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What's Your Jinx/What's Your Luck?

18 minutes yesterday
Not that I intend to post every time, but the pained look of a lad who joined me at the bus stop shortly afterwards was both poignant and comical.
Karma said "you have borne your suffering bravely. You will be rewarded".
I found an empty Twinings tea box for a quid at Scope in Walsall. Absolutely perfect fit for one of my fishing reels and something I have been after for ages.
I hope the lad had a similar bit of luck.
 
Testify brother, you are preaching to the converted.
Not only do I cringe at some of the things I said, I find it completely incomprehensible why I lied in the first place.
I do wonder sometimes why the Monty Python 16 ton weight had to come crashing down on me the instant, the very instant I told a lie and others seem to get away with BSing all the time. But on the whole I'd rather be honest.

Yup. (Deep sigh) You end up learning the hard and bitter way it's best to be honest in your dealings and the way you present yourself. Saves a lot of bother and if you're lucky you learn something from it. In my case (midnight confession here, phrased succinctly), denying your past and trying to invent a whole new persona for yourself to become the person you want to be as opposed to the person your life made you which you want to erase and overwrite - doesn't work. Took a lot of learning! (There might be a novel in this, but I suspect it's already been written).
 
There were a couple of times from my youth when I was caught in a lie and humiliated that give me the shudders.
Partly it was getting older and less concerned about other people's opinions of me.
Strangely enough part of it was my hobby fishing. Every angler knows that talking to another angler soon turns into a p#####g contest if you start bragging. I've caught a carp, he's caught one bigger. I had some chub from the river, he's had a net full, that sort of thing.
For some reason one time I was talking to a bloke and just admitted I didn't really know what I was doing.
He said neither did he.
Continuing with the honesty policy I found that other anglers were keen to offer advice, give me useful information and generally try to help.
I find it's the same with most other day to day dealings, once people feel you are being honest they often go above and beyond.
 
Yup. (Deep sigh) You end up learning the hard and bitter way it's best to be honest in your dealings and the way you present yourself. Saves a lot of bother and if you're lucky you learn something from it. In my case (midnight confession here, phrased succinctly), denying your past and trying to invent a whole new persona for yourself to become the person you want to be as opposed to the person your life made you which you want to erase and overwrite - doesn't work. Took a lot of learning! (There might be a novel in this, but I suspect it's already been written).

Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut, the key phrase being, "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be."
 
I should be all right then. My street is The Kingdom Of The Cats.
It makes me laugh the way they just lie across the path looking at you,
They are like "He's not going to try to get past, surely he's not going to try to get past, he is you know!" And leave it to the last possible second to move, giving you an appalled look.
I'll monitor my luck after seeing one from now on.
 
I have a pair of 18 year old pants that I am very proud of. Many have come and gone in that time but those ones soldier on.

Also, I like the word "whackadoo" and intend to use it more often in conversation.
Alas, my rash boast has invoked the knicker destruction pixie and my antique drawers have had to be consigned to the big dustbin in the sky. Farewell my trusty underpants, I will never forget you. RIP. :revelry:
 
Obviously I didn't see any cat on the way to town after I posted that.
My luck wasn't bad, apart from Poundland not having The Wicker Tree.
It took a while though. One of those strange people who believe in giving a dvd a thorough examination before buying it or not was obscuring my view.
It's minor strangeness to me, they take it off the shelf, look at the front cover.
Look at the back, look at the front again, look at the back again and stand there for an hour visibly deciding whether to buy it. You can see the cogs turning.
I don't like hovering, I hate it when people do it to me, so I wandered off for a look around just in case there was anything else I needed
Sometimes it takes so long it attracts the attention of the shop security..
Anyway, they were gone by the time I got back. But no luck.
 
Testify brother, you are preaching to the converted.
Not only do I cringe at some of the things I said, I find it completely incomprehensible why I lied in the first place.
I do wonder sometimes why the Monty Python 16 ton weight had to come crashing down on me the instant, the very instant I told a lie and others seem to get away with BSing all the time. But on the whole I'd rather be honest.

