have guitar, will travel

or "rocking (gently) in the free world"

the author, looking well moody

So a little over a week ago we (Frankie Machine) played at IndieTracks. And it was great despite me getting ridiculously nervous (as I always have done) beforehand.

I tried to calm my nerves with a visit to the ridiculously well-stocked Real Ale bar. My first choice was for a B-52s-inspired ale, but it was pointed out to me that at 5.2% (in the middle of the day) it probably wasn't the best choice. So like my band-mates I plumped  for a half of Roadrunner. It was a good choice but it didn't help all that much.

I saw a few people who I've not seen for a LONG time, then our travelling army of supporters (wives, partners, kids) turned up.

Everyone at the festival was super-cool, helping me to get over the train tracks and bridges and sorting me out with a chair for our set. Really lovely.

My Mother-in-Law has asked me beforehand how long we would be playing - I told her "there and back", because we got on a train, went to a different part of Midland Railway, and came back again. All told, it took seven songs, including between-song banter and a final song when the train had pulled in.

(because of the position Mrs. and Ms. D took up, I don't appear in any of our videos and photos, so I'm forever indebted to my old friend Brian for taking the picture at the top of this post which proves that I WAS THERE - I'm not glum, that's my concentration face!)

In many ways it was the perfect gig - once the train started moving, the audience (which was surprisingly large and not just our family members) couldn't leave. A dream gig!

IndieTracks is a lovely festival - just a nice vibe. Truth be told, the music is not all to to my taste but everyone seems to be lovely. Rob (the titular Frankie) has been to the DownLoad metal festival and he says that there are many similarities between the two - the audiences are made up of the interesting, quirky and intelligent people who were ridiculed at school for being different and for the duration of the festival they're surrounded by people who understand them and share the same bond - THEIR PEOPLE.

Apparently IndieTracks rules state that acts who play one of the programmed stages (Indoor, Outdoor, Church [where we played last time] and Train) cannot play the festival again for three years.

So thanks once more to IndieTracks, for making us all feel like stars - and not only because of our snazzy performers' wristbands!

just make it (the moaning) stop

Work nonsense is ongoing. 

Anyway, it's too depressing (and frankly embarrassing) to go into, so let's get POSITIVE. 

• One positive outcome of the Occupational Health visit was the assessor's recommendation that I look into doing regular Meditation. As is the modern way, I downloaded an app for my phone, and I'm not going to pretend that I use it every single day but I know that when I do I find it incredibly helpful - just to stop, switch my brain off and do nothing for a few minutes.
• Little Ms. Domino has finished her first year at school and had an end-of-year report which to be frank made me sob. She's such a smart cookie and we're so proud. No doubt she can be a massive pain in the arse but we're so lucky in so many ways (for instance, she can also be super-considerate about Daddy's walking). Love her. 
• Five years after we last played there, Frankie Machine has been asked back to play at the Indietracks Festival this coming weekend. As before we've been rehearsing, and being a bit of a lapsed musician has been challenging (am I a Relapsing and Remitting musician?) but I'm having a blast. My callouses are coming back nicely too (see photo below for evidence). I'm pushing for us to have more regular rehearsals in the future so it will give me some impetus to 'keep my hand in'. But I really am loving it. Although this year we are playing on a (moving) train - you'll be pleased to know that I have requested a chair.

they might look GROSS but those manky bits on my fingertips are a GOOD THING

• Next month is mine and Mrs D's TENTH Wedding Anniversary. What a long strange trip it has been. As I've mentioned before, we got married in Venice at the height of Summer. We have always intended to go back for our 10th anniversary but we've decided to look at going when the temperature is less oppressive - it's frustrating (to admit defeat to MS) but we'd rather play safe than spend a load of money on a potentially depressing couple of days with me sweating and limping (best case scenario!!) through the crowds. The plan now is to go back at some time next Spring.
• We went to see The BFG movie at the weekend. It was a good film, a bit sickly-sweet in places (Spielberg) but some good funny bits too. My favourite bit of the film, however, was before the main feature. Our local cinema has a very funky ad ident which is obviously a 21st century version of the classic Pearl & Dean ad - loads of Latin percussion and Jazz Flute, it's fabulous. Anyway this started and Mrs D began to intensively mime playing the flute - apparently this is something she does whenever she goes to this cinema with Little Ms D, who normally takes on the role of percussion. For some reason she wouldn't do it on this occasion so we just clicked our fingers (strictly on 2 and 4) and laughed our asses off at Mum, who was going TO TOWN. This was absolutely my favourite part of the whole weekend - I really love my family.

by way of an explanation

AKA my glittering career

In the past, when the gaps between posts have dragged on, it has been because nothing has happened. 

