Musings

I work in Manchester, just down the road from the Arndale shopping centre. Part of the centre crosses Market Street, so there's a large sheltered area there. You often get buskers and the like there. There's a wicked blind guitarist who plays there sometimes, people do dancing of various forms - George Samson used to dance there, and sometimes people do chalk art on the floor or sell pictures.

One day last week, I was walking past, and saw a small crowd of people watching something. I found a space to watch, and saw a black guy with dreadlocks playing speed chess against a twenty-ish girl, while a very tired looking Ipod dock blasted out Coolio's Gangsta's Paradise. The chap played very quickly and very well from what I could judge, and dispatched his female opponent with ease. He shook her hand and then asked for another volunteer from the audience to play. The crowd started to dissipate, while others taunted their friends to take him on. I looked around at his signs that he'd placed on the floor, which proclaimed him the "Jamaican speed chess champion" who needed to collect money to fly home to see his dying father. Still, the man was asking for a volunteer, with no one brave enough to step up to the proverbial plate.

I sat down with him.

He shook my hand and introduced himself as Pablo. I told him my name, and conceded ahead of time that he would destroy me, as I'd not played for years. We arranged the pieces on the board, he reset the clocks, and flicked the Ipod to playing Killing Me Softly by The Fugees. Game on... I opened the best way I could remember, and he countered with ease. The crowd built around us, as I made mistake after mistake. I dithered over moves, while his hand shot to his pieces before I'd even let go of mine, and we hit mercilessly at the clock at our side. With his queen on my back row, and my king pinned behind a solitary pawn, I conceded checkmate. He had torn me apart in a matter of moments. The crowd applauded. I got up, threw a pound in his collection box, and wandered off to catch my train home, glad of the opportunities that one can find in the cities from time to time.

The strange thing is, I am not angry with him for "stealing" money from me; rather I feel I have been robbed of an experience. My memory of playing chess with a Jamaican champion on the streets of Manchester in front a crowd of people is a lie. We may have played chess in front a crowd, sure, but the reason for doing so was a fabrication, a get rich quick scheme for a lazy chess player. I had believed him. I had wanted to experience something as unusual as playing chess with a champion who had fallen on hard times and was using his skills to solve his problems the only way he could. In those fleeting minutes I had played chess with a brilliant man, while people looked on in wonder... Except I hadn't.

I am reminded, in some ways, of the conclusion of Yann Martel's book, The Life of Pi, which I would recommend to anyone with eyes in their head to read it. If you've not and you intend to, look away now, before I discuss the ending... The end of the book concerns the eponymous Pi's claim that the preceding story is entirely true, while the sceptical parties to whom he has related it, disbelieve and say it is a pack of lies. Pi tells them that they are free to believe what they prefer to believe - if they have the faith, they may believe the improbable story that he has recounted, or they may believe their stripped down, straightforward interpretation. The choice is theirs, to believe what they want. In that sense, I find that I prefer to believe the fantastical account of my chess foe, even if the facts clearly show him to be a fraudster. I would like to believe that his story was true, that he really was the Jamaican speed chess champion, struggling for money to fly home to his ailing father. Never mind that I have since found the name of the true champion, and Pablo it is not, or that he has been playing this game in any city he finds himself in, and by extension flying the world on his victim's money... None of this is important. What matters it that for about 3 minutes, I played chess with a champion, was deservedly beaten, and gave him some money to aid him on his noble quest to see his father before he died.

Or perhaps I never met him, but merely happened on his story and chose to write about this...

29 July 2008. 1 hour is spent in the basement of a Moroccan restaurant in London, just off Regent Street, watching a band I'd never heard of before and couldn't name now without Googling. Time passes unmeasured, as I stand in silence with a friend, watching the blonde at the microphone. She puts up a parasol, indoors, at night. This too is fine.

And it matters not whether the band sound like Bic Runga or Lene Marlin, or even Travis on one track; or that the beer costs a fiver a bottle, or that the place is full of incense. My mind is far from my CD collection, my bank account, and my wonderings the next morning as to whether the smoking ban even covers incense. Nothing really matters here, just 4 minutes of music at a time, applause, and more music. I could be anyone, anywhere, no-one, nowhere, unknown to almost everyone in the room. My mobile doesn't even get a signal. I am out of reach - far away.

