I'm Forever Blowin' Bubbles...

Aaaand we've caught up! Hurrah...

That's probably the only thing worth cheering about, however. The new Premier League season started this weekend, so naturally I was in a breathless state of anticipation...oh, who am I kidding? I couldn't give a monkey's uncle, really, although I always check up on the scores at least, in order to celebrate the triumph of my team. Sadly for me, I'm a West Ham supporter...I'm not holding my breath for any particular glory this season; it'd be nice if we managed to stay somewhere near the middle of the table.

So, played one, lost one. Quite badly. To Aston Villa. And to top it all off, our next match is against Bolton, who have the curious knack of always being able to unsettle us and whup us when necessary. I want to be able to state, with complete and utter confidence, that we will stay up again this season; that the relegation zone is not something we need to worry about; that we will finish, at worst, mid-table...but then the cold, cruel clarity of "real life" drops in and I get the distinctly dubious feeling, a prickle at the back of my neck, that this time next year we may well be in the Championship...

Ah well, what do I care? West Ham won the World Cup in '66, and we had Bobby Moore. All the rest is just dreaming...all together now..."I'm forever blowing bubbles, pretty bubbles in the air..."

My Lost Toy Story

**NOTE: This was written on 13th August. I told you I was playing catch-up...**

Oh gods, I have guilt. The most unbearable, earth-shattering, bone-crunching guilt, weighing down on me like a suit of armour. I thought I'd dealt with the trauma, but it took a trip to the cinema to make me realise that, actually, guilt of this proportion never, ever leaves you...

The reason for my current, crushing guilt is that I've just got back from seeing Toy Story 3. Unlike many of the grown men in the audience, I did not quietly sob my way through the film; I didn't even loudly sob, although I will confess to a slight lump in the throat as the film unfolded, but the sudden wave of guilt that crashed over me as I sat in the darkness was stifling. I, too, was like Andy once, young and carefree and completely obsessed with my favourite toys. I loved my Lego and my Fisher Price People; I cuddled my Doggy Wheels and had my Fisher Price Chatterphone that I was quite attached to; but the two toys that I worshipped and adored above and beyond any other were two cuddly toys. One was a pink and white mouse that I received from Father Christmas at playgroup when I was three, and who still regards me with the same curious and compassionate expression at twenty-eight as he did at three. I will never, ever give up my Pinkie, not for anyone; not even if Paul O'Connell, Jenson Button, Paul Collingwood, David Beckham, Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Eddie Izzard, David Tennant, all of Apocalyptica and Till Lindemann himself (more about my bizarre and varied crushes later, I feel) turned up on my doorstep all at once and begged for my hand in marriage, complete with drawn-up rota for how they'd share my time (and the chores) on the condition that the mouse goes. Sorry, fellas, not even the combined pull of your obvious and varied charms could ever persuade me to completely rid myself of my faithful Pinkie. And the reason for this faintly ludicrous attachment to a pink and white stuffed mouse is also the reason for the wave of utter shame and culpability that swept over me in the cinema: I have lost a beloved toy and, to this day, remain utterly ignorant of his whereabouts. I want to die at the thought.

His name was Coco. He was a knitted clown that was presented to me when I was born; so young was I that I don't even remember the very first time we were introduced, but from the very moment that he was placed into my crib, we were inseperable. Coco and I went everywhere together, did everything together...he was my best friend, my confidante and my constant companion; when I cried, he was there, when I laughed, he got the joke. He was my world and I knew we'd always be together.

Alas, like all first loves, it was not to be. At the age of seven, my parents divorced and we moved in with my maternal grandparents. Pinkie was definitely there but, to this day, I can't be sure whether Coco was. I don't know what's worse, the fact that I lost him or the fact that I can't remember when and where I lost him. All I know is that one day he was there and the next, he was gone. Did I give him to someone, in the mistaken belief that I was too old for such things? Had I left him somewhere, abandoning him to the cruel fate of the 'lost toy'? Having seen Toy Story 3, I now have a terrible sense of guilt that, wherever he is, Coco feels that I callously tossed him aside. I can only hope that he ended up somewhere nice, with a child who loved him as much as I did and who wouldn't be so cruel as to just lose him.

I still have my Pinkie, and I still have one picture of me with Coco, but the actual object of my first ever love has been lost to the travels and travails of growing up. I can only hope that wherever he is, Coco is happy and knows that, while we were together, he was the best thing that had ever happened to me.

And I'll never watch bloody Toy Story again without feeling that awful knot in the pit of my stomach...thanks, Pixar!

Stone the Crows...

...Well, the women, at any rate. And I’m only using humour here because if I were to say exactly what I’m feeling at the moment, this blog would be reduced to nothing but an incoherent torrent of ranty swearing. Today, Iranian state television (well, lets be honest – there isn’t any other kind in Iran) broadcast an alleged ‘confession’ by a woman they have sentenced to death by stoning. She was originally ‘convicted’ – I use the term loosely – of adultery, but when the rest of the world said, “er, hold on a second there, old chap,” they decided that she had also been involved in the murder of her husband. The ‘confession’ – again, I use the term incredibly loosely – barely mentioned the adultery charge, focussing instead on the murder; clearly the powers-that-be in Iran have decided that people would be much more likely to let them get on with their execution if it was for something as heinous as murder – after all, doesn’t the United States do exactly the same thing? And so, with her face all but pixellated out, the woman appeared on television and admitted to being involved in the death of her late husband.

Now let’s just think about this for a teeny, tiny second. This is a woman who has been held in an Iranian prison (hardly an experience to delight the soul) and who, according to her former lawyer, who has had to escape to Denmark in fear of his own life, has been tortured severely throughout her ordeal. And now she ‘confesses’ to being involved in a murder plot? Funny that, I think I’d confess as well…and what does the rest of the world do? Absolutely sod all, except go on the telly and bleat about how ‘barbaric’ it is. Yes, that’s marvellous. Well done.

