coming of age: if the shoe fits

For most of us there are particular points in life that seem to mark the passing of time. It could be turning 18, or 21. Or maybe 25 felt like a more significant age for you. For many, 30 is the point at which you begin to realise you’ve come a long way since school, college or university.

Beyond that there’s that old chestnut… the Big Four O, where – allegedly – life begins.

There are more subtle (and some not so subtle) ways in which the ageing process starts to hit home. Grey hairs, wrinkles, unexplained aches and pains, and so on.

However, if you haven’t got to it yet, you may find the day you start to remind yourself of your parents is actually the point at which you say to yourself, “shit, I’m getting old!”

I think it’s especially common once you become a parent yourself. That’s certainly been the case for me.

It’s rare that I do something that reminds me of my late mother. But there are occasional reactions I’ll have to situations that make me think “that’s exactly what she would have said.”

Sadly, that’s almost never happened in a way that’s made me feel warm and fuzzy.

Like most men, though, it’s the war against turning into my father that keeps me busiest.

He would have been 86 years old today, but he died in January.  He left Ireland in the 1940s, volunteered for the RAF, fought in WWII, settled in Britain, raised a family, and was a manual worker all his life. He wasn’t very well-educated, but he was sharp and had a quick sense of humour. He had a very tough childhood and was one of the hardest men I’ve ever met.

In the last five or six years of his life, I didn’t see much of him. I would get reports on his health and well-being from my siblings, who often lamented that he was losing his grip a little.

It brought to mind something that happened when I was a young boy – my dad would have been in his early 50s I guess.

We lived in Birmingham and despite the fact that during the war he was a driver (among other things) my dad never bought a car – we went everywhere by bus and train.

And so it was one Saturday morning that he, my mother and I set off for Birmingham city centre on some shopping excursion or other.

We walked the 10 minutes or so to the bus stop and waited. We hadn’t been there long when, in that heavy Dublin accent that he had somehow steadfastly held onto, my dad declared, “oh Christ, would you look at that.”

We followed his gaze and looked down at the ground. He’d left home wearing one black shoe and one brown one. “I wondered why one foot was going tap and the other was going shuffle,” he said.

He made his way back home to sort himself out, while my mother and I were consumed by uproarious laughter.

So, upon hearing my brother or my sister say they thought dad was losing his marbles, my reaction (which I accept to the outside world may seem unfeeling) was to say “he’s been like that for at least 35 years – it’s nothing new.”

Sometimes when I catch sight of myself in a full-length mirror I see my father for a split second out of the corner of my eye. For some reason it happens more if I’m wearing a suit – which I do frequently in my line of work, but he only ever did for weddings, christenings and funerals.

If I stare at my reflection in the shaving mirror long enough and then slowly squint, he appears there too.

And there have been times when I’ve raised my voice in anger only to hear his words coming out of my mouth rather than my own.

The black shoe / brown shoe incident came back to me only a couple of months ago and I started joining some of the dots around all of this and attempting to make sense of the picture that was forming – my relationship with my father, his influence over the man I have grown into, the way I relate to people and the world around me, the way I conduct myself.

For some reason – and this really has been going on for several months now – I’ve had a nagging doubt every now and again that I might, just maybe, have put odd shoes on.

I find myself staring at my feet (it tends to happen mostly when I’m in the car) to see if I’ve actually got a matching pair of shoes on.

I hadn’t connected it with anything. It doesn’t feel like deep in my subconscious there sits a latent fear that I will wear odd shoes just because my dad once did. In much the same way I’ve never thought it was likely I’d wake up one day to find I’d got a job as a scaffolder.

If it’s done anything, maybe it’s made me consider that I’m more like him than I realise – or am prepared to admit. I can accept that I’m like him in many externalised ways: short-fuse, gregarious in the right company, sentimental, musical.

But I’ve never given much thought to what life must have been like inside his head.

Perhaps it was much the same for him as it is for me.

If I’m one step away from anything as a result of all this, perhaps it’s not a footwear faux pas, but an appreciation of the man I spent so many years utterly convinced I would never understand.

Although originally written in September 2010, before my dad's death, I didn't publish this post at the time.  

like a virgin

I recently visited Australia. I flew with Virgin Atlantic.

Yesterday I talked with a colleague who had been to Kuala Lumpur – different airline, I’m not going to name them here. Some other time maybe.

But the conversation made me consider my experience with Virgin Atlantic in a new light.

Last time I flew with Virgin I ended up writing to their customer service people to praise the way in which a member of the cabin crew had coped with a disruptive passenger.

This time, nothing happened. So, unsurprisingly, I didn’t feel the need to write to anyone.

But what I’ve come to realise in the last day or two is that nothing happening can sometimes be a very good thing indeed.

Here’s a list of things that didn’t happen.

