A Little Of Nothing

Category: Random Musings

  • I’m Obsolete Technology and Out of Warranty

    I’m Obsolete Technology and Out of Warranty

    My body has started making noises that sound like an old house settling. Knees click when I stand up. My back has opinions about chairs. I can pull a muscle doing something that used to count as sitting down.

    There was a time when I assumed aches and pains were things that happened to other people, usually people who said “my back’s playing up” and then stood in a doorway for a while. Now I’m one of them. I make small noises when I get out of a car. I don’t know when that started. I suspect it happened gradually, while I was busy thinking I was still the same age as I was ten years ago.

    The body seems to have moved into a sort of extended warranty period, except nobody can find the paperwork and the warranty has most definitely expired. Something hurts, then stops hurting, then something else starts. I’ve begun to treat a good night’s sleep as a minor medical intervention.

    My mind is doing its own version of this. Fads come and go, and I watch them pass overhead like a small plane I haven’t been invited to board. There are new words, new apps, new ways to make a video, and some new thing everyone is apparently supposed to know about. By the time I’ve worked out what it is, people have moved on and are making fun of the thing I just learnt.

    I can’t keep up with what’s cool. I’m not sure I ever could. I’ve always been a little behind, but now the gap has become wide enough to become a chasm that Thelma and Louise might want to drive into. Someone explains a trend to me and I nod in the manner of a person who is taking it all in, when really I’m trying to remember why I walked into the room.

    I’m the oldest code monkey in the department, which means people talk about vibe coding and the next cool tool while I sit in the corner ranting, “In my day, we wrote code using our brains.” I hear myself and realise it makes me sound as though I learnt programming by scratching code in binary onto clay tablets. Probably in Roman numerals, comments in Latin no doubt!

    I’m turning into the “old man yells at cloud” Simpsons meme. I have become the man muttering at a cloud, except the cloud is usually hosting a phone app that has now moved a button for no clear reason. Modern life has a lot of buttons that move. I don’t know who asked for this. Probably someone younger, with a better phone and fewer mysterious shoulder pains.

    I’m grumpy and cantankerous in ways I used to find funny in other people. The queue is too slow. The queue is too fast. It’s too hot, too cold. The music is too loud, and somehow also too quiet to understand the words. I don’t want to scan a QR code to read a menu. I want a menu that can be held in one hand and left on the table when I’m done.

    Retirement is starting to look less like a distant financial arrangement and more like a place I’d quite like to go. Somewhere with no meetings, fewer alarms, and time to recover from opening a jar. I know I’ll probably fill the days with jobs I’ve been putting off, then complain about having too much to do.

    Still, I am looking forward to it. My operating system may be out of date, several components are making alarming noises, and customer support has been unavailable for years. But I’m not ready to be switched off yet. I’d just like a quieter room and a chair with decent back support.

  • I Like a Bit of Everything. Until I Don’t.

    I Like a Bit of Everything. Until I Don’t.

    On eclectic tastes, curiosity, ADHD, and the apparently endless search for something new.

    A Question of Taste

    I like to think I have eclectic tastes. It sounds rather sophisticated, doesn’t it? Eclectic. It suggests someone with a broad appreciation of music, literature, cinema, and the arts. Someone who has carefully explored different genres, considered their relative merits, and developed a rich and varied collection of cultural interests.

    The reality is probably closer to someone who keeps encountering things, thinking “Ooh, what’s that?”, and disappearing down another rabbit hole for the next three weeks.

    I’ve always been interested in lots of different things, often things that have very little in common with one another. My music collection is all over the place, my bookshelves contain an assortment of subjects that would probably confuse a librarian, and my film collection looks like it belongs to several people who have never met and would probably struggle to agree on what to watch together.

    I’ve generally described myself as eclectic, but recently I’ve started wondering whether that’s entirely accurate. Do I genuinely have unusually broad tastes, or am I simply endlessly curious about things I haven’t encountered before? And how much of that curiosity is driven by the ADHD part of my brain, constantly looking for something new to investigate?

    I’m not entirely sure. Which is probably why I’ve started investigating it.

    My Music Collection Needs Supervision

    Music is probably the easiest place to start because my tastes are, frankly, ridiculous.

    I can happily listen to progressive rock, Philip Glass, Eminem, or a classical symphony, and then follow them with some gloriously cheesy pop, a television theme tune, or a bit of 70s disco. I’ve even ventured into Mongolian throat singing and British drill rap, although those were more exploratory expeditions than permanent changes of musical allegiance. I do still listen to them occasionally, just not quite as often as some of my more established favourites.

    I’m not entirely sure what Spotify’s recommendation algorithm makes of all this, although I suspect it’s quietly having some sort of breakdown. Trying to predict what I’ll want to hear next must be rather like attempting to forecast the weather on Jupiter.

    There are some things I return to regularly. As mentioned above, progressive rock has been a favourite for years, as has classical music, and composers such as Philip Glass. Eminem gets a fairly regular outing too, and I have a considerable weakness for music that other people might dismiss as cheesy or unfashionable. I’ve never really understood why enjoying one kind of music should somehow prevent me from enjoying another. If I like something, I like it. I don’t particularly care whether it’s considered sophisticated, fashionable, obscure, or embarrassingly commercial.

    And when I discover something unfamiliar, I rarely leave it at simply listening to it. I want to know who created it, what else they’ve recorded, where the style came from, and whether there are other artists doing something similar. One piece of music can lead to an entire evening exploring a genre I’d barely heard of that morning. Whether I’ll still be listening to any of it six months later is another matter entirely.

    Some discoveries become permanent additions to my musical world. Others are brief but thoroughly enjoyable diversions. I don’t necessarily regret the ones that don’t stick. I enjoyed finding out about them, and I might well return to them occasionally.

    Although I suspect the person sitting next to me when my music collection is on shuffle might wish I’d exercised a little more restraint.

    The Bookshelves Aren’t Much Better

    My reading habits are a little more predictable, at least at first glance. Science fiction is probably my natural home, although I also enjoy fantasy, comedy, and books that are just plain weird. Douglas Hofstadter’s Gödel, Escher, Bach is a good example of the latter, a book that manages to wander through mathematics, logic, art, music, and consciousness without appearing particularly concerned about which shelf it ought to live on. Not that my shelves follow any form of logical order that is! I have books on mathematics, next to books on architecture mixed with Terry Practchett and Adrian Tchaikovsky, Next shelf down, several dictionaries, a few graphic novels and some J.R.R. Tolkein!

    I also read an awful lot of technical non-fiction. Mathematics, physics, chemistry, anthropology, popular science, and whatever else happens to catch my attention. I’m not necessarily reading these things because I need the information for anything in particular. I just find the subjects interesting, and once I’ve discovered something I didn’t know, there’s a reasonable chance I’ll want to know rather more about it.

    I’m also not particularly consistent about finishing the books I start, particularly the technical or popular-science books. Sometimes I’ll read one from cover to cover, thoroughly enjoying the journey. Other times, I’ll get halfway through, encounter an idea that catches my attention, and wander off to investigate it. It might be something the author mentions in passing, or it might be something they’ve said that I don’t entirely agree with. Either way, I find myself reading about something else entirely, and the original book gets temporarily abandoned while I pursue this new line of thought.

    I’m never quite sure whether this counts as being easily distracted or simply getting rather more out of a book than the author intended. I suspect the answer depends on how charitable I’m feeling towards myself that day.

    There’s also the small matter of the books themselves. I have quite a lot of them, as anyone who has seen my office will confirm. And despite having shelves full of things I haven’t necessarily read ( or finished reading ) yet, I can still find myself browsing for something new. Apparently, having an extensive supply of interesting things available isn’t always sufficient to stop me looking for more.

