Tung.

The line about the spade comes from John Clarke's piece on real estate agents. View here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbFlstJ4u8E

The curse of nothing to do

Sitting here this morning, thinking about a blog post and concentration eludes me. Because it's too early and the valves that operate my 1970s brain haven't warmed up yet? That may be part of it but the most of it is because my children don't realise that I haven't activated them yet.

 Rather than waiting until I press the "go" button, they're like the Borg - coming alive in their regeneration cubicle things and wandering the corridors, demanding that "resistance is futile" and that I will give them breakfast or attention, or forcing me to intervene before they start trying to implant mechanical elements into each other's faces.

Beam me out of here, Scotty!

So what would be perfect? To extend the metaphor, what would my holodeck look like?

Right now the idea of doing nothing sounds just perfect. I am thinking that I could just lie there, staring at the ceiling and I could do ... nothing.

And one of the great tragedies of the human condition is that it wouldn't last. I just can't do nothing for any length of time. It's something that retirees the world over have discovered. The great longed for fishing trip has been had, after 6 months of pretending, you realise that you don't really like golf all that much (and I can't blame you there), growing tomatoes turned out not to need all your concentration and your wife really can't cope with you being in the house all day, every day. So you go back to work - a failed retiree. You just can't do nothing.

So can I do slightly more than nothing - just enough to stop the engine from stalling? Read a Tom Clancy novel or something by Dan Brown? Engage in enraged debate on the internet about things that are really none of my business? Perhaps one more top ten list of ways to solve another of my overwhelming first world problems - coping with the fact that not everyone likes the cut of my pyjamas or something like that.

Nope. My mind rebels against stupidity and works itself up into a state about it to such a level that putting the Lego ship back together for the fourth time in 20 minutes seems preferable.

Perfection, I think, involves having a good balance of meaningful things to do, exercise and cups of coffee. Finish the day off with a classical music concert of some kind on the radio - reading a good book, satisfied in the knowledge that I've made some contribution to the world, expanded my mind a little and not overdone it.

And very limited and controlled contact with other people.

Especially my children. I love them dearly but, at the moment, my two year old is covering me in "Sign here" stickies that he's found somewhere and I'm being forced to watch "Dumb ways to die - Minecraft Parody" by the next up in the pecking order.

Is this set-up some kind of divine joke? God tests us with endless distractions and annoyances and then, if we deal with all of that without becoming homicidal, we get eternal retirement growing celestial tomatoes and annoying our spouses by taking up the harp to give ourselves something to do.

The bagpipes. Invented by Scottish men to get out of doing jobs around the house. "Take those bloody things outside - take them up on a hill or something - you're making too much noise in here!"

Mary had kids. Maybe she can help us deal with God's landmine-in-a-whoopie-cushion sense of humour:

To thee do we cry
Poor banished children of Eve
To thee do we send forth our sighs,
Mourning and weeping in this vale of tears.

Turn then, most gracious advocate
Thine eyes of mercy towards us
And after this, our exile ...

Salve Regina.

Notes:

The first still is from Bomfunk's "Freestyler" - a clip in which a kid uses a mini-disc remote control to pause people in the world around him. That's right, "mini-disc" kids, technology from the olden days.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymNFyxvIdaM

Dumb Ways to Die started as a railway safety ad for the Melbourne Metro but went viral in a big way. In case you haven't seen it - or just want another laugh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJNR2EpS0jw

Sound and Fury is published every Monday and Thursday mornings - Australian Eastern Standard Time. Please share with your friends.

That's not your bandwagon

Pulling up at the petrol station (gas station for my US readers) the other day, I was surprised to see that they offered free WiFi. This is a nice gesture but, as far as I know, I'm not supposed to use the phone near the fuel pumps or I might make my cares and those of my fellow motorists disappear in a column of incandescence. Which means I'm either using the WiFi in the shop or whilst powdering my nose. The latter doesn't bear thinking about too much but the former doesn't seem that much more likely, either. At a cafe, sure, I can see people who are devoid of friends or entirely sick of the one they are sitting with using the WiFi to ameliorate their FOMO but at the servo? Are you going to hang around the motor oils, catching up on Twitter or reading the news? A little Facebook perhaps? Status update "Buying fuel. Might grab a bottle of milk and a pie that's been in the warmer for a month and a half. LOL"

What is it with "LOL", by the way? I used to think it meant "laughing out loud" and was a way to convey emotional responses in an environment devoid of body language. But words change their meanings and now, divining meaning from context, it seems to be synonymous with "over" at the end of a radio broadcast.