It sickens me, it absolutely sickens me, that in this day and age we can allow not only state-sanctioned murder (for what is any death penalty but that?) but state-sanctioned murder of such primitive and barbaric cruelty. Thank the Gods, no footage of a stoning has ever been released, although should you wish to see how the charming state of Iran used to carry out its public hangings, you can see plenty of footage of that, but there have been pictures and footage released of the aftermath. That was gruesome enough – the ground covered in blood and the spattered rocks – so I would imagine that the actual event would be completely horrendous…it really doesn’t bear thinking about. And this poor woman, who has two children and is probably guilty of nothing more than finding a new man after her husband died (because the whole ‘murder’ thing strangely only seems to have come to light after the outcry about her being stoned for adultery) has more than likely be beaten and threatened and tortured by the authorities in order to get her to produce this ‘confession’. I can only hope that the people who have the power to intervene in such situations get moving and do whatever they can to help this poor woman, and all the others like her who have ‘disappeared’ into the depths of an Iranian prison on the most spurious of charges and been tortured by that country’s regime. It’s too late for the many people who have already died, but there might still be a chance to save the others. Don’t forget them. David Cameron, Barack Obama and everyone else who has the power – do NOT forget them…

**NOTE: This was also written on the 12th**

Star Light, Star Bright...

**NOTE: I am playing catch-up after the sudden and inexplicable demise of my interwebz for a few days. This was written on the 12th**

So I waited up this evening to see if I could spot the Perseid meteor shower, which apparently is at its most visible between 10.30pm and 11.00pm. (I also have a sneaky suspicion that said meteor shower may be responsible for the fact that my broadband appears to have gone stupid again, but I shall reserve my judgement on this matter as it was playing silly arses a few weeks ago and then sorted itself out, so who knows what’s going on?) As it is, I have become resigned to blogging in Word until such time as my poxy internet decides to play ball…I digress. Back to the meteor shower…

Despite the fact that I am completely shattered this evening, I sat through the grim death-and-destruction reporting on the news (getting very angry and trying not to shout at the telly when some of the stories and the reporting wound me up) because I am a sucker for a shooting star, and the thought of seeing loads of the sparkly things got me all excited. There's something almost magical about shooting stars; it stems back to my childhood, I think, when I lived and died by the ancient rhyme "star light, star bright, first star I see tonight. I wish I may, I wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight". If you made the wish on a shooting star, it was all the more certain to come true. And I know that they’re meteors and not stars, but one lump of space rock is very much like another…There's something inexplicably beautiful about these lumps of space rock, though, and they are a timely and not altogether eerie reminder that the universe is so, so much greater than our little planet. We are not alone in this vastness of space - and I'm not talking about the possibility of finding little green men on Mars or those weird bug-eyed monsters I saw on some crap American documentary once. Space is too huge for us to be 'alone' in that sense, but one of the things we are definitely certain about, even if we find it hard to fathom, is that there are an awful lot of lumps of space rock floating around up there; some of them bigger and some of them smaller than our own lump, but all of them infinitely capable of doing us some damage.

Christ, I think I've seen Armageddon too many times...Right then, time to go and see if we can see some sparklies up there!!

******20 minutes later******

Well, that was a total let down. It’s cold, it’s wet and so cloudy that you couldn’t see so much as an aeroplane going overhead, never mind a meteor shower. And the weather forecast doesn’t look that much better for tomorrow, so it may be that I miss it again tomorrow night. No wishing on a star for me tonight...all this and Sexy Becks has been dropped from the England team…screw you, Fabio, he’s the best player we’ve got and if you can’t see that then I’m starting to wonder whether giving you a second chance as manager was such a good idea…ho hum…

It's All In The Genes...

I have a terrible burning desire to know about where I came from. I don't mean literally - I paid attention in biology, thank you - and I don't mean geographically, as even I can remember living in Benfleet as a child, but I mean learning about where I really came from. Learning about my ancestors...

Even before the 'Who Do You Think You Are?' series helped propel genealogy into the spotlight, I was fascinated by Ye Olde Relatives and Those Who Came Before. When I was still at primary school - I think I was about 8 - we had to do a very simple family tree, and I remember sitting down with my Dad and very carefully writing out the names of my grandparents and great-grandparents. From that tiny seed, a family tree started to grow...and my passion was born.

Happily for me, my maternal aunt is pretty much the family historian and so I've been helping her to track both her maternal and paternal ancestors; she's also helped me to discover a bit more about my paternal heritage. When we started, we wanted to try and solve a family mystery (which we still haven't been able to do) and I was secretly hoping for relatives who were fabulously wealthy and terribly interesting. Fabulous wealth, alas, appears to have eluded both sides of my family, but terribly interesting? Ohhh yes...so far, I have discovered that one side of the family has someone who was transported to Australia for 7 years for theft from the post office and someone who had tertiary syphilis; on the other, I have a lunatic and someone who ended up in the workhouse. So criminal, mental paupers...that's the stock I come from. And you know what? They might not have been rich, they might not have done anything spectacular of note and they may not even have been especially nice people...but they are mine and I love them for it.

So here's to the lunatics, the crooks and the poor - God bless you, my ancestors, because if it wasn't for you, I wouldn't be here now. We might not have been the rulers of the land but we were the ones who built the Empire, on the sweat and the strain of our labour, and as far as this descendant of yours is concerned, you are all the most important people in history. I wish I could have known you (although some of you may have scared me) but I shall always be grateful to you and will never forget you!