    I Used to Live at the Cinema. Almost.

    My taste in films is probably the most extreme example of my eclecticism. I have an extensive collection of DVDs and Blu-rays covering everything from science fiction and horror to classic Hollywood, musicals, foreign-language cinema, documentaries, animation, and some frankly peculiar films that I struggle to classify. Science fiction is undoubtedly a favourite, but I’m quite happy watching almost anything if it catches my attention.

    My collection includes 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Seventh Seal, Mamma Mia!, and Ichi the Killer. I’m not entirely sure what that combination says about me, and I’m probably happier not knowing.

    I’ve always loved going to the cinema. Before I was married and acquired responsibilities (how very inconsiderate of life), I had a membership at my local cinema and would watch practically everything they released. And I really do mean literally everything. There were occasions when I’d arrive as the doors opened, spend the entire day moving from one screening to another, and finally leave when they were closing up for the night. Sometimes I’d watch the same film several times over the an entire weekend.

    I wasn’t particularly concerned about whether something was supposed to be good, critically acclaimed, or even remotely the sort of film I’d normally choose. It was a new film, I hadn’t seen it, and that was usually reason enough to give it a go. Of course, this meant sitting through some truly dreadful films, but I also discovered things I might never have chosen to watch otherwise.

    I still love collecting films, but watching them has always been the important part. The collection is partly a consequence of that enthusiasm, although I’ll admit there’s something rather satisfying about having all those films sitting on the shelves, waiting to be watched again.

    I’ve also developed interests in particular directors and styles of filmmaking. My collection includes films by Peter Greenaway, Jacques Tati, and Studio Ghibli, alongside mainstream blockbusters, classic comedies, and an assortment of films that are difficult to describe without making them sound considerably stranger than they already are.

    There are films I return to repeatedly, just as there are albums I never seem to tire of. But I’m equally happy trying something completely unfamiliar. I suppose spending an entire day in a cinema watching whatever happened to be showing was a fairly effective way of indulging both tendencies.

    Eclectic, Curious, or Just Easily Distracted?

    All of which brings me back to the original question. Am I genuinely eclectic, or is there something else going on?

    I’ve been thinking about the difference between enjoying a wide variety of things and actively seeking out new experiences. They’re obviously related, but I’m not convinced they’re quite the same.

    Someone with eclectic tastes might enjoy classical music, heavy metal, jazz, and folk because they genuinely appreciate all four. Someone driven by curiosity might encounter an unfamiliar musical style and want to investigate it simply because it’s unfamiliar. And someone seeking novelty might find the excitement of discovering something new more appealing than the thing they’ve discovered.

    I suspect I manage all three, sometimes simultaneously.

    There are interests that have stayed with me for decades. Science fiction, progressive rock, classical music, electronics, and films have all been part of my life for a very long time. Whatever else I’m doing, I seem to find my way back to them eventually.

    But there are also the temporary fascinations. Something catches my attention, I become thoroughly absorbed in it, investigate everything I can find, and then, sometimes quite abruptly, my attention moves elsewhere. Occasionally I return to the original interest months or years later. Sometimes I don’t.

    I don’t always know why.

    Is This the ADHD Talking?

    I do wonder how much of this is connected to ADHD. Novelty can be particularly appealing to people with ADHD, and interest can have a considerable influence on where attention goes. I certainly recognise the experience of becoming intensely fascinated by something new, only to discover that the fascination has faded once I’ve explored it for a while.

    There’s something faintly ridiculous about a brain that can announce a new lifelong passion on Tuesday and have apparently forgotten about it and moved on to something new by Friday.

    But I’m reluctant to attribute everything to ADHD. Curiosity isn’t exclusive to neurodivergent people, and neither is having broad tastes. People have been collecting things, exploring unfamiliar subjects, and changing their minds about what interests them for considerably longer than we’ve had diagnostic labels to describe some of those behaviours.

    I also don’t want to confuse losing interest with having my interest redirected. When I’m reading a book about physics and encounter an idea that sends me off investigating something in mathematics, I haven’t necessarily become bored with physics. I’ve simply found another question I want to answer. The original book might remain unfinished for months, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t enjoyed it or learned something from it.

    Of course, sometimes I really have just become bored and wandered off to do something else. It would be dishonest to pretend otherwise.

    And sometimes I suspect the excitement of discovering something new is itself part of the attraction. The initial investigation, finding out what I don’t know, discovering connections, and getting that rather satisfying feeling when something begins to make sense. Once I’ve satisfied my curiosity, I may feel quite content to move on.

    Whether that’s ADHD, personality, or simply a lifelong habit of poking my nose into things, I couldn’t say.

    The Thrill of the Chase

    I think there’s something worth exploring in the idea that I enjoy the process of discovery almost as much as the things I discover.

    When I encounter something unfamiliar, I tend to want to understand it. I don’t necessarily need to become an expert, and I certainly don’t need to turn every new interest into a permanent hobby. Sometimes I just want to find out what it is, how it works, where it came from, or why somebody thought it was a good idea in the first place.

    That curiosity can take me in some peculiar directions. A piece of music leads to an unfamiliar instrument, which leads to a different musical tradition. A book raises a question that sends me off reading about something only vaguely connected to the original subject. A film introduces me to a director whose work I hadn’t encountered before, and suddenly there are several more DVDs on the shelf.

    And, occasionally, the whole process ends with me knowing quite a lot about something that I will probably never need to know again.

    I seem to have accumulated a considerable quantity of such information over the years. Some of it has proved unexpectedly useful. Much of it hasn’t, although it occasionally comes in handy during quizzes or when I want to bore somebody at a dinner party. My wife refers to me as “The Human IMDb” because I’m forever telling her, “Oh, he was in this movie with X and Y, and it was directed by Z. But Z also directed A and B, which appeared in movie Q, which went on to spawn a series starring both X and Y again!” This sort of outburst is usually met with a “Shut up and watch the movie Pete!” from my wife !

    I suppose the danger is that I can spend so much time investigating the next interesting thing that I neglect something I was perfectly happy doing before. I’ve certainly done that often enough, and there are probably several unfinished books around the house that could testify on the subject if books were capable of giving evidence.

    Still, I don’t think every interest needs to last forever to have been worthwhile. Sometimes finding out about something is enough.

    The Things That Stick

    What I find particularly curious is that, despite all this wandering around, some things never seem to lose their appeal.

    I’ve listened to certain kinds of music for decades and still enjoy them. I can revisit a favourite film even when I know exactly what’s going to happen, and science fiction remains my default choice when I’m looking for something to read. There are books I’ve returned to, subjects I’ve studied repeatedly, and interests that have survived numerous excursions into completely unrelated territory.

    So the idea that I’m simply chasing novelty doesn’t quite explain everything. If it did, surely I’d have abandoned all those old favourites years ago.

    I don’t know what separates the lasting interests from the temporary ones. Perhaps some subjects are simply broad enough that there’s always something else to discover within them. Science fiction certainly offers an almost unlimited supply of new ideas, while music is hardly a field in which anyone is likely to run out of unfamiliar things to hear.

    Or perhaps I just really like progressive rock.

    That seems equally plausible.

    A Little Bit of Everything

    I’m still not entirely sure whether eclectic is the right word to describe my tastes. It certainly describes the contents of my music collection, bookshelves, and DVD library, but I’m less convinced it explains how they ended up that way.

    Some things I discovered because I was deliberately looking for something new. Others appeared by accident, or because somebody recommended them, or because I happened to encounter them while investigating something else entirely. Some have become lasting favourites, while others have been enjoyable diversions that I rarely revisit.

    I suspect my curiosity has a great deal to do with it, and ADHD may well contribute to the enthusiasm with which I occasionally throw myself into a new subject. But I don’t feel any particular need to pin the whole thing down to a single explanation.

