I woke at half past four feeling like death warmed up.
What was that all about? I got up, made toast and sparked up the telly. I
watched an episode of "Everybody
Else Burns" with a wry smile. Have you seen the show - it's
about a family of religious crackpots who go to a loony-fundamentalist church.
For all that we all laugh at the religious nutters, being an ex-religious
nutter myself the show struck a chord. I could see myself and many of the
people with whom I used to go to church in that show. And looking back they
really were "the people with whom I used to go to church" and
(for quite a few of them) not "friends".
Taking care not to disturb “er indoors TM” and
the dogs I got dressed in the dark and set off to work. The moon was quite
pretty as I drove, but by the time I found somewhere that I could park which
had a decent view of the horizon the moon had set and the sun was up.
As I drove I listened to the pundits on the radio.
Over the weekend that idiot Trump has started yet another war in the
Middle East. For all that he keeps banging on about wanting a Nobel Peace
Prize, he's quite keen on war. He's been lambasting the Prime Minister for not
wanting to get involved. I can't help but think that the more that the
international community treat that idiot Trump like the idiot that he so
demonstrably is, the better.
I stopped off at Tesco in Pembury to get a sandwich. I
paid by filling the self-service machine with all my loose change. Unlike
Sainsburys in Aylesford no one seemed to care. As I walked out I noticed there
were two security thugs guarding the door. There were four security thugs on
guard at Hastings railway station as I came home yesterday. Guarding places
seems to be something of a growth industry; why does everywhere need to be
guarded these days?
I went in to the early shift and did my thing. As I
did, I spent much of the day thinking about yesterday's meet-up with my old
muckers. The pals I met yesterday have pretty much ended up just like me. Not
rich. Not poor. Probably best described (as my old boss in the Harbour
restaurant predicted forty-five years ago) as "comfortable".
I can remember my old boss from the Harbour restaurant telling me that I would
be comfortable in life... and he said that being comfortable in life was about
the worst thing that could happen to anyone. Was he right?
From our chat yesterday I think it's fair to say that
all three of us are pretty much content with our lot in life. But we'd all
expected to end up in a far better position bearing in mind what we'd been
led to believe from having listened to all the propaganda about a grammar
school and university level education. Yesterday we'd talked of others in our
circle who'd ended up with much more than we have. Don't get me wrong - I'm not
jealous (well, not *that* jealous), but I did think "what
if" quite a bit today.
Some of our contemporaries were (and some still are)
directors of international companies, admirals, ambassadors... Would I have
liked to have ended up as a consultant surgeon or a university professor? Had
things turned out differently I might have been, but would I have been happier?
I'm reminded of that famous maxim quoted by many celebrities that at various
times they'd been very poor and very rich, and looking back they preferred
very rich. And also of another which says that money doesn't buy you happiness,
but it allows you to be miserable in comfort. As I've often said, I'm far from
poor, but I would like to be a whole lot better off.
Are those of our contemporaries who are now
millionaires happy? Yesterday we talked about one of them who (like me)
has posted a lot of photos to social media, and we all agreed that in every
single photo he looked incredibly smug.
Like I would be with his money…
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