Ag. (Deep breath). Not pleasant to write this as it involves confronting my dark side and past events that were truly horrendous for all involved. A brush with mental illness might go partway to explaining it but doesn't entirely excuse the way I behaved in one dark phase of my life, and I do express heartfelt contrition to others involved, and a wish they might find it in themselves to be forgiving. (Being circumspect, as one person who was affected by my behaviour at that time is a member of these forums and I suspect still contributes. I know she would not welcome any further involvement with me and I am trying to respect her clearly expressed wishes. I don't know her FT forum identity and have no wish to find out or dig around to see what she posts - but if she reads this and suspects who it is - well, please try to understand and forgive, if you can.There may be more than one person. Apologies, heartfelt, to them too.) And yes - also came across somebody else on this forum who was also at UEA at the time - but nothing more than very marginally involved with me - and if he remembers who I was (which I doubt) will be personally aware of what a train-wreck I became and the reputation I got. It was certainly, at the time, a small "villagey" sort of university with a little less than 4,000 undergrads - in a village everybody knows everybody else, or at least the gossip and second-hand accounts. AND it was in semi-rural Norfolk which is one enormous village! Make a reputation for the wrong reasons and it becomes part of village common knowledge.

I think. My horror story and egregious bad behaviour was born out of a sense of inadequacy and insecurity and being well out of my depth and boringly uninteresting to people around me. University intensified this. Choosing the sort of uni where it was estimated getting on for 50% had been to private schools and just about everybody was from a vastly higher socioeconomic grouping than I was and had secure familiy lives and a degree of financial comfort behind them....since then, I've met other people who went to that university who came from disadvantaged and deprived backgrounds and this feeling of still being marginalised and having nothing in common with your peers and feeling "lesser" next to them - it's a common thread. I really don't think UEA realised this very much; it was geared up to the needs and social mores of the majority (let's say "middle and upper-middle undergrads from nice areas and good schools, largely drawn from SE England") and outsiders would have a harder time, I think. Neglect, rather than intention. We certainly didn't - we each thought "it's just me. I don't fit. I don't really belong in here." I went really bad. Compensating by inventing a different origin story for myself in the hope I could make the grim reality of the upbringing and early life I had go away (not actively abused, much, more a sense of being neglected and marginalised) and replacing it with a better fiction. Then it snowballed. Trying to get other people to believe it too was a mistake. Life doesn't work that way. But that crushing sense of inadequacy and a need to compensate... horrible.

What can I say? I screwed up. Big time. Alienated a lot of people. Did myself no favours. Crashed the train. Went thorugh mental and psychological disorder and out the other side. now looking back. Wincing a lot and feeling guilt.

But you learn from your errors. I hope.

There. Confession over. I'd have gone into it in more excruciating detail save for the fact I'm about 80% sure one other person - at least one - who was closely involved at the time is somebody who posts here and I have no desire at all to cause her any bad memories (or any more than are strictly necessary). After tripping over her on a Fortean site on Facebook where she uses her own name, and things happened, I now know her wishes concerning me. Quite emphatically so. I wish her well, anyway. Story over. And - no specifics. That was a general outline.
 
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Choosing the sort of uni where it was estimated getting on for 50% had been to private schools and just about everybody was from a vastly higher socioeconomic grouping than I was and had secure familiy lives and a degree of financial comfort behind them....since then, I've met other people who went to that university who came from disadvantaged and deprived backgrounds and this feeling of still being marginalised and having nothing in common with your peers and feeling "lesser" next to them - it's a common thread. I really don't think UEA realised this very much; it was geared up to the needs and social mores of the majority (let's say "middle and upper-middle undergrads from nice areas and good schools, largely drawn from SE England") and outsiders would have a harder time, I think. Neglect, rather than intention. We certainly didn't - we each thought "it's just me. I don't fit. I don't really belong in here."
that wasnt my experience at uea, but im thinking perhaps you are a bit younger ... havent all universities gone that way fue to funding changes, fees etc ...
 
that wasnt my experience at uea, but im thinking perhaps you are a bit younger ... havent all universities gone that way fue to funding changes, fees etc ...
It has changed. I went back to Norwich on holiday a year or two ago. Part of it was a sort of "pilgrimage" to revisit UEA and make peace with my past, to go back to a couple of places where things happened and make silent prayer and atonement. (not getting mystical I hope. But some things have to be done and you have to try and make peace with your past).

I discovered even some pubs that were part of the story and which in 1986-ish you thought were always going to be there.... aren't. The Louis Marchesi, a preferred student pub, is now a coffee shop. Other pubs have changed name or purpose. Ritzy's, the sink nightclub in the centre of town that was a den for late-hours drinking on a Monday night - it was being converted to yuppie flats.