"Just off to bed. LOL"

"Sorry to tell you but your grandmother died. LOL"

"It doesn't look good from here. I think the whole lot's going to blow and leave most of eastern Asia uninhabitable for the next thousand years. LOL"

Still, I've seen more ridiculous Facebook statuses. And requests to follow too, for that matter.

My butcher is inviting me to follow him on Facebook. Why? What is he going to tell me that I would want on my news feed?  He could share a recipe with me. That would be original. There are no recipes on Pinterest or anything like that. Perhaps he might upload some photos. Tell one of those endearing little back stories that Maccas seems to favour using in an attempt to assure us of the wholesomeness of their ingredients.

Follow Beverly the cow as she goes from pasture, through sale yard, from execution through abattoir and butchering. Admire her entrails and see how Beverley becomes prime rump steak on your BBQ this Sunday.

Equally puzzling is the TV station's adoption of car manufacturer's marketing lines. A car that is "all new" is impressive - new engineering of every component. A TV show that is "all new" is a statement of the obvious. "All new episodes of NCIS start this Tuesday, only on ..." Has anyone ever seen a TV show that isn't either "all new" or not new at all; viz a repeat. Is anyone making TV by splicing some new stuff into scenes recycled from previous seasons and hoping the viewers don't notice? It's a bad mismatching of ideas; rather like my surgeon offering me a free set of steak knives with my appendectomy.

Coming back to fast food outlets; they are not selling more product by pretending that they are on the side of healthy living. Mining companies don't get to be greenies and junk food shops don't get to be Tinkerbell's assistant - a parent's conscience buddy. Putting "don't forget to go outside and play" on the side of the box so that the kids can read it while consuming their monthly calorie intake all in one sitting is not fooling anyone. You can't sell type 2 diabetes - with a free non-biodegradable toy - and be a partner to parents in getting the kids up and going. To make the cognitive dissonance even worse, how on Earth did Maccas get to become the official restaurant of the Olympics?

Sex sells, sure, but not everything. The most amazing example of misplaced cleavage I've seen recently was in a calendar called "Babes and Boars" which, as the name suggests, shows pictures of women in bikinis posing, with firearms, next to large, feral and almost certainly deceased pigs. A fairly close second was the curvacious brunette who was, apparently, making me tongue-hanging-out desperate to buy industrial tarpaulins with which to cover my semi-trailer. And running a respectable third is the ongoing meme of women in bikinis carrying dead fish trying to sell me boats, fishing lures, cruises or, presumably, a peg for my nose.

What's the unspoken message here? In car ads it's

"You bring the car, I'll be here waiting with the legs and the lingerie."

In chocolate ads, of the licking-the-last-bit-from-your-fingers kind, it's

"You bring the chocolate, I'll bring the tongue."

Are they trying to lure me into buying fishing paraphernalia with a subliminal

"You bring the boat and I'll bring a disgusting fishy smell that you won't be able to get your of your skin for days"?

And, finally, undertakers should not be asking us to follow them on Twitter - my phone isn't a virtual ouija board and I don't wanting to be getting tweets like "Drk in here. LOL".

Sound and Fury is published every Monday and Thursday morning, Australian Eastern Standard Time. Please share with your friends.

We really are stupid

As a father of a soon-to-be-teenaged daughter, I share the common angst of worrying that my girl is worrying about how close her appearance comes to the archetypes portrayed in the media. The fact that every image is carefully constructed, edited, air-brushed and blow-dried is neither here nor there; the teens want to look like our publicly produced images, viz:

That's right. Every young woman should be doing something vaguely pornographic to a palm tree while her boyfriend plays the bongos on her back and a large, out-of-context national monument emerges quietly from the ocean in the background. Happens all the time!

But the monument in the picture started a train of thought. Have we always been this stupid? Have we always thought that we should actually look like our public art?

It must have been hell for women in the stone age.

This kind of look is possible with a deep commitment to fast food but not so easy to attain when drive-through means that the men have scared the bloody prey back towards the camp again. Calories were in short supply for these gals. Did mothers comfort, by the dying light of the campfire, teenage daughters who just couldn't get enough food to look like an inflated dugong and were sure no boy would ever love her?

Worse yet for the youth of Egypt.

I studied some history at university many years ago but I don't claim expertise in Egyptology. Did they have chiropractors back then? Certainly if misguided Egyptian adolescents were doing that to their spines, they were either the beneficiaries of some excellent cosmetic surgery or were setting themselves up for a lifetime of deformity that would make wearing stilettos look positively benign. And, as for getting those horns on their heads ...