• Virgin Atlantic didn’t change the plane at the last minute to an aircraft with fewer seats, leaving many passengers stranded for 24 hours
• No one from Virgin Atlantic was rude
• The plane was not delayed taking off
• There were no problems with the transfer at Hong Kong
• My luggage did not get lost
• The food was not vile

You may be thinking, “but that’s the bare minimum anyone expects.” And you’d be right.

But it’s still more than a lot of people get from much larger airlines that have been operating for longer.

And just because it’s the bare minimum doesn’t mean we shouldn’t express gratitude.

So, thank you Virgin Atlantic. My flights to and from Sydney passed off completely incident free. Every one of your staff that I dealt with was polite and helpful. 

how do I get hyperlinks within blogger to open in a new window or tab?

Yesterday I wrote a piece about the use of Facebook to promote my band, The Subtitles.

That post included several links including a couple to The Subtitles on Facebook.

However, as I discovered (and it’s been pointed out to me too) those links don’t work properly.

I tested them before the post went live and they worked fine. But from within the post itself, the links to Facebook bring up a blank Facebook page with another link which has to be clicked on to bring up the right page.

Anyone got any ideas…?

facebooking the music

As some of you reading this will know, I am currently the lead vocalist in a band called The Subtitles.

Most people agree it’s a cool name.

And when we launched it late last year, most people agreed we have a cool website.

We have a page on Facebook. And a Twitter account.  You might want to open those links in a new tab - for some reason that seems to work better.

But the website is easily our most impressive online estate. Lots of pics, some of which were sent in by people who attended our gig in February. There are also two recordings so you can get an idea of what we sound like.

Some people like how we sound, others… well not so much. But that’s ok, there’s no point trying to be all things to all people.  But I have high hopes of some of the news songs we're writing.

Anyway back to Facebook. I have a confession. I’ve always felt somewhat conflicted about using it where the band is concerned.

I was an early adopter of LinkedIn. I was on MySpace before it peaked, and then well, less-than-peaked.

And I took to Twitter with a zeal that would put many a religious fundamentalist to shame.

But when it comes to using Facebook to promote The Subtitles I keep hitting a wall. If you’ll pardon the pun.

So if you’ve read this far I would like crave your indulgence.

I'd like you to visit The Subtitle’s Facebook page and well… do something. Like it, share it, critique it, leave a comment here and tell me what you think about it.  Anything really - advice that I can use to improve things, that's what I'm looking for.

Thanks in advance – I hope to hear from you.

top tips for journalists wanting to make it in pr

I’ve lost count of how many times someone has talked to me about the move I made from journalism into PR. My move to the dark side, which took place in late 2000.

I entered the heady world of journalism in the early 1990s, worked for contract publishers, several newspapers (regional and national) and magazines, tried my hand as a freelancer, went into the trade press and ended up as the managing editor on a news website which, during the two years I was there, grew its readership from 500,000 to more than six million.

The move to PR is a well-trodden path for journalists who have, for one reason or another, hit a wall and felt the need to do something different. In my case I wanted a new set of challenges, but didn’t want to have to start from scratch. Oh, and the money was a little better too – not hugely so.

There is no single reason why the move sometimes goes wrong (I don’t know what the failure rate is, but it must be pretty high). Typically fault lies both with the individual and the PR agency that has employed them.

A lot of emphasis is put on transferable skills, such as being able to write. If fact, far too often it goes no deeper than that combined with a hint of this’ll impress the client thinking.

The journo entering the PR workplace lacks a great deal of context of the mechanics of the job, the way an agency operates, the way a team works. That latter point is a good one, after all journalists are not, by nature, team players.

Customer service, appeasement and a can-do attitude also don’t necessarily come naturally to most hacks who have spent their careers marching to the beat of a very different drum.

My first ever client meeting after entering PR is something I will probably never forget. I’d been in my new role for a matter of days when I was sent to deal with a problem client.

The meeting lasted less than five minutes and concluded with a very red-faced and shouty client telling me that he was firing the agency I had just joined.

Culture shock…? You could call it that, yes.

So, here are my three top tips for anyone considering ditching their career in journalism to don a suit and join the PR party.

1. Get real
Be sure you know what you’re letting yourself in for.

You mustn’t assume that all your days will be filled with high-level strategic planning meetings, and long periods of crafting your finest prose.

How will you really feel pitching in a story to journalists? How will you cope when the features and press releases you have written are picked apart by people who will never be able to write as well as you but have the veto on what you produce?

2. Do your homework
Get the job spec, and find out what the responsibilities are. Meet the people you’ll be working with and managing – especially the ones you’ll be managing. Their careers are about to be put in the hands of someone with no PR experience. They may well be concerned about this. You need them onside.

Unlike a newsdesk, a PR account team has to work well and work together to get the best results. Be prepared to be supportive, nurturing and even nice to people.