I've not been to a gig in many years, and am out of touch with this environment. It's good to come back to it. If nothing else, it's wonderful to just take an hour out of my life and just be lost in the semi-acoustic anaesthesia created by these 3 people; far from my studies, my work, my worries.

The band finishes, and we part company. I return to my hotel room, alone, though not before I call in at a newsagents to buy a packet of chocolate covered Hobnobs, for some as yet undetermined reason. Before too long it's 5:08am and I'm waking up in my clothes with my laptop still on at my desk. I doze for 2 more hours, before getting up. The alcohol leaves my system, and my worries and paranoia creep back, and I'm fretting about discussions with my friend over our dinner and drinks prior to the gig, as if I will be judged for voicing my opinions on ebook readers, the changing music industry, whether films can ever be adequately adapted from books (with specific reference to Love in the Time of Cholera, High Fidelity and Bridget Jones), whether the message of American Psycho is lost in it's grotesquery, whether Rage Against The Machine's half-caste heritage makes their covers of violent black hip-pop more palatable to me as a white man, the relative merits of Christina Aguilera and Alphabeat, and my assertion that All I Want For Christmas Is You by Mariah Carey could be the greatest pop song ever were it not for a single atrocious harmony in the middle eight. Well, maybe I should be judged for that last one, but nevertheless - I seem to spend so much of my life worrying about things I've said and done in the past, as though people are keeping score, tallying up all the stupid things I've said or done in the past, the rants, the swearing, the dirty jokes, waiting till I tip the balance before disowning me. I'm sure I'm not the only one to worry like this, but it doesn't really make it any easier, and I do find it concerning that it only seems to be alcohol that can adequately mask those fears.

In other news, Tuesday wasn't my only night of culture in London this week. I spent Monday night at the Proms at the Royal Albert Hall. I went with three friends to see a couple of pieces by Beethoven (including his 5th symphony) and a concerto by a chap called Carter which none of us really rated, though we were impressed with the variety of primary school type percussion instruments it made use of. And if that sounds like damning with faint praise, that's because it is. The 5th symphony was brilliant, especially as I - being rather less cultured than my veneer might suggest - had not previously heard it in full, and was only familiar with the well known first movement. It was interesting to spend such long times listening to just music, with no lyrics, as I have obviously become accustomed to through listening to modern pop music and the like. It was quite surprising to find how quickly the 32 minutes of the 5th symphony could pass. A good time was had by all, and I enjoyed doing something different, taking advantage of being in London for these trips to do something I'd not normally have the chance to.

I've also had another night of culture tonight, albeit much more mainstream and popular. I went to the cinema (alone, which I don't think is as weird as some of my friends do) to see The Dark Knight. I'll not write about it at length, as there's enough credible reviews out there, but I will say I thought it was spectacular. Heath Ledger's Joker was terrifyingly psychotic and I found the film genuinely unnerving and edgy. It was gripping, exciting and intense. Definitely one to see.

What price nostalgia? Last week, I spent £15.70 to have a look at the past and see what it was like. A couple of weeks back - probably around the time I was watching the No Surprises video over and over - I had a lengthy chat with my mum to try to get to the bottom of why I'm so predisposed to feeling melancholy; she's known me about as long as anyone, so it seemed a reasonable bet that if anyone knew then she might. I don't know that I got many answers, but in the course of discussion I came to wonder whether I'd been "happier" prior to moving house from Haslemere (Southern Fairy fancy town where footballers live) to Heswall (Northern monkey fancy town where footballers live). It sticks in my mind that I was happier before then than since. Perhaps there's something in that...

Besides, class had finished early for the day, and I quite fancied a nice walk in the sun. If nothing else it would be nice to see how well I could remember places I'd not set foot for over 18 years.

I took a train from London Waterloo to Haslemere, a journey I'd not made since - at best guess - I'd last been to visit London with my dad all those years ago. It seemed odd to be making a journey like that again after all this time, and doubly strange to think of it as a journey that my dad made every working day for about 7 years. I wonder how much faster the trains are these days... It's a very different journey to my commute into Manchester. The railway line appears to carve out a path through woods and forests, where my journey merely runs past a slag heap and through a handful of small towns. I'm struck by how green everything looks, and by the different plants that grow around here - there's bracken everywhere, for example. I don't know where I'd go to find bracken up North, but it's all over the place down there.