    There are still enormous amounts of music I haven’t heard, books I haven’t read, films I haven’t watched, and subjects I know almost nothing about. Some of them I’ll probably love, some I’ll dislike, and others will leave me wondering why I bothered.

    I quite like the idea that I haven’t finished discovering what I enjoy.

    Although, looking at the number of books and films I already own, I probably ought to make a start on some of my unwatched and unread piles first.

  • A Little Of Nothing. Emphasis on the Nothing.

    A Little Of Nothing. Emphasis on the Nothing.

    Burnout is a funny word for something that feels so completely unfunny when you’re in it.

    At the moment, even putting pen to paper, or more accurately fingers to keyboard, feels harder than it should. Creativity has wandered off somewhere, motivation seems to have gone with it, and most things feel more like chores than choices. The mood is low, joy is proving annoyingly difficult to locate, and there isn’t much spare energy left for turning any of that into something clever, witty, or worth reading.

    So that’s why things are a little quiet here right now. I could probably force myself to write something, but I’m not sure that would help. For the moment, I’m trying to accept that sometimes there just isn’t much in the tank. Hopefully that changes. Until then, this is about as much as I’ve got.

  • Sorry Seems to Be the Easiest Word!

    Sorry Seems to Be the Easiest Word!

    British musician Elton John once sang the words “Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word” in his 1976 hit of the same name.

    But, y’know, I’ve never had this problem.

    If anything, I find the word “sorry” easy.

    TOO EASY!

    I’m forever saying sorry. Sorry for things that are my fault, sorry for things I THINK are my fault, sorry for things that aren’t remotely my fault, and even sorry for things that couldn’t possibly ever be my fault.

    Put it this way, later in Elton’s song he asks what he should do when lightning strikes him.

    Me? I’d probably apologise to the cloud for causing it to strike me just because I happened to exist within its sphere of awareness.

    Know how I’ve mentioned my lack of ego and self-effacing tendencies before? Well, it also seems I have a nigh-on pathological urge to accept blame for the woes of the world.

    I’ve apologised when somebody else bumped into me.

    When someone asked me a question I didn’t know the answer to? “Sorry.”

    When I’ve needed to squeeze past somebody who has positioned their trolley sideways across an entire supermarket aisle? Somehow, some way, I apologise.

    Someone misunderstands something I thought I’d said perfectly clearly?

    “Sorry, what I meant was…”

    If the weather is disappointing while somebody is visiting me, a small part of me feels I should probably apologise for that too.

    Perhaps the ultimate British achievement is saying sorry to an inanimate object after I’ve walked into it.

    I’m beginning to suspect that “sorry” isn’t an admission of guilt for me.

    It’s punctuation.

    The evidence against me

    It’s 1989. I’m in my “gap year” before university, except my gap involved going to a local technical college to pick up a plethora of assorted qualifications while I decided what I actually wanted to study at uni.

    I did a ScotVec certificate in computer science because it interested me, and I thought it might prove useful when I went on to study mathematics. Probably.

    I lived in the halls of residence directly across from the college. Literally less than a five-minute stroll from my room to class.

    I was a goody two-shoes student. Always on time, usually early, and always near the top of the class. Teacher’s pet, some would say.

    My friend?

    He had real issues getting out of bed.

    At weekends he’d emerge at around 4pm. Not ideal when classes started at 8:30 in the morning.

    Anyway, his attendance had become so bad that he was at risk of being dropped from the course. As he was my friend, I said I’d help get him up and into class.

    So I went to his room, knocked him awake, got him ready, and ushered him along. It was like waiting for ice-cold honey to pour. I eventually managed to get him out of his room and across to college.

    We walked into class, ooh, ten minutes late?

    Which, for him, was early.

    The teacher exclaimed that he was “almost on time for once!”, basically acknowledging my role in getting him there at all.

    Then he added that if my friend fell back into his bad ways, he’d be out on his ear.

    And, totally unbidden, I responded:

    “Yes, sorry sir. It won’t happen again!”

    Both the teacher AND my friend looked at me with bemused puzzlement.

    Hang on.

    What exactly was I sorry for?

    Sorry for getting him there almost on time? Sorry for making an effort to help a friend?

    Why exactly did I feel I had to apologise?

    Sorry, but WHY am I sorry?

    I am naturally subservient. I’ll walk at the rear of a group or let others pass through a doorway before me. If I join a queue at the same time as someone else, or sometimes even slightly before them, I’ll often let them go ahead.

    I’m also very conscious of people entering my personal space, so I think I’ve unconsciously concluded that everyone else must feel the same way. I therefore spend an unreasonable amount of time trying not to inconvenience people who have shown absolutely no sign of being inconvenienced.

    This frequently involves moving out of somebody’s way when I wasn’t actually in their way, thereby moving directly into their way.

    “Sorry.”

    I’m constantly apologising.

    Sometimes “sorry” seems to mean:

    I don’t want you to think I’m rude.

    I’m about to inconvenience you by approximately four seconds.

    I disagree, but I’d quite like us still to be friends afterwards.

    I need something from you.

    I have an opinion.

    I’m sorry I exist where you can see or hear me.

    Actually, I’m sorry I exist.

    Full stop!

    I do wonder how much of my constant apologising is actually about guilt, and how much is simply social lubrication.

    But it’s got out of hand.

    My wife will yell at me:

    “PETE! For goodness’ sake! Stop saying sorry all the time!”

    To which I naturally respond:

    “Yeah… sorry about that!”

    And the worst thing is, I’m not even trying to be funny. The apology has already left my mouth before the part of my brain responsible for quality control has arrived at work.

    I have created the infinite apology loop.

    I just need to find a way to extract energy from it and I’ll make my fortune in power generation.

    The tiny negotiation hidden inside “sorry”

    I think an apology can be less about admitting I did something wrong and more about signalling intent.

    “What I’m about to say isn’t intended to make your life more difficult.”

    Or:

    “I realise we’re at odds with our expectations here, but I’m not deliberately trying to annoy you.”

    It’s an attempt to defuse a situation before anyone has actually planted the explosive device.

    One small word has ended up doing an awful lot of jobs.

    It covers remorse, politeness, embarrassment, sympathy, interruption, disagreement, and the complex diplomatic negotiations involved in passing someone on a narrow pavement.

    Frankly, “sorry” is overworked.

    Sorry for taking up space

    If I constantly apologise before speaking, asking, disagreeing, or needing something, I do wonder if that affects how I think about my right to do those things.

    Not in some grand, life-changing way.

    Just in the accumulation of tiny moments.

    There is a difference between being considerate and acting as though my very existence requires an apology. I’m not always entirely sure where I cross that line.

    Sometimes “sorry” is kindness. Sometimes it’s habit. Sometimes I simply want to avoid friction.

    Sometimes I probably just need to get out of the bloody doorway.

    Retiring a few unnecessary sorries

    Perhaps I need an intervention of sorts.

    Not to stop saying sorry altogether, but at least to notice some of the unnecessary ones before they escape.

    Maybe “Sorry to bother you” becomes “Have you got a minute?”

    Maybe “Sorry, can I just say…” becomes me simply saying it.

    And maybe “Sorry I’m late!” becomes…

    No, actually, I’ll keep that one for when I’m late.

    I’m not an utter barbarian.

    I wonder which of my many apologies I’d actually want to keep?

    Sorry, I seem to have written an entire post about apologising

    I don’t think I want to stop saying sorry.

    I’d just like to become slightly better at distinguishing between I did something wrong and two people arrived at the same door at roughly the same time.

    There must be some room between never apologising and accepting personal responsibility for the entire human experience.

    I’ll try to find it.

    Sorry if that takes a while.