This has not been the case this time. 

The appraisal process which I mentioned before has been going on since February. There have been many regular (interminable) meetings, which have felt quite personal and pointed (call me paranoid but that don't mean it ain't so). 

Somewhat annoyingly, way back at the start of this appraisal process I was asked if I wanted to reduce my hours or take a position with less responsibility. My pride got in the way and said that I wanted to step up and deal.

If I could go back in time, I would bite my boss' hand off.

At one point in the process (probably before another meeting) I told my boss that I was hating it and wanted it to be over. It was making me miserable and ratty, at work and at home. 

He said "I know what you mean. I'm going through it the same as you". 

To which I responded, "With the greatest of respect, I really don't think that you are". 

(If memory serves, that was the day my daughter put this plastic medal in my shirt pocket, where it remained for the whole day. She's a heartbreaker.)

FULL DISCLOSURE: in the middle of all of this, there have a couple of things which I have let slide at work. I'm not proud of this.

We recently had a board meeting and I was left feeling incredibly exposed and attacked. And I did not respond well (I should say that I put my head down, rather than standing on the table, giving everyone the finger and loudly suggesting they had known carnal relations with their maternal parent). 

Questions have been asked about my ability to do my job (I've been asking them of myself too). I was given a series of key tasks to achieve and I have met them - even going so far as taking documents away when we went on a much-needed holiday recently. 

On top of all this, the Board requested that I have a workplace assessment. Now I've had these in the past but they've always been from the view of supporting me. The employment law specialist on our board recommended this company:

http://www.ohbm.co.uk

Now in my pre-assessment research, my feeling was that this website didn't look like it belonged to a company that was overly concerned about protecting the rights of disabled employees. To put it mildly - no matter how conveniently (or even cynically?) multicultural the images on their website. This was the view shared by the Equalities Officer at my local council.

My boss said there was nothing to worry about, that the trustees needed to show the organisation had thought about all the potential outcomes, which would mean a nice healthy 'tick' in this section of our Risk Register.

But my last relapse was four years ago, and my attendance record is little short or exemplary. If all this is prompted by my recent performance, surely this should be a disciplinary matter; rather than being about my wonky genes and uncertain prognosis.

I was righteously nervous, so much so that I asked my dad to come along to support me - as suggested by my MS Nurse and the aforementioned equalities officer.

Despite a couple of hairy moments, this actually went ok. The assessor seemed to have some knowledge of MS and made some pretty good recommendations - timetabled work from home, regular breaks throughout the day, and MEDITATION. The first two of these will come under the heading of 'reasonable adjustments' that my employee will have to consider. The third one is for me alone.

Right. That's everything up to date. It ain't over, not by a long a stretch - but AVANTI!

PS - I am aware that there have been seismic changes in UK politics in recent weeks, but I feel that they are currently beyond the scope of this little blog. Plus things seem to be changing on a daily basis. I am scared about the future of this increasingly inward-looking little country.

show and tell

One of the most “challenging” things about getting Little Miss Domino out of the door of a morning is the fact that, just as she gets ready, she invariably says that she needs to find something for “show and tell”.

(me neither)

I don’t know if this is specifically an American thing but I’ve become aware that I’ve been doing this a bit at work - I seem to be going through a period when, even though I consider myself pretty-much out of that particular closet, more and more people have been coming up to me, doing the classic head-cock-thing and asking, “are you ok?”

I know, the bastards.

This isn't just people at work however. People who I see socially - parents of other kids in particular - have been asking the same question. Rightly or wrongly, I’ve been tending to jump straight in with:

“[gesturing to my sticks] Oh these? I just need to use them to get about. I’ve got Multiple Sclerosis so I’m disabled… No I’m OK… It is what it is….”

I don’t know if this is a good way to go about my business, but I’m not trying to get up in anyone’s grill (or anything). 

However it has to be said there is something kind-of militant about rocking the TWO STICK look. But after taking this stance for a while, it just gets a bit tiring.

One day arriving at work recently I was feeling pretty weary when I happened to walk into two circus / acrobatics performers (as you do - seriously, the things these people can do are frankly astonishing. And not a little unnatural).

Anyway, despite the fact one or both sticks are in use every day, they had obviously never clocked them in use, so they asked me “what’s happened?”

It was early in the day, they are lovely (FREAKS but lovely) and I couldn’t bear to get into it, so I ended up mumbling something so inconsequential that I have no memory of it.