Across the Mediterranean, things weren't all that much better - even amongst the great civilizations of Greece. I think we can discount even the most desperate-for-acceptance teenager doing whatever illegal thing it is you need to do with a cat to achieve the sphinx look

But, for the athletic adolescent of Athens, it would take a fairly specific training regimen to get thighs like a shot-putter, calves like a ballet dancer and feet like a set of diving flippers - to say nothing of the amount of damage you'd get from enough sun exposure to get skin anything like that colour.

Much later, evidence emerges of the invention of the cosmetic pencil sharpener by the Vikings. Apparently HB-head was de rigueur for the Vikings sacking Lindisfarne in 793

 While the same race had developed a fashion for legs that end at the kidneys by the time they were involved in the events of 1066.

And Africa and Europe are not alone in setting very poor role models for their youth. Can you imagine the kind of mischief a young Australian Aboriginal male might have done himself if he walked around for any length of time in this pose

with what appears to be a goodly amount of his skeleton visible? You can just hear his father now, "You young people have no idea. You'll regret it when you get older, you know!"

 And if you think I've excluded Asia, you're wrong. I won't show you any here - it's not that kind of blog - but if you look at the membrum virile on some of the men in the more adult Ukiyo e art from Japan, you can see how so many of the males of that culture might have developed nasty, lifelong inferiority complexes.

No, it would seem that only in this period - when the full gloss photos and moving pictures of our various media make it seem more real - have we become stupid enough to believe that we should actually look like our public art.

And we're the enlightened ones?

Notes:

"membrum virile" is the a polite old Latin term for penis. The use of the term was recently made famous in Australia by a very funny TV series called Rake - recommended viewing. Be careful not to get the American remake; it's nothing like as good.

Here are some outtakes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ud0G9YnqjG8

If you'd like to watch an excellent talk from an A-list model on just how fake it all is, I thoroughly recommend this TED talk

http://www.ted.com/talks/cameron_russell_looks_aren_t_everything_believe_me_i_m_a_model

Sound and Fury is published every Monday and Thursday morning - Australian Eastern Standard Time. Please share this with your friends.

The tragic death of forgetfulness

Big data - a revolution in our understanding of our society or just another buzzword?

For my money - neither. Big data represents the end of the world as we know it - and I do not feel fine.

For there to be big data there have to be big databases. Googolplexes of data, tabulating our lives in minute detail. True, they have some benefits. They keep my medical records - obviating the need to repeat my medical history to every doctor I pick up, facilitate my online banking - further minimising the number of interactions I have to have with real people and remember my passwords - because they're the only entities that can.

And there, in that last example, is the problem. They always remember!

As has been discussed in previous posts in this excellent publication, lies and deception are central to our lives. Anyone who has successfully navigated the minefield of finding a mate will know that. As an early teenage amateur you go out there, full of confidence that your real self, if boldly presented, will be your ticket to eventual reproduction. And you realise, head-on at about 120 kph, that you're driving on the wrong side of the road. There's a game to be played here. You have to lie. Perhaps not exactly lie, but you have to present a version of yourself that is compatible with the delusions that your prospective mate has about his/her ideal companion. He or she also has to play this game for you. It's only after you're comfortable with each other's PR departments that you can get the heads of state together for a real meeting. The advice to "just be yourself" is the kind of thing you get from people that don't like you very much.

There's usually some trial and error in all this and the only way it works is for other people to forget, or at least choose to ignore, the person they thought you were before. And it does work. Pop stars reinvent themselves and make comebacks. Tom Hanks got over BIG and Turner and Hooch to become a heavy hitting serious actor. CEOs keep getting plum jobs even though they drove their last two companies into the ground so hard that civil aviation authorities are still trying to piece together the wreckage and all the victims are yet to be identified. The world works because people forget.

But databases don't forget. They know and will always know. And when they talk to other databases they share what they know and there you are, a grown adult, naked as the day you were born with all the things you hoped would be forgotten out in the open, clearly documented and backed up in three separate off-site locations - and probably an undeclared fourth just in case you and the Semtex find the first three.

Australia doesn't have a bill of rights and, on the whole, I think we shouldn't. Most of our rights are "understood" and are a central part of our national character . And one of those rights, inalienable in my view, is the right to gently defraud the tax office. It is my duty to fill in a tax return and my right to have them believe what I tell them. And, as Kerry Francis Bullmore Packer said, "as a government you're not spending it that well that we should be donating extra".

