Smoke Without Fire

In February last year the Scottish government took it upon themselves, in their infinite wisdom, to order all households to install interconnected wifi smoke alarms. This meant that if an alarm went off in one wing of the house, all would go off. It came at a time during lockdown when the seemingly unnecessary expense of a hundred pounds for something that only people with big houses would benefit from, struck many as excessive. Eventually I only capitulated in case we had a fire and insurance was mitigated by the fact we didn't have them.

So I splashed out and ordered Amazon's choice of two smoke alarms and a heat detector for the kitchen. When they arrived, I distinctly yet fuzzily remember taking one out its box, along with instructions and tiny remote control, and having a mess about with it to try and see how it worked. After that, my memory is a blank. Try as I might, I could not find that smoke alarm or the instructions and began to question that I'd ever experimented with that particular device. The second smoke and heat alarm were still in their boxes. I dutifully affixed them to the walls in the desired places near the old alarms which I left up.

Fast forward a year later, 4:30 am, and the wifi smoke alarms all go off at once. I run downstairs to see what the story is, note the absence of any smoke or heat, and do my best to assure our new puppy that everything is okay. In my sleepy dazed state and after confirming the house is not in fact burning down, I depress the front of one of the alarms until it stops its infernal racket and return to my blissful slumber, only to be awoken once again ten minutes later.

Hooda guessed smoke alarms have snooze buttons?

I leap out of bed and repeat the process, wondering if maybe it's carbon monoxide. The puppy regards me with the expression 'Dude, wtf, again?' But the CO detector in the kitchen flashes silently and reassuringly. And anyway, we have an electric cooker now, which surely must reduce risk of CO poisoning, unless they'd not capped the gas off properly? I don't know.

Anyway, I rotate the alarms out of their holders and hold the front buttons again until they are silent. This they duly were. For another ten minutes. 

At their dratted shrieking I get up, press the front buttons longer this time (of course you can't just take the batteries out anymore), wrap them both in oven gloves, stuff them in a drawer, and go back to bed like a responsible dad.

And there they stayed. We still had the old ones attached, so it didn't bother me too much the damn new-fangled things were out of commission.

Anyway, weeks go by and we got back to normal, or as normal as you can be, getting your puppy used to doing its business outside. Late one night when I was 'peeing the dog' I heard a distant beeping noise which sounded like it was coming from a neighbour's garden. I shrugged, murmured, 'Hmm,' under my breath and thought no more about it.

A few nights later it happened again. 'Bloody neighbours,' I mused. 'Can't even get their bloody electronic gadgets from bloody bleeping.'

The next night the same thing. 'What a second,' I thought, 'Is that coming from our shed?' On further investigation I wondered if it might not have been emanating from the compost bin. It sounded like one of my son's old toys. But why on earth would it be coming from the compost bin?

Despite the rain and dark I put a head torch on and got the spade out, upended the wheelbarrow and began digging compost out like a crazy person. I was a man obsessed, determined to get to the bottom of this, literally if needs be. So much to our puppy's joy and amusement, I transferred rotting food waste from the compost bin to the wheelbarrow as the beeping noise seemed to get tantalisingly closer and closer until finally - tap!

I'd struck something. 

I dug around with my gardening gloves and took out an unidentified composting object, round, plastic, covered in a decaying, soft plastic wrapper and beeping self-importantly.

The other smoke alarm.

How in all mulching Hell had it gotten in there!?

Over the years we've found some strange items in our compost bin. Numerous bits of plastic, a fork, a potato peeler, the head of Alfredo Garcia, and now this. It's like the universe's last ditch place to hide items that don't want to be found. 

"Hey, Universe, I need a place to lie low for a while. I'm done forkin', peelin' or detectin' smoke."

Universe: "I have just the place."

So what I deduced is this: in my office I have three wastepaper baskets - one for recycling, one for general waste, and the third for compost.  Sometime in the past year, the smoke alarm I'd opened and messed about with must have slipped off a shelf or table into the bin destined for compost, and remained there hidden and activated until I threw it without much ceremony into the compost bin outside. There it lay, waiting patiently for the perfect moment in the cold, wet dark. As more and more kitchen waste got thrown on top of it, the soft plastic wrapper slowly disintegrated until finally some liquid or bit of decaying food matter pressed its way smoke-like in between two sensors, and-

Blam!

Operation POACH (Piss Off And Confound Human) is initiated.

The May Gollum Video

It's not easy being a non-conformist. It means I often adopt unpopular positions and play devil's advocate just for the heck of it. But for the purposes of writing practice, let's take a look at a recent video that's making waves on social media at the moment.

The May Gollum video, featuring Andy Serkis, the original actor who outstandingly portrayed Gollum in the Lord of the Rings trilogy and much more, has been doing the rounds since Dec 9 2018.

I just want to start off by saying, I agree with the main goal of this video, which I believe to be to encourage a People's Vote - in other words a second EU referendum. I think this is a good idea, because it's such a huge, important contentious issue and a lot of things have come to light since the last one, that many people will probably have changed their minds.

Secondly, I have absolute respect for Andy Serkis, the Lord of the Rings is hands down one of my favourite books and movie franchises. It is a wonderful life's work by many people, not least JRR Tolkien.

Thirdly, this video is very effective and emotionally jarring because of that. Quite shocking actually, due to the ties we have with the Lord of the Rings films and a huge nod must be given to Andy for an excellent and faithful performance for a political cause he must believe in enough to reprise the role.