The train approaches Haslemere, and I feel nervous, like I'm about to meet someone important, or do something dangerous. I remember travelling to Newcastle, my birthplace, from Durham, while at university, and feeling similarly strange. This is a stronger feeling though - I left Newcastle at 18 months, and don't remember it at all, but I feel I know Haslemere like the back of my hand. I've not brought a map with me, but I'm confident I'll be able to walk about 5 or so miles around the town without getting lost.

Stepping out of the station, I take a right towards Wey Hill, and I see a dentists on the other side of the road. It looks very different to when I was there last, when I had my first orthodontic brace and my brother had his first fillings. Apparently it's the Denplan Dentist of the Year. Heading towards Wey Hill, I pass a pub, and it occurs to me that my landmarks for navigation are completely different to anything I'd have used back in the day. These days, I work on pubs and churches. Last time I was here, I attended one church and no pubs.

I pass the library and a fabric shop that I remember my mum taking me to. I don't see the toy shop where I bought a Lego set and a teddy bear with one year's birthday money, so I guess they've closed down. At the bottom of the hill, I'm disappointed to find that the old leisure centre where I learnt to swim has been supplanted by a Tesco store and a few blocks of flats. I wonder how long it will be before Tesco crushes the Co-Op over the road, the scene of my first shoplifting crime in which I took a tin of Quality Street off the shelf and started eating them. I don't recall if my mother was made to pay for them, but I know she wasn't best pleased. Behind the Co-Op there's a children's playground with a very tall slide that I'm sure I never went on, much as I wanted to. I toy with the idea of going on it now, for old time's sake, but there's kids everywhere and I'm not sure it would go down too well.

On towards Shottermill, I pass a church where we attended a Finnish School of sorts for a number of years with my mum, and a layby outside a newsagent where I remember discussing the withdrawal of half-pennies with my dad. I press on, heading out of town somewhat, towards the roundabout that takes you to Liphook, and pass another pub that I don't remember. I assume it was here when I last was, but I couldn't really say. Shottermill Ponds are as pretty as I remember them, with ducks, geese and swans swimming on them. I take some photos and hope I can put together a panorama later.

I can - click for a big pic:

Rounding the corner into Camelsdale, and heading back towards town somewhat, I pass children in school uniform, playing by the ponds and in a park where I remember a fete of some kind. Some of these children are the same age I was when I left. The younger ones could feasibly be children of people I went to school with. Of course, I don't recognise anyone, and even if I did, what could I possibly say to them? Since our lives diverged they've doubtless run parallel courses, but what could we have in common any more?

I'm starting to get thirsty walking in the sun, so I call in at a newsagent for some Ribena and a Double Decker. The name - Cee Gee's - is the same as it was when I was last here, though it appears to be independent these days, where I remember it as part of the now defunct Happy Shopper franchise. I toy with the idea of asking the shopkeeper how long she's owned the shop, but decide against it. The gentlemen behind me in the queue talk to each other and I wonder how my accent would sound against theirs. They would probably think I sound Northern, which would at least make a nice change from being up North and sounding Southern. I expect my voice will always sound like it belongs in another part of the country.

I walk down towards St. Paul's church and Camelsdale Primary School. The vicarage has been extended but the church is just as I remember it. They've cut down the elder tree from which my siblings and I used to pick and eat the small black berries after church. I look through the church windows, trying not to appear too suspicious to the parents picking up their children from the playgroup in the church hall, and I'm proud to see that a banner my mum spent weeks making still hangs in the church, exactly where I left it. I'm glad they're still enjoying it, given the work that I saw go into it. The school is also much as it was when I was there, barring the removal of a few trees and some rebuilt outbuildings. I don't see the small outdoor swimming pool that used to be there, and either way I'm sure that the laws nowadays wouldn't permit children to get changed in the open air with only a towel to protect their modesty...

Back up the hill and past the street where I went for piano lessons. I recall sitting in our car on the piano teacher's drive while my mum spoke to her, and letting the handbrake off to see what would happen. Had my knowledge of physics at the time been as good as it is now, I would have deduced that the car would roll down the drive and into the road. I may even have figured out that that was quite dangerous. As it was, no such thoughts occurred to me, though mercifully my actions didn't lead to any injury, death or damage.

