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[lostpensioner]

A Room of One's Own.

A Room of One’s Own.

  https://unsplash.com/photos/hjwKMkehBco

  I’ve been visiting a lot of real estate agents lately, trying to find a half decent garret. I’ve decided to start taking my life as a writer seriously. A lot of people tell me the first step towards being a writer is to start calling myself a writer. But I’m not quite there yet. Before I can look in the mirror and say “There’s a writer,” there are a few…

[lostpensioner]

Gimme Shelter.

https://pixabay.com/en/augsburg-puppet-theatre-rolling-stones-d-1175877/

  “Ev’rywhere I hear the sound of marching, charging feet, boy Cause summer’s here and the time is right for fighting in the street, boy.”

            Jagger, Richards – Street Fighting Man.

On the 17th of May 2018 I did what every lost pensioner must do sooner or later; I took myself off to see the Rolling Stones in…

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Altamont Strut.

https://pixabay.com/en/peacock-bird-feather-close-color-iridesc-90051/ “How come it can’t fly no better than a chicken?’ Milkman asked.

Too much tail. All that jewelry weighs it down. Like vanity. Can’t nobody fly with all that [stuff]. Wanna fly, you got to give up the [stuff] that weighs you down.’ ― Toni Morrison, Song of SolomonAs Agnes and I walked through Altamont gardens, in County…

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Small Steps To Recovery

Small Steps To Recovery

https://pixabay.com/en/lawn-mower-gardening-mow-cut-grass-2293876/

    “Whoever wants to reach a distant goal must take small steps.”

 Saul Bellow  

(more…)

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The Heist.

The Heist.

 I recently read a very good book by Karl Dieter and Charlie Weston about household finance. I was particularly interested in what they had to say about ways to generate a little extra income. As someone who’s about to retire soon I’m always on the lookout for ideas for supplementing my income, and the boys gave me plenty of food for thought.

 But I must admit that I was a bit disappointed that yet another book on family finance had managed to avoid giving advice about how crime can be a handy fall-back for the hard-pressed pensioner. I’ve checked various websites, but there’s very little info available on the subject.

 The current government seem to be incentivising crime more than any other form of earning. They have chosen to follow in the footsteps of all previous Irish governments and impose a zero-tax rate on any income accruing from nefarious activity. Like the artists’ tax exemption, the crime exemption scheme is designed to help struggling petty yegs, rather than people at the higher end of the earning spectrum. But, although many would argue that the more established, professional outfits should be taxed, it would simply not be cost efficient to start means testing all criminals.

 Our local Community Resource Centre has some interesting crime courses coming up in the new year. Agnes has put her name down for “Extortion Rackets for Beginners” and I’m half interested in “Knit Your Own Balaclava.”

But Summer’s coming and we could do with a few bob for our holidays. So I thought a quick bank heist might be the job.

 Agnes said she’d be my wheel man if I was stuck. But Mick next door has just got a new Mini and he looks a bit like Mark Wahlberg and he had to go into Tullow this morning anyway.

 We arrived just after opening time. I told Mick to go on about his business. He’d a few messages to do and there’s no point in blocking up the main street. So he parked in Supervalu and went off about his business. I headed into the AIB.

 “Can I help you?” asked a very nice girl in an AIB uniform.

 “Thanks, love,” says I. “Any chance you could tell me where’s the best counter to go to if I want to rob the bank. I tried ringing up to ask, but all I got was the bloody Vivaldi and press this button and press that button. I hung up. I thought it’d be better to come in in person, seen as this is me first time. I find it very confusing.”

 “I know. My Da’ says the same. He was trying to hack in to our headquarters “

 Instead of leading me up to an actual counter with a real person behind it, she brought me over to a machine which, apparently, was for cash lodgements, online banking and robberies.

 “Do you need any help,” says she. “Or will I just leave you to it?”

 I could see she was busy and I didn’t want to be making a nuisance of myself, so I told her I was grand thanks. The machine seemed straightforward enough. All I had to do was follow its prompts and the job would be OXO. It asked me to put in my card and key in my PIN number. I did as I was told and a new set of options appeared on the screen. It took me a minute to find “Heist”. Once I went in there, various sub-categories appeared. I was torn between “armed robbery” and “unarmed robbery”. I had a gun with me but I was kind of hoping I wouldn’t need to use it. I looked around me for help.