  • The Curious Value of Learning Things You’ll Probably Never Need

    The Curious Value of Learning Things You’ll Probably Never Need

    People have asked me all my life why I spend so much time learning things I’ll probably never need.

    To be honest, they’ve got a point.

    I don’t need to know the chemical formula for caffeine. (C₈H₁₀N₄O₂, since you asked.) I certainly don’t need to know that a 2:1 ratio of L-theanine to caffeine is generally considered the ideal combination for alertness without the jitters. I almost certainly don’t need to know how to pick a lock, open a combination padlock, or solve a Rubik’s Cube in under two minutes.

    Yet somehow these things have all found their way into my head. I seem to have developed something of a talent for learning useless things.

    Every time I go abroad, I tell myself I’ll learn a few useful phrases. “Hello.” “Thank you.” “A table for two, please.”

    Somehow that always escalates into learning how to ask for directions, apologise for my terrible pronunciation, explain that I only speak a little of the language, and enquire whether the nearest hospital is within walking distance.

    On paper, none of this seems like a sensible investment of my time.

    Then again, neither do many of my hobbies.

    The First Aid Incident

    Back in 2001 I was living in Aberdeen, working as a software developer for an oil and gas engineering company.

    To be clear, I never worked offshore. I never set foot on an oil platform. I spent my days writing software in a perfectly ordinary office.

    Naturally, I decided I ought to learn some offshore survival.

    I also became a fire warden.

    And, because apparently office life is a dangerous business, I persuaded my employer to send me on a British Red Cross first aid course. You never know when someone might suffer a particularly aggressive paper cut.

    At the end of the course I proudly received my certificate, a basic first aid kit, a copy of the British Red Cross First Aid Manual, and a rather nice canvas shoulder bag to carry it all in.

    Our instructor smiled and said, “With any luck, you’ll never need to use any of this.”

    Famous last words.

    This next part genuinely happened.

    I left the training centre, phoned my girlfriend to tell her I’d passed, crossed the road, and had barely walked a dozen feet when an elderly lady tripped over the kerb right in front of me.

    She landed heavily on the pavement, banged her elbow, knocked the wind out of herself, and split her plastic shopping bag, sending tins and groceries rolling in every direction.

    I don’t think the ink on my certificate had even finished drying.

    Within seconds I was tearing the cellophane off my brand new first aid kit, treating her injuries, calling for an ambulance, and transferring her shopping into my equally brand new British Red Cross canvas bag.

    About twenty minutes later, as the paramedics were helping her into the ambulance, my instructor walked out of the training centre.

    He looked at the ambulance.

    He looked at me.

    Then, with a wonderfully puzzled expression, silently mouthed:

    “What happened?”

    I could only shrug.

    Honestly, I wasn’t entirely sure myself.

    When Curiosity Pays Unexpected Dividends

    I’d love to tell you that this was a one-off, a bizarre coincidence that could never possibly happen again.

    Unfortunately, life seems to have other ideas.

    Fast forward to this year.

    My wife and I decided to visit Tromsø in northern Norway to see the Northern Lights.

    As always, I decided to learn a little of the local language before we travelled.

    Well, a little by my standards.

    Most people learn “hello”, “thank you”, and perhaps “two coffees, please.”

    I apparently prepare for every conceivable emergency.

    By the time we arrived I could order food, ask for directions, apologise for my dreadful Norwegian, explain that I only spoke a little of the language, ask for help, and generally muddle my way through basic conversations about the weather and what tourist destinations they’d recommend.

    Then my wife slipped on an icy pavement, broke her wrist (it later transpired), and suddenly I found myself spending the better part of a day in a Norwegian Accident & Emergency department acting as a very enthusiastic, if rather amateur, translator.

    Did I know beforehand that I’d need to ask for medical assistance in Norwegian?

    No.

    Did I learn how anyway?

    Yes.

    Did it turn out to be useful?

    Rather inconveniently… yes.

    Curiosity Doesn’t Care Whether It’s Useful

    The funny thing is, none of these things were learnt because I expected them to be useful. Unlike the Monty Python phrasebook, I very much doubt I’ll ever need to utter the immortal phrase, “My hovercraft is full of eels.” That said, do I know of a website that translates exactly that sentence into almost every language imaginable, including Pig Latin and Klingon?

    Of course I do.

    That’s never really been the point.

    I learnt these things because they interested me. Curiosity has never once asked whether something will improve my career, save me money, or even come in remotely useful. It simply points enthusiastically at something and says, “Ooh… what’s that?”

    Rabbit Holes Worth Exploring

    People still ask why I bother learning things I’ll probably never need, and the truth is that most of the time I never do. Most ADHD rabbit holes lead absolutely nowhere, and that’s perfectly fine. Every so often, however, life presents me with a bizarrely specific problem that can only be solved by knowing a bizarrely specific thing. An elderly lady falls over less than a minute after I complete a first aid course. My wife slips on the ice in northern Norway just weeks after I’ve been enthusiastically cramming conversational Norwegian. Suddenly, yesterday’s apparently pointless hobby becomes today’s unexpectedly useful skill.

    I’ve stopped asking whether something will be useful before I learn it. Experience has taught me that life has an odd sense of humour, and an even odder habit of rewarding curiosity in the most unexpected ways.

    So I’ll keep disappearing down rabbit holes, keep learning apparently useless facts, and if my wife and I ever decide to explore the Amazon rainforest, I’ll almost certainly spend a month learning enough bushcraft and jungle survival to give Bear Grylls or Ray Mears a run for their money.

    Just in case.

  • Two Wolves? No. Inside Me Are Four Petes

    Two Wolves? No. Inside Me Are Four Petes

    There’s an old story about two wolves fighting inside each of us. One represents kindness, the other anger. The one that wins is the one you feed.

    That’s all very profound.

    Unfortunately, my brain has slashed the internal budget, and I can no longer afford the zoo bills for two argumentative Canis lupus.

    I don’t have two wolves.

    I have four Petes.

    They all live inside my head, they all think they’re in charge, and they hold regular committee meetings. Sadly, nobody ever bothers to appoint a chairperson, so very little gets agreed.

    Meet the Committee

    First, there’s Adult Pete.

    He’s the one who pays the bills, books the dentist, washes the car, remembers to renew the insurance, and insists vegetables are an important part of a balanced diet.

    He’s sensible.

    Nobody likes him very much.

    Then there’s Five-Year-Old Pete.

    He wants to visit every museum, gets ridiculously excited by sweet shops, believes every bookshop deserves “just a quick look”, could happily spend an hour staring at fossils, and firmly believes chores should be postponed until after another game of Minecraft.

    He’s also convinced that pudding is a perfectly acceptable main course.

    Autistic Pete is a man of systems.

    He likes routines. Autistic Pete alphabetises things that don’t really need alphabetising. He becomes mildly irritated if someone uses his favourite coffee mug. He’s already planned what we’re doing next Tuesday.

    It’s currently Saturday.

    And finally, there’s ADHD Pete.

    He has absolutely no interest in Tuesday.

    Or Saturday.

    Or chronology in general.

    He’s currently suggesting we learn Norwegian, buy a new soldering iron, reorganise the bookshelves, write half a blog post, and spend the afternoon researching medieval trebuchets because… well… why not?

    Committee Meetings

    This arrangement presents certain challenges.

    Adult Pete decides it’s time to review the pension.

    ADHD Pete has just discovered lock-picking and won’t stop talking about it.

    Five-Year-Old Pete wants to watch Minecraft videos on YouTube.

    Autistic Pete simply wants everyone to sit down, stop interrupting each other, and quit moving the metaphorical furniture.

    Planning a day out requires unanimous agreement.

    In fifty-six years, unanimous agreement has been achieved approximately never.

