Tag Archives: life

The Face of the Other

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So there I was idly reinforcing my insecurity complex by Googling my own name when my eye is snagged by one of the search results: “Ben Jeapes is on Facebook”.

To which Ben Jeapes’s immediate reaction was “no he flaming well isn’t, for reasons chronicled elsewhere but revolving around having a life.” Then I looked a bit closer and I thought, oh, so that’s him.

For there are in fact two of us, as I discovered a couple of years ago. There’s little danger of our being confused as Junior is, so far as I can gather, a pupil at Gravesend Grammar School. And he seems to be quite good at sport, which is why his name gets onto the school website and hence Google in the first place. I wish him well in life; I only ask that if he goes into writing, please could he use a different name. Unless he becomes wildly successful and attracts millions of devoted fans who will buy anything with that name on the cover, in which case please use the name you have with my blessing.

And now I know what he looks like, and if I had a good memory I could name his friends. This all happened yesterday. Recreating the search conditions today fails to get the Facebook link back. Did Facebook release it into the public domain by accident? I’ve tried going to Facebook with the intention of searching, but they expect me to sign up even to do that much. So take my word for it, he seems a sound, outstanding fella as befits anyone with such an illustrious name.

On a COMPLETELY different topic – except that it relates to online privacy, which isn’t completely tangential to the subject at hand – see this page from the ACLU for proof (if it were needed) that you can have too much information.

The things old people say

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Lunch today was with my grandmother in the communal dining room at the Home for Aged Retired Empire Matriarchs. During the starter course I was surprised to think I heard a particular phrase drift over from the gaggle of little old ladies on the next table.

“Did that old lady just say something about exposed canine genitalia?” I asked my mother.

“Maybe,” she replied. We listened carefully. A few moments later, there it was again. It rhymes with bogs rowlocks.

“Yes, she did,” she confirmed.

Forensic analysis of what we could hear suggests the lady was talking about QI and Stephen Fry’s explanation of where the term comes from. I think I could have guessed. I mean, if you’ve ever seen a dog that hasn’t been Done then the reason stands out like … well, something very standing out.

But, even so. The standard of little old lady that you get today is just shocking.

Shortly after we heard a conversation starting “Of course, when my husband was at HQ UKLF …” and we felt we were back on familiar ground.

When her husband was at HQ UKLF, I wonder if he was positively vetted?

The martyrdom of St Benjamin

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I’ve decided I have a martyr complex, and I know exactly where it came from. Ten years of stiff upper lip public school education.

Another legacy of public school is hating to travel away from my loved ones. For some reason Woking station after dark always comes to mind, probably because that was where – only a couple of times, but obviously it marked me – I would return to school at the end of a half term break with my grandmother, while my parents were abroad.

Thus, on those occasions as an adult when I still have to travel away from my loved ones the martyr complex kicks in with a whoop of glee. Really heavy duty misery ahead, whoopee! Like, yesterday I had to travel down to Brighton for various meetings this morning. I decided I would head off from work early (4ish), suffer the periphery of the rush hour on the M25 and be bored and lonely all evening.

Result: I was miserable right from saying goodbye to Best Beloved in the morning and for the rest of the day, until finally it dawned on me (thanks to a sane colleague) that I didn’t have to do it quite like that. I could go home, have dinner, leave 7ish with rush hour out of the way, get to Brighton, turn right in, not have time to be lonely and do my stuff this morning as planned. The madness is over! The martyr complex is identified and told to go stuff itself!

And so that is what I did. Plus most of the drive was on empty motorways after dark, which I actually quite enjoy. It makes me fell very Vangelis-y.

Bonusbarn comments that I don’t have a martyr complex, I just need to develop common sense in certain areas of my life. I cunningly riposte that it’s much the same thing, really. Still, I have gained a little in self-knowledge and that’s always the first step in self-rectification.