 There was a chap a bit older than me at the machine beside me. I caught his eye.

 “Are ye alright there?” he inquired.

 “Are you any good with these new-fangled self-service bank robbery machines?” says I. “I don’t know whether to go for armed or unarmed “

 “Better off going for armed. Hopefully it won’t come to that, but it’s nice to have the option. Is the gun automatic? Give us a look.”

 I took the Glock out of the Aldi bag I’d been carrying it in. I was careful to proffer it rather than brandish it. If I had to do any brandishing I wouldn’t be doing it to any helpful locals.

 “Ah, that should do the job. I’m more of a SIG Sauer man meself.” He handed it back. “Now, let’s have a look at this machine.”

 He pressed a few buttons. “It’s askin’ for your IBAN number.”

 “Me what?”

 “Your IBAN number. It used to be at the top of your statements. But now you have to log in to your online banking to find it.”

 “Jaysus, they don’t make it easy.”

 I’d no choice but to call the nice girl in the AIB uniform over. “Sorry love. I don’t want to be makin’ a nuisance of meself, but how would I go about robbin’ this bank? Will I need this?”

 “Is that a Glock? You’d be better off using your IBAN. Here, I’ll show you.”

 She was a lovely girl. Very helpful. But I couldn’t understand a word she said. It was all double Dutch to me. Eventually I thanked her for her trouble and shuffled out, feeling a bit deflated.

 Mick was waiting for me. “Did you get what you wanted?”

 “Listen Mick”, says I. Is there any chance you could drop me up to the Community Resource Centre?”

[lostpensioner]

Still Lost.

Still Lost.

 Back in June of last year I had the misfortune to find myself adrift in cyberspace. I had been trying to find out what the word “blog” meant. I had heard young people using the term and felt it might be useful to fill this gap in my knowledge. But, as so often happens to me once I enter the strange and unfamiliar world of the internet, one thing led to another and I accidently found myself setting up a blog and posting on it.

 Now, almost ten months later, I have managed to garner a grand total of zero followers. I comfort myself with the notion that having no followers is better than having, say, ten followers. If I found myself stuck on ten followers then I would know, beyond reasonable doubt, that my blog is so awful that nobody wants to pass it on to their friends. For word of mouth to spread I would have to have had one person reading my blog and then passing it on, exponentially, to millions of readers who have spent their whole lives just waiting for my blog to be born. I firmly believe that I am just one reader away from breaking the internet.

 Now that I am here, lost in cyberspace, I have decided to make the most of the situation and try to contribute something useful to the virtual world. No point in just making up the numbers. I might as well give something.

 But what do I have to give? What unique skill set can I share with the world. What wisdom have I acquired during the longish life I have lived so far? What qualities have I been graced with?

 I must admit no great answers to those questions are jumping up and biting me. I’ve mainly led the sort of life where stuff happens to me in an apparently random manner and I’ve lacked any ability to learn from that stuff and process it into some sort of wisdom. I’m the sort of fella who walks into the same lamppost every day without learning any lessons.

 If you put a gun to my head and insist on me finding my Unique Selling Point, I suppose I’d opt for the fact that I am possibly the most miserable old bastard in the history of miserable old bastards. It might not seem like much of a claim to fame but it’s all I’ve got.

Now, the question must be asked, why would anybody want to read anything written by the most miserable old bastard in the history of miserable old bastards? Who might benefit from reading my constant grumbling?

 Off the top of my head, I can think of several groups of people who might benefit from the occasional visit to my miserable little world. Here’s just a short list:

·        Blues singers. The art of the blues singer is one I have long admired. From a history of slavery, poverty, injustice and unimaginable cruelty was born a form of music which took pain and transformed it into something beautiful, something uplifting. It is the basis of most forms of African American music and has had a colossal influence on world-wide popular culture. We need blues singers today more than ever, to give vent to our collective pain. But a blues singer can’t sing the blues if he or she becomes too happy. The personal life of a blues singer must be maintained at a level of misery which floats just above the surface of despair.  What would happen to a blues singer if he woke up one mawnin’ and his woman hadn’t done left him? What if he found his larder well stocked? What if he mosied on down to the steel mill and was told by the boss man that his job was secure, that he could shuck as much steel as he wanted for as long as he wanted and at a generously increased hourly rate. Such a sudden increase in personal good fortune could ruin the career of any blues singer. A quick visit to my blog, however, could quickly rebalance his blood-misery level

·        People on the upswing of bipolar disorder. Ask anybody who suffers from bipolar disorder what part of the cycle frightens them most and they will tell you that the manic phase is much more dangerous than the depressed phase. When they are on the upswing they know no fear. They will do anything, say anything, even put their lives at risk. This is where I come in. Short, regular exposure to my blog can very quickly bring a bipolar person down from the most manic of moods. The skill would be in knowing when to stop reading me, so as to end up in a safely balanced mood rather than being plunged immediately into deepest despair.