The Australian Taxation Office has become scary. It's a waste of time filling in my tax return because they know everything already. They know my income, my tax, my bank interest (all 55c of it), how much I've spent at the doctor - the lot! Why ask me to fill it in? Is it some kind of twisted honesty test? Some way of checking my loyalty to Big Data and the Party?

I tell you a story, you believe my story. That's the social contract Australians used to have with the tax office.

Employment has gone the same way. The art of CV writing, as I have previously mentioned, is a form of creative art not unlike portrait painting. It's understood by both audience and artist that the laugh lines will be touched up, the eyes made less close set and the weird mole just off to one side of the cleft in your chin will be conveniently removed. The result is still you, just a version that you're happy for people to see. That's what a CV is -  you as an oil painting.

And, as Neddie Seagoon said, I'm no oil painting.

Enter iProfile - Big Data's invasion of the recruitment sector. It's a database on which the claims you make to one recruiter are stored and then accessed by other recruiters - not just in the same firm but any recruitment company that subscribes to the system. So much for artistry. When I give you my CV, it's carefully crafted for that job and de-emphasises, air brushes or just straight omits certain facts that I think are not in my best interests for you to know at this stage. Except that you can know them - all those things I foolishly disclosed - because they're all there - stored in perpetuity. That was not the deal.

Apart from the need to stay warm, clothing will no longer be necessary in the near future. Clothing, like our CVs and our mating persona, is designed to project an image we imagine others are happy with - to disguise the lumps, bumps and weird little bendy bits that make up our real selves. Big Data is stripping us naked and revealing us for who we really are and, worse still, who we really were. Every time we try to set the record wrong on important parts of our history, a Party apparatchik will jump out with a data-derived report and say "No, that's not how it was!" and, thereby, ruin our futures. Every date we ever botched, every bra latch we ever fumbled, every Tweet we ever hung our head in shame over when we sobered up and every career decision we ever lived to regret will be there, projected on a billboard, for the world to see.

We're either all going to have to become Gattaca perfect or get used to each other's unvarnished selves.  Big Data destroys forgetfulness, the basis of human relationships. Only loyalty to and love for Big Data can be tolerated. If you want a vision of the future, Winston, imagine a human face without makeup - forever.

Notes:

For the ATO - this is a satirical blog.

Kerry Packer - Australian media mogul - famously delivered the quoted line to a Senate inquiry into print media in 1991. The quote comes right at the end of this video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnwYoOeWZGA

Neddie Seagoon was a character in the Goon Show. The reference is to the episode called "The Mystery of the Fake Neddie Seagoon"

What astrology offers

Astrology offers its adherents glimpses into their futures and advice on how to make the most of the opportunities that the future will bring. In my experience,  however,  it suffers from Disney syndrome;  a tendency to assume the best and presume that the future will be ripe with opportunities,  optimally to be harvested, each in its due season.  Life experience teaches us that this is just not the case:

Gemini: Your stars are aligned directly with the  Singapore stock exchange's main sewage outlet pipe. Today is the day that all of your hard earned life savings will go to hell. It's too late to do anything about it - the future is written in the stars. Go looking for a minimum wage job at which you can work until death.

Cancer: The next person you sleep with is going to give you a venereal disease.  This is a rock solid certainty. You now only have two paths open to you in life: celibacy or endless itching and creams.
.
Sagittarius: The Hubble Space Telescope is in your constellation this month and it's time to do some deep soul searching. You will discover that you, like most of space, are mostly a void with the odd ball of inert gas scattered here and there.  After all these years,  you have become a vapid, superficial being whose Twitter postings are the only remaining vestiges of personality and intellect.

Libra: Your constellation is being occluded by the moon this month which means that your balance will be out and that mental illness and instability will follow. It's probably worth learning the etymology of "lunatic" at this point. Book a psych appointment now.

Aquarius: Orbiting space junk dominates your sign. Nothing you start this month is going to amount to much; new books you start will just add to the unfinished pile on your bedside table, companies you invest in will never grow and veggies you plant won't fruit. It's just going to be one of those months. I'd stay in bed if I was you.

Aries:  There is absolutely nothing in your sign this month. no planets, comets,  meteors or little green men. This will be reflected in your life.  It will just be ordinary humdrum with nothing special to distinguish it from any other month. You can go on that special holiday if you want to but it won't have any zing to it: you are condemned to tedium for the next 30 days.

Capricorn:  The Deception Nebula is in your sign this month but it will look like a star. Someone close to you will turn out not to be who you thought they were. The best course of action open to you is to develop an attitude of advanced paranoia and spend the month scanning anxiously for the first tiny sign of betrayal.