3. Put on a happy face
Journalists earn their stripes by critiquing, by being sceptics – asking the difficult questions and highlighting problems and shortcomings.

Where they often fall down is coming up with positive solutions to the situations they have kicked holes in.
It’s easy to point out shortcomings, harder to put forward your own ideas for public scrutiny. But that’s what’s required.


It won’t be an easy ride. But nothing worth having was come by easily, was it?

If I had to include a fourth point it would be something like network – get out and talk to people.

But three’s a magic number so I shan’t bother with No 4.

Europe is dead

Europe is dead.


Or at any rate, the notion of a unified Europe is now in serious decline politically and economically.


Sovereign debt, bail-outs, and austerity measures have featured in the news for many months now but it is only very recently that some of the less obvious implications of these events have been discussed.


Let’s take the example of Portugal, the most recent European economy to come unstuck.


Like most countries, Portugal relies on borrowing and issuing bonds to keep the wheels of its domestic economy turning.


In April, Portugal has €5 billion of repayments to honour.  There’s a similar amount due to be repaid in a few months’ time.


To meet those commitments, particularly the second tranche, Portugal will – in all likelihood – need to borrow.  But as an economy in trouble, it is penalised by having higher rates of interest applied to its bonds.  IE: the markets want a higher rate of return in exchange for what is considered a higher risk loan.


That rate of interest is in the region of 8% over a period of 10 or so years.


The Portuguese economy will not grow at anything like that rate. Meaning that meeting its repayment responsibilities in the future will become increasingly harder.  Which in turn has to increase the likelihood of Portugal defaulting on its debts.


No problem, some will say… there are bail-out options.


Yes, there are. And they are mostly funded by Germany, the Netherlands and to a lesser extent France and Finland.


There is a growing sense of dissatisfaction within these countries, especially Germany, that the domestic tax-payer is bailing out their lazy southern European neighbours. Politically-speaking, this is an unsustainable situation and unless it has been dealt with before then, it will become a major issue at the next German general election.


There is a sense among some economists that as long as this situation is confined to Ireland, Greece and Portugal (smaller nations) the rest of Europe needn’t worry.


But should Spain or Italy, for example, succumb to the financial fallout the consequences would be harder to live with for Europe as a whole and could herald the end of the Euro.


No one seems to have any answers as to how any of this could be avoided or how Europe gets out of this situation. Ignoring it, however, won’t make it go away.

Egypt, twitter and social media tools

I have been an active user of twitter for about two years. I’m no veteran or social media maven, but I’m no newbie either.


Twitter’s helped me find work and business opportunities. I’ve used it to find people to hire, I’ve even forged friendships with people I would never have met had it not been for twitter.


Depending on how you use it, it’s an interesting and useful tool, or a way of revealing your ignorance. But a hammer can be used to help you hang a picture of your grandmother on the wall, or as an offensive weapon. It's a tool.


Not for the first time in the last two years, I’ve recently found myself watching with a sense of mild bemusement as news of events thousands of miles away is broadcast via twitter along with a heady mix of opinion and speculation.


I am, of course, referring to Egypt. Political and societal turmoil – protests, demonstrations, and a death toll which rises daily.


As a former journalist, when something big like this happens I want to know about it: I want context and background, I want to question the sources of the information, I want to know how reliable they are.


The polarisation of the twitterati in such events as those unfolding in Egypt, is also interesting.


It doesn’t take long for people to decide there are Good Guys and Bad Guys and that somehow everyone involved, no matter how loosely, is affiliated with one side or another.


The other thing that really strikes me is the desire of many on twitter to broadcast every new, or not so new, detail in a manner that attributes equal weighting to everything, while simultaneously rushing to be the first to move the story on, so to speak.


Don’t get me wrong. Some of it has been well worth reading – such as the piece I read regarding the manner in which the lights went off across Egypt’s ISPs. But the majority of what’s appeared in my stream has tended toward being tub-thumping sloganeering.


I can only offer conjecture of my own when I wonder how many (by which I really mean “how few”) of the people I follow on twitter who are avidly tweeting and RT-ing Egypt-related information really have an understanding of what is going on there.


Yes, we all know the Mubarak government has been criticised for being oppressive and not committed to a meaningful democracy.


But what do we know of the forces within Egypt that have realised current events offer them a golden opportunity to exert influence, possibly even seize power and have the country march to the beat of their drum?


The answer is as obvious as it is depressing – very little.


The history books are full of accounts of popular uprisings and revolutions that before long were exploited by those with their own, sometimes deeply oppressive, agenda.


But reading history text books affords few opportunities to show off about how ‘aware’ one is.

rip: con fleming, 2 apr 1925 - 13 jan 2011

Life is a journey.

The detours it takes you on are many and varied, and not always within your power to control.