·        Americans. One of the most endearing qualities of Americans is their optimism. Optimism was invented in America but, unfortunately, does not travel well. Endless attempts to transport it across the Atlantic have failed miserably. The European soul is not fertile soil in which to plant delicate seeds of cheerfulness. We famously chose to import potatoes and tobacco from America instead. We like to wallow in misery while we eat too many spuds and smoke our brains out. But American optimism has its downside. It can lead to them, just like bipolar sufferers, making rash decisions which they may come to rue. Reading my blog for a few minutes every day could prevent Americans from, for instance, confusing reality T.V. stars with potential presidents, or spending too much money on their children’s teeth, or feeling a need to constantly advise innocent bystanders to have a nice day.

·        Surgeons. It is widely agreed among psychologists that surgeons perform optimally when they are slightly depressed. A surfeit of optimism could lead to a surgeon taking risks while operating, which could endanger their patients. Once again, me to the rescue. A quick perusal of my joy-sucking drivel before scrubbing up should be enough to keep any sawbones in the perfect mood for cutting open human beings.

·        Irish People.  Now, you might think Irish people need no help with being miserable. What with the climate and the eight hundred years of oppression, we’ve kind of got the hang of it. But, unfortunately, as the world is becoming smaller, we’ve been infected by foreign strains of optimism. We expect to win rugby matches. We put a cheerful little upswing at the end of our sentences. We buy garden furniture. This optimism is eating away at our Celtic souls and destroying the very essence of our culture: misery. We need to dial down the cheerfulness and remember who we are. Which is where I come in. Ten minutes a day spent reading me can help restore our national mood to one of quiet desperation.

 So, there you have it. If life is going too well for you, you know what to do. Put your faith in me and I’ll soon convince you that, even in in your brightest hour, there’s always someone better off than you.

[lostpensioner]

Sex Toys and Rural Broadband.

Sex Toys and Rural Broadband.

    I’ve been buffering a lot lately. It started with my laptop, then spread to my phone, to other devices around the house, and finally to my brain. I don’t know which I’m more upset about.   Living, as I do, in a rural area I have come to expect a very poor service from broadband suppliers. I can almost understand it. To connect me up properly would mean dragging cables across fields and…

[lostpensioner]

Arse Twittering.

I was recently informed by my son that I have been building up a small online presence. Apparently, I’ve been blogging, Tweeting and Facebooking without any knowledge of having done so. My son, gentleman that he is, offered no opinion as to the literary merit of my posts, but something about his tone of voice suggested that I might want to have a word with the boys in the quality control…

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Check it out

https://lostpensioner.tumblr.com/post/168253615352/smuggling-diesel

[lostpensioner]

Smuggling Diesel.

I've been living with soft borders for a while now, and I like them. My emotions can freely drive north into the previously corralled area of my more logical province. Since I got rid of the sentry boxes and passport controls I've found it much easier to smuggle the cheap diesel of human tolerance. Please don't make me go back to the old days.

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Check it out

https://lostpensioner.tumblr.com/post/168253255742/flamingo-the-great-kerry-storyteller-eamonn

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Flamingo.

The great Kerry storyteller, Eamonn Kelly, once described a character who was standing with one foot raised as being: "Like a dancer waiting for a hoult on the music." I've managed to spend about forty years in that stance. It took people quite a while to realise I'm not a flamingo.

[lostpensioner]

Finding my Tribe.

I recently had an interesting conversation with an elderly gentleman I’d just assaulted, quite gratuitously, in Grafton Street. He lay on the ground for a while, not doing much. A bit of bleeding, a bit of wincing. Fairly standard issue assault victim stuff. Meanwhile I got on with introducing myself to the circle of onlookers who managed to assemble with impressive unity of purpose. Most of them…

[lostpensioner]

Mission Statement.