I approach one of the hills that surrounds Haslemere, and head further out of town, past a builders merchants (I remember it as Jesse Mann - it now calls itself Coomers) and then round a bend in the road to the site of many a grevious crime against humour, as perpetrated by my dad... The turning towards our house is on a bend with very poor visibility so whenever we drove out of that junction my mum had to get my dad to duck so she could see past him. Sometimes when my mum asked him to duck my dad said "Quack", much to our amusement.

Smiling to myself at the memory of this, I head on towards the street where I used to live. The road is quite narrow, and I remember the days after the '87 hurricane (or "storm" if you must insist on meteorological accuracy) when it was blocked by trees and you couldn't get a car out of there. At the bottom of our road I pass a little stream that goes under the road, the venue for many games of Pooh Sticks (Google lists a website for a Pooh Sticks World Championship, which sounds awesome. Alas, the website is rubbish). The houses around here are enormous, and the gardens look like they could have been transplanted directly from Ness Gardens or somewhere similar. I imagine that some of these gardens would be a full time job to look after, but if you can afford to live around here, I imagine that you can afford to pay someone to do that full time job.

I walk past our old house, but I can't linger to look at it for long as the owners - who also own two BMWs - are just pulling into the drive. The house is as I remember it, though I fancy that the end of it has been extended out towards where we used to have a greenhouse and a vegetable patch. I shudder to think how much the house is worth nowadays. Half a million? More?

At the top of the road I turn briefly to the right down an old bridlepath that we used to walk with our nanny, who looked after us when my mum was finishing up her English classes. There's the overgrown remnants of a log pile that we used to hide in and around, and I'd like to walk further but it would deviate from my planned route. I turn around and head back in the opposite direction, past the house of a girl I used to know; my mother informs me, and I vaguely recall, that I used to fret about whether she'd marry me when I grew up. Ah well, it wasn't meant to be! Onwards round a corner, past ponds where I once found a snuffbox - old fashioned even then - and more enormous gardens. There's a small table outside a tired farm building with boxes of eggs and an honesty box, though I fancy the eggs aren't at their best after a day in this sunshine. I take advantage of my age and independence and walk a path that I never trod but always wanted to, through woods that skirt the edge of Shepherd's Hill. I see a fox sat in a field, but I don't have the right camera to get a good shot of it. Nevertheless, it occurs to me that when I was last here mobile phones were the size of a briefcase, the 35mm camera was just in fashion, and the Walkman (the ones that played tapes - remember those?) was hitting it's stride. These days my mobile has Walkman written on it, and a camera in the back of it.

I pass a house for sale with a sign that says "Plot and 33 outbuildings". My mind boggles somewhat.

I get a nosebleed - they've picked up this past week for some reason - as I head into the town centre which seems apt given how they plagued me as a child. At the other end of town is the doctor's where they cauterised my nose after first anaesthetising it with... cocaine.

I have a quick look at the nursery I went to, where I remember puzzling over the difference between addition and multiplication - why should 2 + 2 = 4 = 2 * 2 ? Surely one of the signs in question is redundant? I stay long enough to take a picture of the building, but I feel self conscious, as though in this day and age I could be arrested for even looking at any kind of school with children in it.

The town centre is an odd thing, with a building stubbornly located in the middle of an elaborate roundabout. I look at the shops - there's a bookshop and a Woolworths that I remember, others that I don't. The bookshop's sign doesn't appear to have been painted since I left. I wander past the museum and take a quick look at the doctor's, then head back into town to look for somewhere to eat. I settle on a Wetherspoon's pub, different and the same everywhere you go. I sit down for sausage and mash with a pint of cider. I watch a cat climbing over shop rooves and I call Alison and Beth, and I miss my family. Beth is pre-occupied with her Duplo, so conversation with her is brief. I finish my meal and listen to the surrounding clientele curse out their conversations, and for a moment the only difference here is the accent people are talking in.

I get up and head back towards the train station. Passing a small park, I see teenagers loitering, and I wonder whether they have always loitered here. These ones probably weren't even born when I left, but perhaps others loitered before them and I was just never around to notice them. Rounding the corner on the approach to the station, I come across a gang of men, suited and booted, no doubt returning from their days at work in London. I think of my dad again, coming back each day from work and heading home to his waiting family, and I'm reminded of how I feel like my dad every day, getting the train to and from work, coming back to a house with Alison and Beth waiting for me.