    For a long time, I assumed maturity meant eventually becoming one consistent person. I imagined that one day I’d simply know what needed doing and quietly get on with it, without internal debate or distraction.

    Instead, I’ve become a reasonably competent referee and arbitration expert.

    Growing Older Without Growing Up

    I’ve written before about growing old without growing up.

    Perhaps this is why.

    The five-year-old never actually leaves.

    He simply has to negotiate with the adult who now owns a mortgage.

    The more I think about it, the less I believe this is really an article about ADHD or autism.

    It’s about identity.

    We like to imagine that healthy adults are internally consistent. They know exactly who they are, what they want, and why they make the decisions they do. They stride confidently through life without ever arguing with themselves over whether to tackle the washing up or spend three hours learning about medieval castle architecture because one interesting fact led to another.

    I don’t think that’s how people work.

    I think we’re all a collection of competing ideas, instincts, responsibilities, hopes, fears, and impulses. Most people have an internal dialogue.

    Mine just sounds more like a committee meeting where everyone insists they’re the chair.

    Getting diagnosed with autism and ADHD didn’t create those different voices. They’d been there all along. The diagnoses simply handed me a couple of name badges. Suddenly the part of me that craved routine made sense. So did the part that could cheerfully demolish that routine because it had discovered an exciting new hobby before breakfast.

    Perhaps that’s true for all of us.

    We’re not contradictions waiting to be resolved.

    We’re complicated people learning to live with all the different versions of ourselves, each convinced they know best.

    The Bookshop Test

    The other day I wandered into a bookshop intending “just to have a look”.

    Those are among the most dangerous words in the English language.

    Adult Pete quietly reminded me that I already own enough unread books to last until at least the next ice age.

    ADHD Pete had discovered three entirely new interests before I’d even reached the history section.

    Autistic Pete was admiring how beautifully everything had been organised. Whoever decided biographies should be shelved alphabetically deserved a small medal. He’d also straightened three piles of books and answered enough questions from other customers that I suspect at least one of them thought he worked there.

    Meanwhile, Five-Year-Old Pete had wandered off to the science section wearing the expression of someone who’d just discovered dinosaurs for the very first time.

    “LOOK! DINOSAURS!”

    I left with two books I hadn’t intended to buy, a bag of jelly beans from the sweet shop next door, and absolutely no regrets.

    Perhaps growing up was never about evicting the child inside us.

    Perhaps it was never about becoming one perfectly sensible, endlessly responsible adult.

    Maybe it’s about learning to let every version of yourself have a voice.

    Adult Pete makes sure the bills get paid.

    Autistic Pete stops life descending into complete chaos.

    ADHD Pete reminds me that curiosity is very rarely wasted.

    And Five-Year-Old Pete still has the wonderful ability to point excitedly at something unexpected and remind the rest of us that the world is still full of amazing things.

    I wouldn’t want to silence any of them.

    I just try very hard not to let ADHD Pete chair the meetings.

  • The Surprisingly Bearable Lightness of Being Alone

    The Surprisingly Bearable Lightness of Being Alone

    My wife and I can happily spend an entire evening in the same room, each doing our own thing. She’s reading, knitting, or crocheting. I’m probably tinkering with something, researching some obscure Minecraft modpack code on my tablet, or catching up on Mastodon. The cat is supervising, as befits her position as Supreme Leader of the Household.

    We’re together without constantly demanding each other’s attention.

    Our cat has very clear rules about social interaction.

    She wants company.

    Until she doesn’t.

    She wants affection.

    Until she doesn’t.

    She wants to sit on your lap.

    Until she suddenly remembers she’s an apex predator and bites you.

    In many ways, she’s taught me something rather profound about companionship. It’s perfectly possible to enjoy company without needing it every waking moment.

    I do, however, usually manage not to sit in people’s laps and bite them.

    Growing Older (Or How I Learnt to Stop Socialising and Love Solitude)

    From my mid-twenties to my mid-thirties, I lived alone in a flat in Aberdeen. I had an extensive movie collection, back when films came on gloriously space-hungry VHS cassettes instead of DVDs. I had my PC, my World of Warcraft account, and my hamster, Quark.

    Also I had a group of ex-university friends who regularly dragged me out to clubs, pubs, Sunday morning greasy fry-ups, and parties.

    I went because I thought that was what people were supposed to do.

    Don’t get me wrong. I had fun… ish.

    I didn’t know I was autistic back then. That particular bombshell hadn’t even been manufactured yet, never mind dropped from an overhead B-52.

    But most of the time I was on my own. I’d spend evenings watching films, playing games, or trying to work out where Quark had managed to roll his exercise ball this time.

    I was content.

    I enjoyed my own company.

    Even then, I instinctively understood there was a profound difference between being alone and being lonely.

    I’m now in my mid-fifties, and that feeling hasn’t changed.

    As I’ve written before in Growing Old without Growing Up, getting older hasn’t made me feel old. If anything, it’s made me more comfortable ignoring society’s expectations.

    I genuinely enjoy my own company.

    That doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy spending time with my wife. Quite the opposite. She’s my companion, my best friend, my soulmate, and the person I most enjoy sharing life with.

    But we don’t live in each other’s pockets.

    She has her allotment. While I greatly appreciate eating what she grows, that’s her thing. She’ll happily disappear there for hours while I disappear into my home office to write code, build a new Minecraft mod, or update this blog, as I’m doing now.

    She’s even been known to disappear to Greece for a fortnight on one of her spiritual retreats while I stay at home, work, look after the house, and consume quantities of junk food that would never pass Wife Quality Assurance.

    Two Whole People

    I’ve never liked the expression “my other half”.

    It suggests we arrive in the world as unfinished jigsaw puzzles, wandering around until someone finally turns up holding the missing piece.

    I don’t believe that.

    When my wife and I married, we were already two complete human beings, each with our own interests, quirks, ambitions, and ways of spending our time.

    We simply chose to walk through life together.

    Sometimes our paths overlap completely.

    Sometimes they briefly diverge.

    Most of the time, they run happily alongside one another.

    Healthy relationships aren’t two halves making a whole. They’re two complete people choosing to share their lives. Otherwise we accidentally make relationships responsible for fixing problems they were never designed to solve.

    Alone Is Not Lonely

    I’m not antisocial, and I certainly haven’t given up on people.

    I just don’t need quite so many of them.

    I’ve stopped mistaking constant interaction for happiness.

    It turns out the old saying “quality over quantity” applies to friendships as much as almost everything else.

    Being alone is a description while being lonely is an emotion.

    One tells you who’s in the room, the other tells you how you feel about it.

    You can feel desperately lonely in the middle of a crowded pub.

    You can spend an entire weekend by yourself without feeling lonely for a single moment.

    They’re completely different states.

    We often assume one causes the other.

    It doesn’t.

    Why We Fear Solitude

    Modern life seems oddly suspicious of solitude.

    There’s an unspoken expectation that adulthood should involve an ever-expanding network of friends, colleagues, networking groups, WhatsApp chats, neighbourhood associations, social media platforms, and community events.

    As though popularity can somehow be measured by unread notifications.

    But relationships aren’t Pokémon.

    Collecting more doesn’t necessarily improve your life.

    You certainly don’t need to catch them all.

    Learning to Enjoy Your Own Company

    If you can’t enjoy an afternoon by yourself, adding another person doesn’t magically create contentment.

    Sometimes it simply creates another person to disappoint.

    There’s a quiet confidence in being able to entertain yourself, pursue hobbies, disappear down strange rabbit holes of curiosity, spend an afternoon wandering around a museum, sit beside a river watching the world go by, or simply think.

    Many of us have felt far lonelier surrounded by people we couldn’t truly be ourselves around than we ever have sitting quietly on our own.