I spent over thirty years of my life as a school teacher. That was back before I discovered my true vocation. I realise now that I am, and always have been, a pensioner. Even as a four year old I can remember myself shuffling around aimlessly in my slippers, not bothering to shave and constantly complaining about how three year olds had no respect for their elders (ie. me) and didn't understand the value of hard work. But I did learn a few useful skills when I was a teacher. One such skill was planning. I was part of a committee whose job it was to develop and maintain The School Plan. Basically The School Plan was based on The School Mission Statement. Taking the Mission Statement as our guide, we would develop policies to help us realise the Aims and Objectives identified therein. We would then devise means and ways to measure the extent to which we managed to achieve those aims and objectives. When I first stumbled into this new Lost Pensioner universe I was without aims and objectives. Without a Mission Statement or policies through which to arrive at the end point of my mission. Such, indeed, is the nature of stumbling; it tends to lack aims and objectives and any underlying philosophy. Ditto for shuffling; the hallmark of good shuffling is that it should lack direction, purpose or urgency. But at times I wonder if it might be possible to slightly refine my current style of shuffling, to render it just slightly more professional. If, as I claim, I see pensionerhood as my true calling, surely I owe it the respect of treating it seriously. And so I feel it is time to present you with my Mission Statement. Here goes: "My mission, as a Lost Pensioner, is to help people to manifest their destiny to be underachievers. By doing so I will enable them to save energy which would otherwise be wasted on toxic belief in the value of wanting, trying and succeeding. Thus freeing them up to enjoy lives of nice, comfortable, familiar wistfulness."

[lostpensioner]

The Conditional Tense.

I've already told you that my superpower is that I'm quite good at punctuation. Which makes me a bit of a pedant. Which is a good reason to dislike me. Nobody likes a pedant. I am one, and I can't stand the fuckers. Now I'm about to talk about grammar, which is yet another reason to dislike me. And it's another reason to stop reading me and to piss off to some more interesting part of cyberspace. But please, I beg you, bear with me a while. I'm about to use grammar as a way in to understanding my little mind and my even littler life. It occurred to me recently, during a rare moment of clarity, that we tend to use particular grammatical tenses to talk about particular individuals. Now, obviously, age will affect the tense we use to talk about someone. When we look at a new born baby we tend to think about the future. We look forward in wonder to what she'll be doing in ten or twenty or thirty years time. Similarly, we tend to slip into the past tense when we talk to or about an old person. When we go to visit our grandfather on his death bed we tend to not say: "So, apart from the whole imminent death thing, how are things with you? Any plans for the weekend? Going anywhere nice this summer?" Famous or infamous people, also, can find themselves locked into the past tense by their admirers or critics. If you're Paul McCartney or Hitler, just to give you two good vegetarian examples, nobody really gives a monkey's what you're doing these days. But if we leave aside the very young, the very old, major era-defining icons or mass-murdering despots, we can notice that most individuals tend to favour either the future tense or the past tense when they join the dots in their own personal narrative. Some people will look you in the eye and tell you what they intend to do and you just know they will do it or die trying. You can see the whole arc of their life plot just by looking towards the future to which they point. You don't need to be told about their past; it's easy to intuit it. Other people tell you what they have hitherto done and you feel you just know them. You can pretty accurately predict their future. I, on the other hand, tend to eschew both the past and the future tenses. I don't tend to scintillate in either of those worlds. If you want to see me at my best, then please come with me into the magical world of the conditional tense. In the conditional tense I am truly wondrous to behold. Rather than waffle on in vague generalities about the greatness I manifest when I get to spend quality time in my natural habitat, the world of could and would, let me give you a few examples of my achievements there. If I were to devote enough time to developing my idea for curing cancer, billions of lives (and that's a conservative estimate) would be saved. And medical science isn't even my thing. Should I ever get around to devoting some serious energy to my crime-fighting ambitions, then the world absolutely would be a safer place. I would mainly concentrate on morally justifiable vigilantism in my superhero guise as Cowman. Cowman's main superpower would be that he has three stomachs. While the possession of an above average quantity of digestive organs is not, in and of itself, a weapon, it would prove immensely useful to me in my quest to rid the world of criminality. Extra stomachs mean extra rumination. Extra rumination means increased likelihood of outwitting my arch-nemesis, not to mention mere common or garden nemeses. As to actual, physical weaponry, I would be mainly reliant on my udders, which I would wield with deadly results as I swooped through the air in my faux leather cape. (Those of you who are locked inside a binary notion of gender are, no doubt, sneering at my apparent confusion as to the juxtaposition of the words cow and man. But, if I were to get on with being Cowman, I would do so only on the condition that I would be there to serve and protect all genders, all sexual orientations. I believe that to do otherwise would be to render my faux-leather-caped, udder swinging alter ego faintly comical and ridiculous. My main achievements in the conditional tense would have to be in the arts. Not only would I excel in the more traditional genres of music, literature and painting, but I would forge new collaborations between the existing disciplines. I would cross pollinate wonderful new mongrel forms through which to reveal the true magnificence of my all-encompassing soul. Through media such as interpretive origami, Trappist musical mime or ceramic jazz, I would " sing to lords and ladies of Byzantium of what is past, or passing, or to come." Maybe some other time I'll fill you in on my conditional tense achievements in the worlds of sport, investigative journalism and spiritual development. But suffice it to say that, throughout all of my innumerable achievements, I would somehow manage to maintain the Trump-like humility, the Elton-John-like frugality and the Buddha-like business acumen for which I would become famous.