Fourthly, I myself sometimes turn to ridiculing those I feel are in the wrong, regarding Barclays and Fracking, for example.

So why do I feel something here is a bit off? Something that prohibits me from jumping wholeheartedly behind this video and spreading it like wildfire? I've already stated I agree with its message, I appreciate it as a valid method for influencing the people, it's an interesting, non-violent creative attack using humour which I'm all for. So why does it stick in my craw?

I'll be honest, I voted Leave. The reason is simply that because I believed in the UK being able and better suited to make its own decisions, and I wanted my vote to matter more. That was the core of my thinking. I had/have nothing against immigration policies. I had/have nothing against Europe or Europeans. I just suspected that we were handing over the reins to a third party when we should be holding them ourselves. 

I held no great love for the Euro, as I missed the times when you could travel Europe and see lira, francs, drachma, punts, and lamented that those cultural characteristics will be lost forever. 

Also, the EU didn't seem to be working for Greece, who had lost the ability to fluctuate its own currency and was now dependent on loans. (This is disagreed with here but monetary policy inflexibility is cited as a reason on wikipedia.) As will be obvious I don't know much about economics, but this sounded like a problem. If it could happen to Greece, perhaps it could happen to us. Other European countries, such as Norway and Switzerland, are not in the EU, so living apart from the EU must be possible, so why shouldn't we?

That was my thinking back then. But as I will point out, things have come to light.

Incidentally, my humble videography company was commissioned to create a video privately regarding reasons for leaving the EU, which can be seen here:

To be honest I had not really thought about it either way by the time we made this video, but as a media business, I wasn't going to turn away money to do a job. I would have gladly accepted payment to do a 'Remain' video as well, but no-one asked me to. I took professional pride in this video. A man had something to say and wanted us to be his mouth piece, which I appreciated and respected. He made valid points and I was no doubt swayed by them.

The morning of the result I was actually surprised that we'd won.

But many things have come to light since the vote.

A. The Northern Ireland Border problem.
I confess, I never thought about this before voting and now think this may be a good reason to change my mind if there's a People's Vote.

B. The EU has implemented a lot of laws to help and protect the environment, which I'm beginning to suspect the UK may not actually stick to post Brexit.

C. I've sadly lost faith in the UK being able to make the best decisions for itself and the planet. 

But back to the May Gollum video. I've identified five points, five areas where I find myself personally irked by it.

Point 1. The video is well directed, shot and acted and it scares the hell out of me. But one thing that puts me off is that making fun of mental illness, ie multiple personality disorder, is basically what is going on here. Something with this weapon of choice does not sit right. Mental health is a huge issue with several friends, family and clients I know struggling in their own different ways. If we go around doing Gollum impressions of every person we don't like, who is different, who is struggling, what message is this giving out to people?

Point 2. Next. Forevermore Gollum, that fantastic, tragic, wonderful, terrible creature in the Lord of the Rings, who basically (spoiler alert) saved Middle Earth due to having a penchant for finger food, the subject of creative art featured in book and film form, will remind me of Theresa May, Brexit, Conservatives, and politics. And it cannot be undone. The connection wasn't there before, but now it is. I'll watch my Lord Of The Rings Special Edition DVD Box Set over New Year, look at Gollum and think, 'Oh yeah, Theresa May and Brexit, how messed up was all that?' Something treasured and cherished, that Andy himself provided, has now sadly been withdrawn. I had been given something which was perfect - wonderful - a golden apple that I expected to shine and glitter and value for the rest of eternity, and then it was kind of ruined, hijacked for political purposes. Someone sold out. For perhaps an admirable cause, but nevertheless. What are the thoughts of Peter Jackson on this? Tolkien's estate?

Point 3. I'm not a conservative by any means, but Theresa May, for all the perceived faults and injustices that she may seem to have caused, after being handed a sackful of manure by David Cameron ("Here you are, I'm off.") is actually carrying out what the British public asked her to do. And we have to give her credit for carrying through what has turned out to be a hugely unpopular decision. Making her a villain or comparing her to someone with mental health issues for showing resolution, gumption and mettle in the face of enormous adversity, is too much. 

Point 4. We had a vote. A decision was made. That's the nature of Democracy. We can't blame her for doing what we asked her to do, even though we might have changed our mind. In retrospect maybe it should have been stipulated that a 60-40 majority was needed to make such a devastating change to the country and Europe, but ultimately, we already had a People's Vote, and she's sticking to it. Why are we mocking courage? Why are we laughing at resolve? Why are we comparing a person, any person, to Gollum?

Point 5. It's a personal attack on a public forum on someone out on a limb. Have we no empathy left? Have we no common decency? What on earth is happening to this country? Why don't we just poke her with a sharp stick? I may ridicule Barclays Bank managers in general but I would never dream of calling out one specific manager of one specific branch on a public forum and say for example, "Hey, Mr XYZ, you eat raw fish, have a speech impediment, may be suffering early stages of bronchitis, just want to be happy, have single handedly saved the modern world, suffer from mental health problems and are a bit of a shady character!" Would I? No. Because that would be weird.

My father once said there are three things you don't do speeches about: sex, religion and politics (unless you're a standup comedian I guess). But if you look closely at this you'll find it's not really about politics, it's about the difference between a character assassination attempt versus simply disagreeing with someone while being nice to them. A skill that as a nation we seem to be sadly losing.