Pisces: The rare eruption of a supernova in Pisces this month presages certain food poisoning with explosive diarrhea for you and your children - probably all at the same. Avoid seafood if you life but it won't do you any good - it might just as well be the pies.

Leo: The arrival of the annual Leonid meteorite shower will ensure that your month is full of stuff being chucked into your schedule at the last minute. Free up some space on the credit card right away. A school fete your kids forgot to tell you about is likely, the dog is probably going to need some kind of surgery on his front left paw and the boss is almost certainly going to send you on a business trip to Hell and back - don't forget to get a receipt from Charon to claim expenses when you return. On the plus side, having your immediate supervisor turn into a pillar of salt or disappear forever on the way back could create a promotion opportunity.

Taurus: As the latest ESA probe to Mars passes through your sign this month, you can expect ongoing niggling hassles with your ICT equipment. Nothing major - no blue screens of death but updates that won't install, driver changes that make your printer stop working - that kind of thing. Block out some hours each evening to spend on the line to various help desks in India.

Virgo: The absence of planetary activity in your sign this month bodes badly for your love life. If you don't have a partner - you ain't getting one and if you do then they're going to have headaches for weeks. Don't forget to check in with your optometrist at the end of the month.

Sound and Fury is published each Monday and Thursday morning, Australian Eastern Standard Time. Please share and enjoy.

Love your body?

We are told by many - inspired by good intentions, corporate profit or a hope that if larger people buy soap (with one third moisturizing cream) that they'll use more than skinny people (just on a square meterage basis) - that I should love the beautiful body I have.  Numerous Facebook posts assure me that all I need to be bikini-body, beach-ready beautiful this summer is to put on a bikini. Honestly, I'm not so sure about that - and nor is my wife. In fact,  I'm not sold on the idea that I should love my body at all; it's a complete bastard.

For a start, it keeps lying to me and no relationship of love can exist without trust. It tells me things like, "You could really go some Maccas right now" or "That felt good,  pour yourself another red wine; it'll make you feel even better!" And it doesn't and I don't.  So I vow that I'm not falling for that kind of visceral manipulation ever again.  Then it waits for a moment of weakness and plays me like a harp. It's like the psycho ex your father warned you about. How can I love it?

And when it's not being manipulative, it's behaving like a six year old.  Just settled in for some study, glasses on, chair comfortable and it comes up to me:

"Dad, I'm hungry."
"Not now,  you've just had dinner."
"But dad, I'm really hungry now!"
"You're not,  you're just bored."
"No! I need a chocolate. Dad!"

And so on until I give in for the sake of piece and quiet.

Or my libido gets bored. At the seminar, settling in to listen or circulating to meet some interesting people. A tap on the shoulder:
 
"Hey", tap tap tap, "She's cute."
"Not now."
"Yeah, but check her out!"
"This is not the time and place.  Just settle down."
"Let's go and talk to her."
"Just shut up."
"All right, all right but you're missing out.  I'll be back later in any case."

And what about those bad days when the black dog is scratching at the back door?  A true friend would give me some good advice like "go for a walk" or "get some gardening done" - anything to get the blood pumping and some natural light on my face. Not my body, though. Its friendly advice is to climb back into bed, curl up in the fetal position and hope that everything goes away. With friends like these ...

While on the subject of the brain, I'm sure my body is sneaking in at night and screwing with the wiring. Stuff I thought I knew has disappeared. Faces and names don't match up any more; I can confidently call my daughter Bruce and the dog keeps telling me to stop calling him Shirley.  Psychologists tell me that I might have vivid memories of things that never happened and will forget almost everything that actually did. The only things that are stuck there, apparently,  are traumatic things that are soldered in place.  In all other cases, my body is functioning like a switchboard operator with a drinking problem and too much time on its hands.

Good or bad friend,  my body has been with me for forty odd years now (never you mind about how big  the 'odd' is) and, at the very least,  we should have a mutual respect for each other and an understanding of and support for each other's goals in life. Forty years and, just as I've started to get my act together,  it's heading off to do its own thing - some friend!  Confident and personable,  able to talk to the ladies at last and my body is sticking its stomach out and streaking my beard in unfashionable colours. I'm ready to run, play and climb with my kids, my knees have put in an application for long service leave. I finally have time to do a twelve week weight loss program and my metabolism laughs at me and goes out on strike, demanding an extension of time to twenty weeks and a pay rise of 30 minutes extra running a day to achieve the same productivity goals.

Ours is not a healthy relationship.  Before I agree to love my body, I think I'll get one of those government vouchers for some couples counseling - there are issues.