I run over the station bridge and get on to the train to Waterloo (how many time's did my Dad nearly miss a train here?) and reflect on what I've seen...

I think it was easy for me to remember things in a certain way, given my age and the simplicity of my life when I lived here. I didn't know the world was broken at the time, but plenty of bad things were happening when I lived here. Vietnam and the Cold War had just about ended, but the Gulf War was brewing. John Lennon wasn't long gone. Fred and Rosemary West were burying people under their patio. Meanwhile, I was a child, playing in the garden, reading books, going to piano lessons, walking in the woods. I wasn't worrying about exams, girls, popularity, sex, money, work, wars, recession... I was innocent, and protected from all the troubles of the wider world. They would have got round to me eventually though, and I'd have found out about it all, and it would have probably been just as difficult to deal with as it was for me up North.

I wonder if I was slightly naive to think of my time in Haslemere as trouble free - a simpler life - but perhaps it's only natural that my mind has picked such a prominent event as a 200 mile move as the dividing line between my innocence and my... enlightenment?

I'm reminded somewhat of Rob's fixation with Charlie in Nick Hornby's High Fidelity (a masterpiece, as I've said before, in both book and film form) and how he had made her, in his mind, the root of all his problems.

I'm not sure what questions I was asking in going to Haslemere, and I'm not sure they were answered, but I definitely learnt something, if only about myself. The ancient Greek aphorism Know Thyself comes to me. I think I do understand myself a bit better following the trip, and that's got to be worth £15.70 of anyone's money.

I only recently found out that the carbon monoxide in that lyric refers to suicide by way of vehicle fumes. It fits with the rest of the song, but it's still somewhat jarring to learn that, not least when it seems so obvious in retrospect.

I've been busy as all hell lately, with work and studying and family and trying to enjoy life at some point along the way. Work has been pretty dire lately, and I honestly don't know how much longer I'll be able to stick it out for before moving along. Likewise studying has been very hard work, though now that my exam is out of the way I feel I've got a bit more room to breathe. Family life is more enjoyable by orders of magnitude, but nevertheless hard work. And even "fun" seems a tremendous effort at the moment. It's much easier to just pass time without regard to whether I'm actually enjoying anything I'm doing.

I came across the video for No Surprises a couple of months back, having not seen it for a long time. The imagery seemed distressingly relevant at the time, and I watched the video several times in tears. It was rather reminiscent of my miserable teenage years, at which time The Bends was a mainstay in my music collection; a time when I felt sure I knew just what the man in the Just video had said, and knowing why he'd wanted to lie down in the pavement and stop...

I wish I could stop. Lie down. Rest.

Anyway...

Alison and I watched Control the other night - the documentary film about the life and death of Joy Division singer Ian Curtis. I can't claim to know much of Joy Division's music, beyond the marvellous Love Will Tear Us Apart and even that only due to it's presence on the Donnie Darko soundtrack. I did know what Joy Division meant prior to seeing the film, though that's more to do with my obsession with trivia than any interest in the band. Still, even without my having any real interest in the band, the film was engaging and interesting, and quite moving. The story was somewhat reminiscent of the much more well known Kurt Cobain, what with him being unable to deal with his fame and the pressures of performing. It was quite interesting because it was very difficult to sympathise with the lead character. It was much easier to pity him for his mental problems (depression, epilepsy) than to sympathise with him, as some of his actions - particularly with regard to his love life - were basically selfish and foolish. The suicide itself was well done, and very moving. Quite challenging to think of his situation and how he felt, and whether a person could ever be justified in killing themselves and leaving a wife and daughter behind like that.

Sticking with films, but on a decidedly lighter note, Alison and I are going to see the new Indiana Jones film on Saturday. It's getting some mixed reviews, but I'm sure it'll be good at what it does. I'm sure it won't be a searing critique of the work of archaeologists under the pressures of the cold war, as some critics apparently think it should be, but I'm certain that it will contain the following at a bare minimum:

• A hat
• A whip
• A tomb/cave/other dark place
• A car chase
• A fight

which should be about enough to carry it really. I've no doubt that it won't be as good as Raiders, or even as good as Crusade, but with the dross that Hollywood gets by on these days, I'd even settle for anything as good as Temple. It'll be 2 hours of thud and blunder led by Harrison Ford, which will definitely do the job.