I doscovered the Fifer's Lane university residencies where I lived are no more. Gone. Waveney Terrace is gone. the university has been vastly expanded and a medical school that was in its very early infancy in 1988 is seriously big business. 3,800 undergraduates in 1984 are now 15,000. In a place like that I could have been more anonymous! And maybe with the massive expansion in numbers, the place has learnt how to deal with people not coming from what you might call the standard background - maybe undergrads from less advantaged backgrounds are nurtured more as there are more of them and the system itself has learned more. Who knows?

Nice to revisit and possibly cathartic. Did me good. Although I did have a near-tearful moment standing in a particular place on Magdelen Street where I once had a life-changing emotionally distressing moment with a certain person. Bad memories. And yes. I'd like to visit again.
 
uh-oh sounds like we may have been contemporaries at horsham !
I managed an uneviable trio: Z-block. for three years. (1984-85; 1985-86; and 1987-88). And you?
 
z block ground floor 88/89, then unthank rd, mary chapman court 90/91, then san fran ... how did you manage all 3 at fifers

im as blue collar as they come, my pals were all from northern towns too, we hit uni as madchester was breaking, if you were from sheffield you just said manchester ... apart from a few southern pufters everyone was fine
 
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first year: assigned to Z Block in the usual way of things - they never told you about Z-block in the prospectus where all the photos were of the famous Ziggurats. Aced Z-block again in the second year by exploiting a loophole - if you made yourself available as part of the hospitality team to help new first years settle in, the work was all done after the first forttnight but you got residencies again for the whole year. Seemed a better deal than looking for a shared house. Took a year out to reconsider a course I was beginning to realise wasn't me and in which I was frankly struggling. Instead of doing the obvious thing and getting out - I came back to complete the degree and get it over with. Got Z block again. Fouled up. The rest is apocalypse, which is a sort of history.
 
right, wow, i cut my teeth on z block escapades and horsham life, drinking, girls, music, i loved every moment of those years but ive never gone back
 
Blimey, what is this, a 1980s UEA reunion?! I was at UEA 1981-85 (a year out 1983-84 to get my head together after struggling with health and personal issues, not as serious as AG's but some common ground; brought up on a council estate and went to a very so-so comprehensive; I was staggered at the number of rich kids who were at UEA, some of whom were stggeringly wealthy). I spent my first year at Fifer's Lane, E Block. It was a shock a few years ago when I went to UEA's 50th birthday celebrations and found not only was the accommodation not there, but I could barely work out where the various places were... the bar (happy evenings playing pinball), the single squash court (possibly the coldest in Christendom), the football pitches, Z Block (saw The Sound there among other bands), the NAAFI store (was that still there when you were there?). Happy days, mainly, though tinged with some regrets...
 
Ye gods, it's getting that way... a bit of deep soul-baring followed by a few reminders of the good things about the place and the time. And there WERE some. Thank you. I feel more cheerful now. Cycleboy, you must have been the last to draw E-Block, as in autumn of 1984, E and I think F Block (or was it G?) were empty, uninhabited and condemned as unfit for human habitation. I think Environmental Health had complained or something. Old hands, the nucleus of experienced old lags in their second and third years, and the sprinkling of postgrads and doctoral students who'd drawn the luxury accomodation in the main old building (the former RAF Officers' Quarters) told us the horror stories about rats and cockroaches in E. And when they were done with talking about the Conservative Students' Association, they got on to the rodents and insects that infested the place. Apocrypha has it that inmates of E made the best of it and had betting events on cockroach races. I'm not sure if this is truth or exaggeration even now.

Maybe if other ex-UEA types want to join in, we should migrate any specifically UEA-related reminiscences to Chat, open a thread there? (At the risk of my re-encountering people who have no reason to think well of me. But that's how it goes...) The only Fortean-related things I can think of are that, with Horsham St Faith having originally been an RAF base next to the airport and having been an active wartime base - you could still see remains of the camoflage paint on the oldest buildings - the site was said to be haunted, with occasional sightings. Also the American bomber that crashed nearby in Catton, killing a lot of people. Sadly, several students resident here died early, for one reason or another. I knew one reasonably well.
 
a guy called tim died in my first year, en route home at end of first term i think, car crash, there was a guy called todd a few years older than us, guess he was a kind of "prefect" character ... something about him ... our "prefect" guy was a short slender scot who always wore a tom waits suit over a vest with a kerchief streaming outta the breast pocket ... i can almost but not quite recall his name ... ian mcnicholl ???
 