    Company is wonderful when it’s shared with people who let us be authentic.

    Company simply for the sake of avoiding silence can feel surprisingly empty.

    I’m not suggesting we all become hermits.

    Please don’t finish reading this article, delete all your social media accounts, and move into a cave somewhere in the Highlands.

    We’re social creatures, and spending time with people we care about can be deeply rewarding.

    Some of my happiest memories involve my wife.

    Others involve good friends.

    But some involve nobody else at all.

    Cycling through the countryside.

    Sitting in a park watching deer run across a field.

    Heading into London with absolutely no plan beyond wandering wherever curiosity takes me.

    Looking at things.

    Really looking.

    Watching boats drift along the Thames.

    Eating an excellent burger.

    Drinking great coffee.

    Spending far too long in a bookshop.

    Simply sitting and watching the world move around me without feeling any obligation to join in.

    Bliss.

    Maybe the goal isn’t to spend less time with people.

    Maybe it’s simply to stop measuring the health of our lives by how many people happen to be in the room.

    Being alone isn’t the opposite of belonging.

    Sometimes it’s simply the place where you finally belong to yourself.

    As I finished writing this, Spotify decided to shuffle on All By Myself by Eric Carmen.

    I laughed out loud.

    Not because it proved my point, but because somewhere inside the vast collection of algorithms analysing my listening habits, a computer had spectacularly misunderstood me.

    Then again, perhaps that’s the whole point.

    Being alone and being lonely aren’t the same thing.

    Spotify still hasn’t worked that out.

    Besides, the song got one thing wrong.

    I wasn’t by myself.

    My wife was in the next room.

    The cat was almost certainly plotting something.

    And, perhaps most importantly, I was already exactly where I wanted to be.

  • The Wondrous View from the Top of Mount Stupid

    The Wondrous View from the Top of Mount Stupid

    We All Start Somewhere

    Although it may be hard to believe, I wasn’t born a mathematician. I wasn’t gifted thirty-plus years of software development experience the moment I took my first breath on this large, strange planet outside my mother’s womb. Just like everyone else, I had to learn. I had to learn numbers, the alphabet, and how to manipulate fiendishly complicated things… like shoelaces and buttons. My brain was plastic and malleable. It soaked up new knowledge like a sponge.

    Then, of course, one day I knew EVERYTHING!

    At least, I thought I did.

    In reality, all I’d done was climb the north slope of Mount Stupid.

    It’s OK. I’ve stood there, and I’ll confidently say that you probably have too. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that every one of us has stood on that summit at some point in our lives, breathed in the rarefied air, looked out over the vast landscape ahead and suddenly realised just how much more there was still to learn.

    “Oh…”

    Actually, I’m here to tell you that the view from the summit isn’t depressing.

    It’s breathtaking.

    Not just because of the thin air, not because of what lies beneath you, but because of what lies beyond.

    The Internet Gets Dunning–Kruger Wrong

    An idea originally published as the Dunning–Kruger effect has, sadly, been adopted by the internet and transformed into the meme-worthy “Why Do Dumb People Think They’re Smart?” Usually it’s written with an irritating mixture of upper and lower case letters, “mUcH lIkE ThIs”, to convey a sense of superiority over people who simply haven’t yet learned enough to realise how much they still have to learn.

    I don’t like that interpretation.

    It’s cruel, and it mocks people who simply haven’t yet reached the point where the world suddenly opens up in front of them. I’d argue that every one of us has to climb Mount Stupid before sliding down the far side into the so-called Valley of Despair. That’s simply part of learning.

    Making fun of somebody for standing on Mount Stupid is rather like mocking a toddler for proudly taking their first steps because they can’t yet run a marathon or land a perfect triple-twisting backflip.

    Go on.

    Google “Dunning–Kruger”.

    See how many articles contain words like idiot, stupid, moron, or dumb.

    As I’ve already said, none of us are born with the knowledge and skills we possess today.

    It’s a journey we all take.

    The View Gets Better

    I have stood at the top of this mountain.

    The brief excitement of thinking I’d reached the summit quickly gave way to the realisation that I’d merely climbed the first hill in an entire mountain range. At first that’s a sobering thought, but once I realised just how much there still was waiting to be discovered, the journey became exciting rather than intimidating.

    Oddly enough, the further I’ve travelled from the summit of Mount Stupid, the less certain I’ve become. Thirty-plus years into software development I’m far more comfortable saying, “I don’t know,” than I ever was after my first year.

    The mountain didn’t make me arrogant.

    The rest of the journey made me humble.

    These days I’m genuinely delighted when somebody shows me something new. I’ve learned far more from making mistakes than I ever have from getting things right the first time. I don’t see those moments as failures of intelligence. I see them as opportunities to expand my understanding of the world.

    The Valley of Despair

    Unfortunately, this is also the point where imposter syndrome quietly creeps into the conversation.

    After more than thirty years in software it’s remarkably easy to think:

    “Who am I kidding? I know nothing.”

    But that’s simply untrue.

    There’s a profound difference between knowing nothing and not knowing everything.

    The first is ignorance.

    The second is simply the natural consequence of continuing to learn.

    The Valley of Despair isn’t merely the moment when I realise I know less than I thought.

    It’s the moment I start believing I’ll never know enough.

    That’s where many people quietly abandon a hobby, a career, or a subject they’ve genuinely fallen in love with. They mistake the size of the journey for evidence that they aren’t capable of completing it, when in reality they’ve simply reached the point where genuine learning begins.

    Sometimes pushing through that valley is hard.

    I’ll freely admit that I’ve occasionally turned around.

    I’ve started new hobbies, enthusiastically bought the books, the equipment and all the shiny new gadgets, learned everything I could as a beginner and then, with growing horror, realised just how much mountain still lay ahead of me.

    At that point I’ve quietly muttered:

    “No… perhaps this isn’t for me after all.”

    And turned around.

    Sadly, I’ve done that rather more often than I’d like.

    AuDHD doesn’t exactly help.

    Looking back, though, I’m grateful I climbed Mount Stupid.

    The view really was wonderful.

    Not because I could finally see how much I knew, but because, for the first time, I could see just how astonishingly much there still was waiting to be discovered.

    I rather hope I never reach the end of that journey.

    One Final Irony

    Of course, before somebody points it out…

    There’s a delicious irony in writing an article explaining the Dunning–Kruger effect.

    It immediately raises the uncomfortable question of whether I’m demonstrating the very phenomenon I’m attempting to describe.

    Fortunately I’ve spent enough years studying mathematics and software engineering to know, with absolute certainty, that I understand almost nothing.

    Which, oddly enough, is probably the closest thing to a qualification I have for writing this article.

  • The Curious Freedom of Pretending to Be Somebody Else

    The Curious Freedom of Pretending to Be Somebody Else

    (Or: How Dressing as a Victorian Ghostbuster Became the Most Authentic Version of Me.)

    I’ve spent most of my life pretending to be somebody else.

    Every day I slip into the role of a “fully functioning adult”, whatever that’s supposed to be. I mask, I moderate my behaviour, I soften the rougher edges of my personality and generally do my best impression of somebody who has absolutely everything under control.

    At weekends, however, the mask begins to slip. I’m far closer to my authentic self and considerably less restrained by the image I’m expected to project in the office. That isn’t to say I suddenly become a different person. It’s more that I stop spending quite so much energy trying to look like everybody else.

    Masking takes a tremendous amount of mental effort. It’s one of the biggest contributors to the autistic burnout I’ve written about previously, which is probably why people find it rather odd when I tell them one of my favourite hobbies involves dressing up as a Victorian Ghostbuster.

    Surely, if I spend all week performing one role, the last thing I’d want to do for fun is perform another?