So I’m now being hyper-aware of when I choose to “double-stick” - obviously I won’t let myself come a cropper physically for the sake of making anyone feel uncomfortable.

As the more obvious affects of my MS seem to be getting more and more noticeable, I might need to come up with a new answering technique which:

(a) Is honest about the situation

(b) Doesn't make the asker feel like a schmoe

what was that? aftershock

So the basic rule for survival in 2016 seems to be to have never done ANYTHING awesome EVER.

Last Thursday evening I was driving to a work thing after nipping home briefly. I turned on Front Row and realised with horror that people were talking about Prince in the past tense.

When I got to work, I was touched that everyone I spoke to expressed concern for how I was and surprise that I'd made it in!

As a 13yr old growing up in an ex-mining town in the Midlands, flamboyance was something to be avoided. The other boys in my year were all about drinking, smoking, sport, copping off with girls (or at the very least talking about it). Music didn't play a huge part in their lives but it already did for me, which even gave me an 'in' to talking to the quieter more studious girls (nothing ever happened, but still).

There was always something otherworldly about him, aside from his in-your-face “sexualness”. So when I first listened to him it was always in secret. The first album I got was Parade and I was mortified to see that he was showing a fair amount of flesh on the cover. He was incredibly private, obviously shy, androgynous, yet seemingly sexually voracious. It was a weird mix.

I've realised over the past week that, between them, Prince and Morrissey were, for me, kind of the twin guiding lights, showing me that there was a different way to act as a man - similar to the way that Bowie was for people in the 70s. It was ok to be different - intelligent, softly spoken, well-read, funny.

I'm not going to pretend that I bought everything he did. My window for album purchases is Around the World In A Day to The Black Album, but God knows whatever he did and the way he did it was always interesting.

The only time I saw him live was when he did around thirty nights at the O2 in 2007. When he popped up out of the middle of the stage and said, "Dearly beloved..." I'm not ashamed to say that I squealed.

It was pretty much a perfect Prince gig - a fair smattering of the hits and a substantial bit of aimless funk jamming. It's like if you went to see Bob Dylan and he didn't mangle his classics beyond recognition you'd feel shortchanged! But the epic version of Purple Rain (what else?) will live long in my memory.

In the week since his death, there have been a lot of heartfelt remembrances. But I was also incensed by this story on the BBC News site - Five strange stories about mysterious US musician. This was the DAY AFTER his death.

Like Bowie before him, Prince was an artist who liked to keep some things private but who knew how to add to his mystique by sharing tantalising titbits with the press. Were any of them true? I could genuinely give a shit. I like my celebrities to be mysterious, untouchable and little bit eccentric and OTHER.


[POP QUIZ: as an aside, can anyone think of a difference between Prince and Bowie which might mean that the way they're talked about in memoriam is in itself somewhat different? anyone? hmmm...]

The worlds of celebrity and music are getting duller by the second!

RIP PRN

one step forward, two steps back

So the Swimming Pool that I've been going to has closed down!

We'd got a plan in place and everything - I was going to drop the two female Dominoes off at Kiddy Ballet [CULTURAL ELITE], head round the block to the pool, do a few lengths, and get back to ballet in time to pick them up. But no.

This means that there is now no Swimming Pool open in Derby City Centre.

Working in the Arts [see CE], I know all too well that there's NO MONEY IN THE POT. I get that.

But be honest, is this really anyone's idea of a city?

Having said that, I do appreciate the irony of  closing down the Queen's Leisure Centre on Liz's 90th birthday.

The nearest good quality pool (the Queens was, to be honest, a sh*t hole but it was convenient) is in the town where I was born. Not a million miles away but not exactly handy.

Grump.

EDIT: oft of this parish and someone who I frequently add to a list of 'Friends who I am yet to meet', SwissLet is running the London Marathon again this weekend - as before, sling him a few quid if you are able as he's running in aid of the MS Trust.

dog paddle, belly flop

Kind-of prompted by the woe-is-me whinging of the last post, I've just been swimming for the first time in bloomin ages.

I know that 10 lengths is hardly swimming the channel, but it is a start. 

It was quite funny - I haven't done any swimming since we were in Italy last year so I decided to go in the slow lane with two other people. For some reason the slow lane was right next to the one for people who think they're David Wilkie or even a swimmer from this century - Rebecca Adlington, maybe.

I didn't let it get to me and did my lengths slowly - the plan is to try to get the same amount done more regularly.

Looking for something to illustrate this post I found this, being very careful to make sure that it didn't feature any disgraced former TV stars of my youth - although I'm not too sure about the old fella at 0:34.