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i worked at the fifers lane bar first year ... wandering over the green for breakfast ... then third year at the white lion/tap and spile for jim kidney, classic cockney wideboy, always walking the dog ... played poor blues harp in the campus coffee bar where the jazzers told me i had a jazz name, perish the thought ... then at blues jams in pubs and bars, got messed up over a girl, hitch-hiked every mile of norfolk a-road and slept in atm lobbies and parked trains ... was at peppermint park the night before my finals, still aced a 2;ii ... had great friends, loved them all, fell out of touch with them all, ah the past

not especially fortean times for me, although i used to have a recurrent dream, maybe i still do, about one particular series of streets just behind the salvation army shop in town, like a pocket of imaginary norwich that held some special meaning, its a feeling more than anything i suppose
 
Well Y'know, a rose in a cornfield is a weed to a farmer.
I'm reliably informed that during a stay in hospital Ruby Wax said she had found her 'tribe'.
I took some comics into work for the lads to read, might have been Swamp Thing.
The boss saw them and for some reason took offence, he went on and on about it. Possibly cognitive dissonance between his limited imagination and the great big world out there.
However, put him in a room with a bunch of comic writers and artists.....
It's all about context I find.
It's a hard thing to accept, that not everybody likes you. The hardest though is accepting not everyone dislikes you.
Some dysfunctional chemical process ensures some of us only ever remember the crappy, selfish, cruel things we have done.
We also did good though. Be gentler on yourself.
 
Thanks! I really didn't want anything to do with UEA or people from it for quite a while after leaving Norwich: there was a great sense of disbelief and revulsion that something which had started so well had ended so badly, a lot of grief, bereavement and revulsion (largely self-directed) which took a long time to get over. I took my mess elsewhere in Norfolk for a few years and sank into obscurity in the real rural backwoods. Just to hide. There were other pressing reasons to get out of Norwich but as this involves one other person who is largely blameless and didn't ask to be involved with me, I'll skip over that. Might discuss that in vague general outline elsewhere as it has a possible Fortean dimension - but not by identifying the other person. i'd have to think carefully about that. Married (ended badly) then fled back to the north; from a small village with less than 500 permanent residents, to Manchester. A big city, after the nearest thing Britain has to hillbilly country. Talk about contrast. I was even apprehensive about crossing the street in the city, till I adjusted.

Ah well. The alumni association found me - Gods know how - and I wrote back saying I thought I was on a blacklist of graduates headed with an instruction "do not try too hard to locate these people." They never replied. (Discovered with the alumni assocation that they really aren't concerned about what you did at uni; they're not judgemental in the least, they just want to tap you for money.) Even had a paragraph or two in the Where Are They Now section of the Ziggurat alumni magazine, just to say, in as non-insulting and indirect a way as I could manage, "Despite everything I turned it around and made something worthwhile of myself. Not that it matters, but I bet if you knew me then, you were expecting to see me dead or in prison or something." I might rescue it and republish here...

At least one person who knew me then got in touch and said he thought I was worth knowing. Thanks Andy H, if you're out there somewhere. Ah well, I've seen the bottom of the hole, the one where you really have to stop digging and focus on climbing out and the worst is past!


right on, i mean who didnt embellish their backstory and exploits and reinvent themselves at university ... especially in the eighties

I just took it to extremes (psychological and mental disintegration explains this but only partway excuses it) and I know it left a few people bruised and hurt. Me included. Thank you. And yes - it's all about context! Thank you for the reassurance. Appreciated.
 
ha, synchronicity, just had an email from them "UEA alumni news - UEA alumni featured in the Queen's Birthday Honours List; Graduation week on campus"

wondering if you knew those guys i mentioned above, or a pasty ginger chemist called andrew, held over at z block ground floor in 88/89, by then was a third year i think

anyway doesnt everyone live in fear of old faces from the past reappearing in the present, i know i do ... maybe its a catholic thing, bit like a whiskey hangover, no escape from the pangs of guilt despite not quite being sure what you even supposed to have done
 
right on, i mean who didnt embellish their backstory and exploits and reinvent themselves at university ... especially in the eighties
I didn't.
It didn't win me many friends. Perhaps I should have made up some shit?
 
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