Alison and I are picking up the new Lego Indiana Jones game for the Wii too. It looks like good fun, and if it's anything like Lego Star Wars which we both had a great time playing, then it should be £30 very well spent. The Wii has been one of our best purchases of late, and I've been amazed at how much I've been able to get Alison playing it. Gaming has normally been my domain, and occasionally a mystery to her, so it's been quite good to find some games we can play together. Mario Kart and Mario Galaxy have been two recent surprises - I'd never have expected to have got her playing those two.

Right. More another time... I'll write about some films next time.

One of the things I was given for Christmas, was a book that you may have heard of. It's called "Freakonomics" and it provides a rather unconventional look at the way the world works, tackling such issues as eduction, parenting, crime and so forth. It's fairly well written and makes for a pretty compelling read. It's occasionally guilty of the third kind of lie, but generally speaking the arguments and reasoning appear sound, if a little of the wall. The tone errs on the side of editorialising, but this is aimed at being a popular paper back for the casual economist, so that goes with the territory. Either way, it's a good read and I'd recommend it, if only to those with a passing interest in statistics and the like.

Yesterday I read a chapter concerning the fall of crime in the USA during the late eighties and early nineties, which surprised everyone as crime was expected to skyrocket at that point. The authors debunk various theories - improved policing, gun control, strong economy among others - and settle, with a knowing air of controversy - on the notion that it was the legalisation of abortion that led to falling crime. The argument goes that unwanted children are more likely to turn to crime, so as the legalisation of abortion (Roe v Wade 410 U.S. 113, for those of you who really want to read a full case note. For the less keen, the edited highlight can of course be found at Wikipedia) leads to less unwanted children, less crime logically follows. The reasoning is persuasive, albeit somewhat distasteful, and it certainly treads a fine line between utilitarianism and Machiavellianism. The idea that we can reduce crime at the cost of however many million unborn babies is certainly difficult to weigh up.

I am reminded, at this point, of another economic notion that I have come across in my limited flirtations with the subject. There exists a logical fallacy, known as "the parable of the broken window" which was conceived by a French economist in 1850. The fallacious argument goes that if a window happens to be broken, this is a good thing, because it makes work for the glazier, who can then spend his earnings on bread, such that the baker then has money to buy a pair of shoes from the cobbler, and so forth. The factor that is overlooked is of course that the owner of the original window has paid out the cost of the repair, and has nothing to show for it. He has borne the cost of the improvements to the rest of the economy, and the end result is that the system as a whole is worse off to the tune of one window.

It may be a sound argument to say that the abortion of many children is a good thing if it reduces crime. Society benefits from lower crime, and there is much rejoicing. The problem that is overlooked is that society has lost millions of children, and has arguably committed an act of corporate murder, depending on where you stand on the abortion issue. As for myself, I come at things from a Christian perspective, albeit a fairly liberal one. I disapprove of abortion for reasons of lifestyle, laziness and contraception, but I think it's probably OK if there is a great risk to the child or mother. All of which leaves me in the position of considering the cost of abortion to be a pretty steep one to pay for the prize of lower crime rates.

The real difficulty with this sort of thinking is that I'm pretty much bound by the nature of this life to think in terms of "the lesser of two evils". The thing is, I don't want the lesser of two evils. What I want is no evils. I don't want to have to pick between two bad things to try to achieve one good thing. The brick wall that I come up against is that this world is fundamentally broken, and no amount of chopping and changing can fix it. The window was broken way back in The Garden of Eden, with the apple debacle, and we've been attempting to pay off the glazier ever since. The sad truth is that the system can not be fixed from within, and requires an outside influence to sort things out - in short, it can only be done by God, by way of salvation through Jesus. That's the only way that this particular window can be fixed. Any other solution is short term and limited. We may fix one thing, but it will always be at the cost of something else, until we look for something beyond this world to help us out.