    Well… not quite.

    My Everyday Performance

    I’ve written before about masking, about my “stage voice” developed to hide my stammer, and about the burnout that often follows from constantly monitoring my behaviour. I won’t repeat all of that here, but it essentially boils down to one simple observation.

    To some extent, Everyday Pete is a carefully rehearsed performance.

    I monitor how loudly I’m speaking and pay attention to my body language. I’ll try to maintain the right amount of eye contact. I avoid wandering too far down conversational rabbit holes, no matter how desperately I want to explain why TCP handshaking is the perfect analogy for small talk or why slide rules are infinitely more interesting than calculators.

    It’s a performance I’ve become very good at.

    It’s also exhausting.

    Enter the Ghostbuster

    You’d therefore think that taking this daily performance and turning the dial up to eleven would be the last thing I’d choose to do for enjoyment.

    Oddly enough, the exact opposite is true.

    Before I explain why, let me introduce the character.

    Not the costume.

    The personality.

    He’s confident, bombastic, friendly, outgoing, slightly pompous, and considerably larger than life. He’ll happily wander up to complete strangers, pose for photographs, chat to children about ghosts, and generally behave as though the world is one enormous stage.

    In other words, he’s the sort of chap who cheerfully says hello to strangers.

    I generally hope strangers haven’t noticed me.

    Even his name is rather revealing.

    He’s called Professor Mycroft Spengler, which, if you’re familiar with my literary and cinematic tastes, tells you almost everything you need to know about me.

    He’s a shameless fusion of Mycroft Holmes and Egon Spengler.

    Mycroft Holmes is hyper-intelligent, analytical, quietly formidable, happiest solving problems rather than socialising, and far more comfortable working behind the scenes than standing in the spotlight.

    Egon Spengler is a scientist, collector of obscure knowledge, enthusiast of spores, moulds and fungi, socially awkward, endlessly curious, and gloriously unconcerned with appearing “normal”.

    Neither of them are conventional action heroes.

    Nor are they particularly charismatic.

    Neither are especially loud.

    So naturally my subconscious looked at those two characters and thought:

    “Yes… let’s combine them.”

    Apparently, given complete creative freedom, my brain built a character whose defining qualities are intelligence, curiosity, scientific obsession, and spectacular social awkwardness…

    …and then gave him brass goggles and a wooden proton pack.

    When I stop and think about it, that probably says something important about my personality!

    The Tax

    Let’s clear one thing up, though.

    For years Comic Con terrified me. I’d travel all the way there, reach the entrance, see the crowds stretching off into the distance and quietly turn around and go home. On the occasions I did make it inside, I’d often become overwhelmed within twenty minutes and leave feeling thoroughly dejected.

    Mycroft changed that.

    He’s become a form of armour. Not armour that hides me, but armour that allows me to function in an environment that would otherwise overwhelm me. He gives me a role to play, a script to follow and, perhaps most importantly, permission to interact with people in ways that everyday Pete would normally avoid. I no longer worry about whether I should talk to strangers because, quite frankly, that’s exactly what a Victorian Ghostbuster ought to be doing.

    It works.

    But it isn’t free.

    I can never manage more than one day at a convention because afterwards I have to pay the bill I’ve quietly been running up. I’ve hyper-masked for most of the day. I’ve spoken to hundreds of people, posed for countless photographs, answered questions, smiled, joked, improvised, stayed in character and absorbed the noise, lights, crowds and sheer intensity of the event. By the time I get home my social battery isn’t merely low, it’s running on fumes.

    The following day I usually disappear. I’ll spend it quietly reading, listening to music, tinkering in the workshop or simply enjoying the blissful absence of people. Not because I didn’t enjoy Comic Con. Quite the opposite. I loved every minute of it. I’m simply paying yesterday’s invoice. It’s worth every penny, but it’s an expensive hobby in ways most people never see.

    The Subtle Difference

    I should probably correct myself slightly because calling cosplay a form of masking isn’t entirely accurate. It’s a useful analogy, particularly as I’m technically wearing a physical mask of one sort or another, but the two things are fundamentally different.

    Masking, at least for me, is about hiding parts of myself. I minimise my differences, smooth away the rough edges and quietly blend into the background. The aim is to become less noticeable, less awkward and, if I’m honest, a little more forgettable.

    Cosplay does exactly the opposite.

    Instead of hiding my differences, it exaggerates them. It takes my enthusiasm, curiosity, theatricality and love of the absurd and turns the volume right up. It’s the difference between whispering and standing on a table shouting:

    “THIS IS ME. I’M WEIRD, AND I’M PERFECTLY HAPPY ABOUT IT.”

    There’s something wonderfully liberating about that.

    Why Ghostbusters? Why Steampunk?

    People occasionally ask why I chose Ghostbusters.

    My usual answer is simply:

    “Why not?”

    Ghostbusters has always been one of my favourite film franchises because, when I stop and think about it, none of the characters are conventional heroes. Ray Stantz is wonderfully enthusiastic and endlessly curious. Egon Spengler is socially awkward, intellectually brilliant and entirely unconcerned with appearing “normal”. Peter Venkman presents himself as confident and charismatic, but I’ve always suspected the sarcasm and bravado are simply another form of armour. Whenever life becomes complicated, he deflects it with humour.

    They’re not superheroes.

    They’re underdogs who accidentally become heroes.

    I find that strangely reassuring.

    Steampunk satisfies a completely different part of my personality. If you’ve read my article about museums you’ll already know I have an enduring fascination with discovery, invention and curiosity. The Victorian and Edwardian periods were full of people pushing at the boundaries of science and engineering, trying to understand how the world worked and asking, “What if?”

    Now, before the historians reach for their keyboards, I’m well aware that Victorian Britain had more than its fair share of problems. Steampunk isn’t history. It’s alternative history, a world where Babbage’s Difference Engine really did work, where Jules Verne reached the Moon. A fantasy world where Wells and Poe somehow became engineers instead of novelists. It’s a world of steam-powered computers, impossible inventions and outrageous imagination, but without the poverty, colonialism, misogyny and social inequality that accompanied the real Victorian era.

    Put Ghostbusters and Steampunk together, add a dash of amateur dramatics and an unhealthy enthusiasm for brass and mahogany panelling, and out walked Professor Mycroft Spengler.

    In Closing

    The funny thing is that my Ghostbuster costume isn’t really hiding who I am. It’s revealing parts of me that everyday life quietly encourages me to keep folded away. He’s louder than I am, more confident than I am, and considerably more theatrical than I am, but none of those qualities are fake. They’re all me.

    Just with a proton pack.

    Eventually the goggles come off, the proton pack goes back on its stand and Mycroft quietly disappears until the next convention. The exhaustion arrives shortly afterwards and, as always, the masking tax has to be paid. For a few glorious hours, though, pretending to be somebody else allows me to stop pretending to be somebody I’m not.

    That’s a trade I’ll happily keep making.

  • Why I Love Museums.

    Why I Love Museums.

    I have yet to visit a museum I didn’t like.

    Some have been better than others, certainly, but I have never walked out of one thinking, “Well, that was a disappointing collection of fascinating things.”

    Large or small, broad or niche, I love museums. When I’m in London they’re some of my favourite places to spend time, and in London we’re really spoiled for choice. Clustered together in South Kensington you’ve got the V&A, the Natural History Museum, and, just around the corner, the Science Museum. Up in Bloomsbury there’s the OG GOAT, the British Museum, containing some of the very best purloined and, ahem… “enthusiastically acquired” artefacts from the four corners of the globe. (Hey, let’s not get political here. – Ed.)

    Further afield there’s the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, and not forgetting my old stomping ground, the Horniman Museum in Forest Hill, complete with its famously overstuffed walrus.