[lostpensioner]

Ultimate Lost Pensioner.

I don’t know much about physics. To tell the truth, I don’t even believe in it. My exposure to science in school left me more than a little sceptical. Our science teacher would explain a particular law of physics to us, then set up an experiment to prove the validity of that theory. Invariably the experiment would go wrong, often resulting in the school caretaker rushing into the room brandishing a fire extinguisher. But, no matter how many times he burnt his fingers, singed his eyebrows or otherwise mutilated himself, our teacher stubbornly clung to his superstitious belief in the laws of nature.

But one theory that physicists have dreamt up does appeal to me. It’s that nonsense about multiple realities. Apparently, if I walk out the door and turn left there will come into  existence another universe in which I chose to turn right and in which my subsequent adventures are just as real as anything occurring to the left of that door. Now, that’s obviously twaddle, but it does appeal to my imagination.

I find it very comforting to imagine a universe out there somewhere in which I exist in my most perfect incarnation. The me who exists in this world is just a rough draft of Optimum Me, which has been thrown into the waste basket of existence.

Optimum Me is no more generously endowed than Wastebasket Me.He is neither physically or mentally superior than me. He is no better or worse than I am as a moral being. But he has had the good fortune to be born into a world which actually operates in accordance with the laws of existence as laid down in self help books.

Now please don’t jump to the conclusion that I’m about to make fun of the self-help industry. Okay, I’ll admit there are a few snake-oil salesmen clogging up the shelves of this world’s bookshops. But, by and large, I’d have to admit that most of what I’ve read in the self-help genre has impressed me. I genuinely believe that there are many books out there which have the power to vastly improve my life if I only had the willpower to live in accordance with their precepts.

The problem with the world we live in is not the fault of the pop psychologists or the motivational gurus. It is, rather, that the human beings who inhabit this version of reality are inherently flawed. They have been cursed with a version of the human brain which is incapable of applying any of the teachings of those among us who have actually figured out how we can live better..

Meanwhile, over on Planet Optimum, I am fully self-realised, fully optimised, fully awake and fully enlightened. I am spiritually developed to a level where my ego no longer exists. I am bubbling over with compassion for myself and for all sentient beings. I have mastered my personal finances, taken full control of my diet, my physical and mental health and my destiny. 

You would like the me who lives over on Planet Optimum. But, unfortunately, you are stuck with this imperfect incarnation of my soul. Which, in some ways, is fortunate. The fully self-realised version of me has nothing to write about. His life is perfect. Who wants to read about somebody else’s perfect life? Surely to be a writer one needs to have something to write about. One needs a story to tell. And how can you have a story in which nothing bad happens? If, as Philip Larkin claims, a story should have “a beginning, a muddle and an end”, how can we have stories which exist in a perfect world. Because I wish, more than anything, to be a writer, I should thank my unlucky stars that my life is such a mess. My never-ending run of personal misery has provided me with a limitless fund of material for gloomy blog posts. And for this I am as grateful as any miserable bastard is capable of being.

And so I will continue to write, knowing full well that my scribbles will never change anybody’s life. I have no wisdom to impart. And even if I did, you are not mentally equipped to receive it. I write to share my misery with you, so that we can all wallow together, for a brief spell, in my nice cosy, warm bath of misery.