It's a curious thing, but it's strangely liberating... Moving to the music, following the beat from song to song. I am, admittedly, relieved that I don't have to try to impress anyone with my "moves" - I don't think Alison really saw me dance till after we were wed, by which point it was too late - but perhaps that just leaves me freer to enjoy myself. I doubt I'll make a habit of it, and I'd rather be able to dance properly, Strictly style, than to do anything that might fit in at a club, but perhaps once in a while it's fun to give it a go.

***

And lo, it was Dominic who left. Not to worry.

"Don't go a strip club - those women have mother's, fathers and they want to have children one day!"

So went the exhortation from a friend of mine, shortly before she left the pub wherein we were celebrating our tutor's stag do. Predictably, we proceeded to go to a strip club, but not before getting a few more drinks inside us, losing several quid to the quiz machine and eating lots of noodles.

I have mixed feelings about strip clubs. On the plus side, there are women taking their clothes off; on the other hand, it's really nothing more than the more socially acceptable face of the sex trade. You see the dichotomy, I'm sure. Strip clubs are respectable and enough to appear on high streets up and down the country, but I'm inclined to say there's something a bit more sinister at work than just a bit of smut at the end of a lad's night out.

I suspect that of those people who would ever go to a strip club, most would only ever go for a stag do or birthday party or the like, irony optional. But what of the numerous people I saw at the club I attended, still in their pinstripe suits after a day at the office? Don't they have homes to go to? Wives? Girlfriends? Or are they too busy spending their Thursday evenings in strip clubs to find any such partner? What of people attending strip clubs on their own, with no leering accomplices? Could there be a sadder way to spend an evening?

I wonder who is exploiting who, in the strip club system. The most obvious suggestion would be that I, the punter, am exploiting the stripper, forcing her to take her clothes off for my money. Having thought about it of late, I think that's a rather simplistic way of looking at things. Rather, I would think it more accurate to say that it is the proprietor who exploits me and my fellow punters, by way of exploiting the girls that he employs. I think it is men who are exploited out of their money on account of being too controlled by their sexual urges. To put it succinctly - it's just too damn easy to persuade us to give an unknown girl a fiver to take her top off for two minutes. I'm not saying that the women aren't being exploited too, but that's not the financial incentive for the guy in charge - he's just out to betray his fellow men by taking our money.

Now, admittedly, this is not exactly what was on my mind when the pretty blonde was taking off her rather inauthentic airline stewardess uniform, but I digress. It's easy to look at this seriously now, when I'm not full of alcohol and surrounded by hordes of baying City workers.

Now of course, the women are being exploited too. We pay women to take their clothes off and show us their bodies for our enjoyment, without really caring a jot about any aspect of their lives that doesn't involve their being nude and in our presence. Anything else is irrelevant. They are paid for their physicality and nothing more. However, the trouble with such a line of thinking is that it paints me into a corner regarding nigh on any other trade that depends on a person's physical traits and abilities. Is a model being exploited any less just because they get to keep their clothes on? Is a construction worker being exploited any less just because he's a guy building a house? The work is entirely contingent on his body. Hell, sometimes even he doesn't keep his shirt on. Is a sportsman any less exploited just because they're using their body to run around a pitch or swing a tennis racquet?

The corollary to that argument is that I'm then obliged to say that prostitution is legitimate, which is rather more difficult to justify. Working on the prior line of reasoning, a prostitute is making their physical abilities available to another person for money. It's their body to do what they want with, surely. Perhaps the problem there arises when you introduce a third party - the guy pimping the girls. Now that's real exploitation, never mind just paying women just to take their clothes off. That's when things get ugly. That's when people start getting shipped in from other countries, bought and sold like animals. That's when people start getting beaten and abused. Clearly there is a line somewhere between being paid to play tennis and being paid to have sex with someone, but for the life of me I'm not quite certain where that line is. That being said, I suspect that stripping lies on the wrong side of the line.

Now, it's all very easy to argue for and against prostitution when I'm not letting morals cloud things, but as a Christian (albeit the kind that occasionally finds himself half drunk and in a strip club - go figure) I'm compelled to think of things rather differently. No, it is not right for women to be exploited for their bodies, be that for page 3 modelling, prostitution or rape, take your pick. I suspect the whole problem arose back in the garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve first became aware of their nakedness and were embarrassed of their forms, and God gave them their clothes. From that point on, the body was something to be covered and hidden, and from that point on it was inevitable that one person would pay another to reveal their hidden body. Were it not for the fall and our subsequent hiding of our bodies, there would be no need for strip clubs in which to see other bodies exposed.