    Those are just a few of my regular haunts.

    I don’t really go to museums to “learn” in the formal sense. I go because they’re one of the few places left where curiosity doesn’t need to justify itself. Nobody asks what you’re going to do with the information you’ve just discovered. Nobody expects it to improve your productivity or advance your career. Sometimes it’s enough simply to stand in front of an object and think, “Well… that’s fascinating.”

    I can happily spend hours wandering around a museum on my own. Not only do I find them endlessly fascinating, but they’re also havens of calm, quiet, and peace. Unlike the busy, bustling streets or shopping centres, nobody has ever stood next to me in a museum shouting into their mobile phone about printer cartridges.

    Well… not usually.

    There’s always the annoying exception.

    Museums Are Libraries for Things

    Books preserve ideas and knowledge.

    They also preserve some truly dreadful plots, improbable narratives, and larger-than-life characters, but I digress.

    Museums preserve objects.

    Every exhibit has a story.

    Every exhibit has a history.

    Every exhibit has a purpose.

    Every exhibit has a journey.

    A Roman coin isn’t just a coin. It may have been somebody’s wages. It may have paid for a meal, a night’s lodging, or a particularly good mug of mead. Perhaps it was dropped and lost in the mud, or perhaps somebody carefully buried it for safekeeping and never returned.

    A steam engine isn’t just a collection of iron and brass. It represents the Industrial Revolution in miniature. It may have pumped water from a mine, powered a textile mill, or hauled ore from Cornwall to London while quietly transforming the world around it.

    Objects are never just “things”.

    They’re tiny windows into somebody else’s life.

    I’ve often thought that museums are what happen when humanity collectively decides, “We probably shouldn’t throw this away. It might be important later.”

    In many respects, a museum is simply a much larger, considerably better organised version of every family’s junk drawer.

    The difference is that somebody has already rummaged through the drawer and decided which objects tell the best stories. Museums don’t really preserve things. They preserve curiosity. Every display case is an invitation to ask, “Who made this?”, “Why did they make it?”, and “What was life like for the person who used it?” I don’t always need the answers. Sometimes the questions are the interesting part.

    Curiosity Without Purpose

    Modern life sends us some rather contradictory messages.

    On the one hand we’re expected to keep up with the latest technology, the newest trends, and whatever today’s fashionable productivity hack happens to be. On the other, we’re encouraged to own less, declutter our lives, and throw away anything that doesn’t “spark joy”.

    The trouble is, in my case, almost everything sparks joy.

    Museums quietly reject the entire premise.

    Modern life constantly asks:

    “What’s the point?”

    Museums simply reply:

    “Because it’s interesting.”

    And, for me at least, that’s more than enough.

    I can happily spend twenty minutes studying a fossil, a Viking comb, or a display of Victorian kitchen utensils. Not because they’ll help me earn more money or make my day-to-day life more efficient, but because they’re fascinating. Sometimes they’re educational. Sometimes they’re beautiful. Often they’re all of the above.

    The Peace and Quiet Is Underrated

    One of the things I appreciate most about museums is something people rarely mention.

    They’re quiet.

    They’re orderly.

    They’re predictable.

    There’s an almost reverential atmosphere about them. People naturally lower their voices, slow down, and actually pay attention to what’s around them.

    For me, that’s the complete opposite of a shopping centre.

    Shopping centres are frenetic, noisy, crowded, brightly lit, and full of people apparently engaged in some sort of competitive speed-walking event. I find them exhausting.

    Museums have the opposite effect.

    They calm me down.

    They centre me.

    I’ve quite happily spent the best part of an entire day in a museum, especially if it has a decent café and an excellent bookshop attached.

    Every Object Has a Story

    The larger museums cover an astonishing breadth of human experience. One minute I’m looking at Egyptian artefacts thousands of years old, the next I’m staring at inventions from the late twentieth century.

    There’s something distinctly unsettling about visiting a museum to look at ancient history and suddenly finding the exact same Trimphone your parents had sitting proudly behind glass.

    As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I’m something of a collector myself. I have numerous collections of things I find interesting, quirky, or simply too fascinating to leave behind.

    Museums do exactly the same thing.

    Just on a considerably larger scale.

    Every object once belonged to somebody.

    Somebody designed it, made it, used it, valued it, then sadly lost it.

    Then, somehow, it ended up behind glass because somebody else recognised that it was worth preserving.

    There’s something deeply human about that.

    Whenever I visit a museum I find myself thinking less about the objects themselves and more about the people behind them. Someone sat at a workbench and made this, carried it, repaired it when it broke. And then much later someone else decided it was too important to throw away. Long after they’ve gone, a small part of their life survives behind a sheet of glass, quietly telling its story to complete strangers. I find that oddly comforting.

    We Preserve What We Value

    Museums aren’t simply rooms full of old “stuff”.

    Because every museum is curated, every museum accidentally reveals what a society believes is worth remembering.

    Sometimes that’s kings, queens, great battles, famous paintings, or technological breakthroughs.

    Sometimes it’s kitchen utensils, railway tickets, children’s toys, wine goblets, or obscure calculating devices.

    If I’m honest, it’s often the ordinary objects that fascinate me the most.

    Civilisation wasn’t built solely by kings and generals.

    It was built day by day by ordinary people.

    People who packed lunches.

    People who worried about warm clothing.

    People who needed decent shoes.

    People who wrote shopping lists on clay tablets and prayed to pantheons of strange gods.

    Those are the people I find myself wondering about.

    Permission to Wonder

    This is probably my favourite reason for loving museums.

    Somewhere along the line many adults stop asking, “What does this do?” or “Why does it work that way?”

    We lose something of our childlike curiosity.

    Museums quietly encourage exactly the opposite.

    In fact, they almost insist upon it. They invite adults to behave like children again, in the very best sense of the word. To point at things. To ask daft questions. To become excited by a beautifully engineered clock, a dinosaur skeleton, or a collection of eighteenth-century spoons that nobody has thought about for two hundred years. Curiosity, after all, isn’t childish. It’s one of the most profoundly human qualities we possess.

    Every display case seems to say:

    “Go on. Be curious. Ask questions. That’s what I’m here for.”

    If you ask me, and seeing as you’re reading my blog I’ll assume you do, that’s rather lovely.

    My Perfect Day

    My perfect museum visit involves wandering around without a map.

    I don’t think of it as aimless wandering.

    I prefer to call it exploring.

    I’ll spend far too long reading information boards, become unexpectedly fascinated by a single fossil, discover something I didn’t even know existed, and then inevitably wander into the gift shop.

    There I’ll buy a book.

    Then another book.

    Perhaps a T-shirt.

    Then realise I’ve bought too much and purchase a tote bag to carry everything.

    At which point I’ll probably buy another book because, well, I’m already there.

    I may as well make the most of it.

    The museum gift shop is where my wallet quietly resigns itself to the inevitable.

    Closing Thoughts

    Perhaps that’s why I love museums so much.

    They aren’t really buildings full of old objects.

    They’re quiet celebrations of human curiosity.

    Every display case says:

    “This mattered.”

    “Somebody made this.”

    “Somebody discovered this.”

    “Somebody thought this was worth keeping.”

    In a world obsessed with the newest thing, museums gently remind me that old things still have stories to tell, and that knowledge doesn’t need to earn its keep to have value.

    More than anything else, museums give me permission to remain curious. To keep asking questions. To keep learning. To keep wondering how things work and why people made them in the first place.

    Growing older shouldn’t mean becoming less curious.

    If anything, I rather hope it means becoming more so.

    Besides…

    Where else can I spend an afternoon looking at medieval surgical instruments, Roman pottery, steam engines, dinosaur skeletons and an alarmingly overstuffed walrus without anybody questioning my life choices?