The death of my father two weeks ago has provided ample opportunity for me to reflect on this and - not surprisingly - where that journey ultimately ends.

His was an inauspicious start in life. Born in Dublin in the 1920s, he grew up in what by today’s standards would be regarded as poverty.

He was denied educational opportunities, faced many hardships, and never knew his father.

At the age of 17 he got on a boat to England, lied about his age and volunteered to fight in the war, joining the RAF.

Like many of the 10,000 or so Irishmen who decided their country’s neutral stance in the fight against Hitler was at odds with their own sense of right and wrong, he struggled to settle in Ireland after the war.

And so it was he settled in England and embarked on a long career as a manual worker.

At the time I was born, he was working in a car factory, liked a drink and the craic, and was still battling with hardship – from workplace racism in the era of IRA terror attacks, to working unsociable shift patterns that kept him permanently exhausted.

We had just one family holiday, when I was three or four years old. I was young enough to be blind to the stresses and tensions that accompanied that vacation. But I’ve heard about them since. For me it was an exciting car journey, a week in a little metal house, beaches, the sea, and playing.

My earliest memories are of that holiday. Yet it was a never-to-be-repeated event.

Perhaps it’s better that way.

After working hard to provide for his family, and (much as it pains me to say it) living in a marriage that didn't always make him or my late mother happy, he retired as a fit and physically robust man looking forward to a long retirement. Which is what he got – around 20 years of it.

After my mother’s death in the late 1990s, he sold the family home and eventually found the love and companionship of a woman who made him truly happy.

He had money (although not lots of it), love, and a new large extended step-family network. He took holidays, visited interesting places, rediscovered his faith, did the things that made him happy. Truly happy.

My own relationship with him had been strained – practically non-existent in fact – for years.

Thankfully, I saw him not long before he died.

After years of having nothing to do with him, of effectively denying his presence in my life and that of my sons, I felt it was time I took a detour of my own.  So in late December I went to see him during one of his increasingly frequent stays in hospital.

In many ways he was not a complicated man. Seeing me turn up at his bedside made him delighted – he was overjoyed and seeing that uncomplicated sense of joy moved me.

We didn’t make our peace. We didn’t need to. It was unspoken and that was entirely appropriate.

Two weeks later, he was gone.

I didn’t get there in time to say my final goodbye.

The journey was too long. The time, too short.

up in smoke

It’s the time of year when firework displays are commonplace in the UK, as part of the traditional 5th November celebration of the evisceration of a group of 17th Century Catholics.

So this evening I went to a firework display.

In the grounds of a hospice.

The smell of hotdogs, the sounds of excited children and crying babies, and the sky – alive with explosions of bejewelled gunpowder.

Cheek-by-jowl with people in the latter stages of terminal cancer.

For many of those there, it was their first ever firework display.

For others, their last.

It gave me pause for thought.

Like a lot of people I can, when so inclined, list my problems, worries and regrets until the cows come home. Things I’ve done and wished I hadn’t. Things I somehow haven’t got round to doing.

Bridges I’ve burned. Troubles I’ve caused.

It wasn't my first ever firework display and, unless fate has something in store for me, it won’t be my last.

It seems trite to say things like count your blessings. Or it’s never too late.

But there is more than a grain of authenticity in that outlook.

Staring at a burned bridge won't get you back where you came from.

The fireworks were impressive.

The evening was humbling.

Photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/cameraslayer/

life and death

Most of us are conceived in the heat of the moment. The result of an impassioned tryst between our parents. And regardless of at what point you think life actually begins, it starts in a heartbeat.

For most of us living in the First World, the most likely cause of death will be age-related, or an ailment brought on by lifestyle choices.

But that’s not always the way.

I found myself reflecting on this just the other day. My morning commute to work is a drive of around 45 minutes which on this particular day involved driving past the scene of a road traffic accident.

Two police cars. One fire engine. A car. A woman sitting on the crash-barrier at the side of the road with the most desolate look on her face. Pools of blood covered hastily by absorbent cloths. And a body. Hidden beneath a dark tarpaulin.

The face of the woman, presumably the driver of the car that had collided with the now lifeless individual, stayed with me all day.

As did the thought of the friends and family of the person who lost their life in that scene. Who that person was I am unlikely to ever know.

But it is likely their day started like most people’s. A rush to get ready for work. Coffee perhaps. Maybe breakfast. A quick goodbye kiss for their husband or wife, and children perhaps… “see you later,” someone no doubt said.

As I sat at my desk just a short while after passing the accident site, I thought of those left behind. Their day had started, they would be on their way to work, to school, to wherever their morning was taking them. Blissfully unaware that life had changed irrevocably.

Few of us know when the end is coming and have the bitter-sweet opportunity to say our farewells, make our peace with the world.

Take nothing for granted.

It starts in a heartbeat.

It ends that way too.