So, with that in mind I can only resolve to not set foot in such an establishment again.

Tuesday. Training. London. Deferred tax, group relief and a hideous test - 38%. Still feeling a bit sick with whatever Alison had. Take the tube at rush hour - silly mistake. Late to meet a friend. Walk into Soho, talk about work. Someone from The View outside a pub. Fish and chip shop. Good fish for central London, my friend tells me. Can't finish mine. Still feeling a bit sick with whatever Alison had. Talk about The Mercury Music Prize and it's arrogant winners. Talk about holidays, families, children, parents, ill grandmother, marriage, tax, David Cameron. Pay for our meal, the price we pay doesn't match the prices on the wall. Get a VAT receipt, claim back every pound spent. Walk further into Soho. Pubs crammed, drinkers on the street. Recognise this area from last evening of drinking with friend. Drunker then. Not drinking much this week. Still feeling sick with whatever Alison had. Find a pub, not too full, strange sign behind the bar - "Where locals come to be insulted". David Beckham's football camp letters on the wall. Gary Neville is his friend, it says here. Talk about the past, where we've come from, old friends, people we have and haven't seen in a long time. Miss the Wirral - why did everyone move away? Uni, jobs, families. Talk about the future. Need a reunion, but life moves on. People busy - jobs, families, children. How permanent are friends? Who will we maintain contact with? See again? People left behind when we move on, replaced by new friends where we arrive. Comparison to an author from the industrial revolution whose name I forget. I don't know much about literature, and my literary journalist friend knows little about tax. Talk about people we just seem to click with, teenage friends. An unspoken understanding. Raised on Nirvana and Harry Enfield, but surely there's more to it than that... Cider too fizzy. Can't finish it. Still feeling sick with whatever Alison had. Time to move on. Leave the pub. Alison calls. My life intruding into the pause we had taken to examine ourselves. Part company. Friend goes home to review things - CDs and books I guess. Promise to meet again soon. Hug, not weird after 17 years of friendship. Walk to Picadilly Circus. Tourists, adverts, statues. An Angus Steak House on every corner. Friends in TGI Fridays. Back to the here and now.

Sunday. Alison's birthday. Present didn't arrive yesterday, Amazon to blame. Early start, Beth hungry at twenty past seven. Warm milk to drink, sat between us in our bed. Porridge, shower, no time for a shave, friend picks me up, drives me to church. Just gone nine. Guitar, tune up. Amplifier, check levels, rest of the band arrives. Practise practise practise practise pray play worship God. Lead guitar on a ten year old song, can anyone even hear me? Service over, hurry home, twenty seven baked potatoes in the oven. Guests late. Friend from church arrives first. Three children. Mother-in-law next. Then more and more and more. New neighbours, old friends. House full. Garden full. Where is the rain? Food for everyone, kids run riot outside. Pudding. More guests. Babies everywhere. Beer, wine. Football lost on the roof. Friend from church's daughter needs the toilet, demands my accompaniment for some reason, friend from church only too happy to have someone else do their dirty work. Potty, poop, good-grief-open-a-window. When in my life did it became normal to wipe a friend's child's bottom? Return child to parent. "This is the second time I've done that, once more and you'll owe me a beer." Only half serious. Rain sets in. Tidy toys away. Kids locked inside, stir crazy. Time to go, leave our house in peace. Tidy up, black bin liner, dishwasher, cup of tea. Rest, reflect.

In my teenage years, I cleared up after drunk vomiting friends at parties. In my twenties, I'm clearing up after my friend's pooping child. I guess life is different, but it stays the same too.

Answer me this, if you can...

Are the majority of women so easily manipulated that they will buy a perfume "endorsed" by Sarah Jessica Parker - a woman who almost certainly had no hand in designing it or manufacturing it, but was in fact just paid a wedge of cash to be photographed holding it - believing that by wearing said perfume they will somehow attain the style, success and sex appeal of the fictional character that she played in Sex And The City?

I hate advertising. The sooner Boots take down those 10 foot tall posters of her ridiculous grinning face, the more pleasant my walk to work will be.