Just before I became a father, back when we were expecting our first, I went out and bought a thick Russian novel. It started like this: “Happy families are all alike…” and continued along similar lines for another 800 pages. It is, I am told, a very highly regarded piece of literature, and one day I may get round to reading it. Sometime after they’ve grown up and left home.
I remember, so clearly, my motives for buying this book. It astounds me that there was a time in my life, not very long ago, when I actually thought an 800 page Russian classic was something worth devoting my evenings to. This was, of course, before Kid A came along and blew both the need and desire for such value-for-money pastimes out the window. I’d already spent most of my twenties reading works of “quality” literature, and watching “important” cinema (the popular definition of which only occasionally matched my own). These days, by the end of the day, I barely have the mental strength to follow the adventures of Batman. But in this I am stupidly happy.
You see, happy families are all alike, which is why they make not only for boring novels and boring blog posts, but they also make for boring people. I’m sorry dear friends, but there are few things more boring than hearing parents talk about their kids. I know this because I have to listen to myself doing it all the time. I’m pretty sure the death of our social life post-parenthood is only in part down to the cost of babysitters, it is also because friends can no longer bear to be trapped across a pub table from us when we’ve had a few drinks and start getting sentimental about the littleuns.
The stories we love only ever end with happy families. If there is one at the beginning you know it is about to be blown apart to give the protagonist something to get upset about. A good tale needs conflict, misery and unsatisfied needs. The happy family is without these. Which is why you only ever see them on TV as something to aspire to in an advert.
If you follow my Twitter you might occasionally enjoy my cynical moaning about the little buggers for comic effect, but on these hot summer afternoons, playing in the back garden, I’m lost to my own of these ubiquitous happy clans. My mental state is that dumb bliss I spent much of the nineties failing to simulate with narcotics (which, by no coincidence, makes for similarly boring people).
These are happy days in the Pearson house. Which is why, for your sakes, I promise I’ll try my best not to write about them any further.
Who knew the smile of Gordon Brown could be such a beautiful thing? After thirteen years in power, culminating in the intense three part drama of the televised debates, we had become over-familiar with Gordon’s “TV smile“, a cartoon contortion so unnatural and forced it looked almost painful. So to see, for the first time, the genuine joy on his face in this photograph bought a lump to my throat.
The photo is one of a series taken by a Guardian photographer Martin Argles documenting his final hours as Prime Minister last week, just before handing over to a waxwork phallus who was now claiming the job having won 36.1% of the popular vote. Behind Gordon, figuratively, is the job; over his shoulder are two of the men who may succeed him as Labour Party leader. Before him, and embraced by him, is his immediate future; some long overdue time with his two boys.
I was only dimly aware that Brown even had children, it is to his honour that they hadn’t been paraded out as electioneering assets during a campaign which, more than ever before, was fought on the message boards of mumsnet.com. By comparison, David Cameron wrung every drop out of the unborn foetus he liked to ferry around with him.
Gordon’s two kids are roughly the same ages as my own boys. I miss my boys while I’m out the room, so seeing this photo really hit home what a shitty stick any leader is struck with. I could never say I loved my country more than I loved my family; whether I should feel pride or shame in that I don’t know, but I think it goes without saying that Gordon’s evident joy at the relinquishment of responsibility, and the opportunity to, for the first time, get to see his boys grow up, is very deserved. Particularly remembering that, during his time as chancellor, there was a first Brown child, who never got as far as her first birthday.
Despite my political leanings being more toward the Liberals these days, I believe history will be kind to Gordon Brown’s legacy. He steered HMS Britain through some very stormy waters, rather than just catching a swelling wave and riding it home like Blair did in his first term. But, as Iraq, and the Digital Economy Bill proved, when an administration starts to listen to lobbyists more than the people who elected it, the time had come for them to go.
I am cautiously optimistic about the new boyishly handsome civil partnership we now have leading our big gay village. If we have to have a Tory in charge I’d rather it was one so vain and desperate to be popular that he will actually attempt to win the favour of the electorate, rather than just obeying the lords, financiers, and newspaper magnates who gave him his slender lead. Although the idea of multi-millionaire expenses fiddler, George Osborn as chancellor, in such an unsteady economic climate fills me with fear, and may already be the first firm flush of a country about to disappear down the toilet.
Seeing the shiny faced smarm of Cameron, next to the youthful eagerness of Clegg, recalling also the maniacal grin of Gordon’s predecessor Blair, it makes me wonder if we will remember Brown as the last of a certain breed of UK Prime Minister, those with camera unfriendly faces. There is no sane reason for a leader to be required to look good on TV, and, as Gordon proved, some faces shouldn’t be made to smile. Not until there is actually something to smile about.
Rudy, my four year old, is a huge fan of “daddy’s patterns“, so naturally he was the person I most wanted to accompany me on my visit to Decode, the V&A/onedotzero “Digital Design Sensations” exhibition.
Rudy, as part of the resident savvy child collective in our house, acts as my personal futurologist. The way he interacts with the world is the way the world will be when his generation is running it. Rudy fails to understand why all content isn’t on demand, why every screen is not a touchscreen, why his favourite media is not available on every device. And seeing him, after lapping up Decode, attempt to prod, wave at or talk to other inanimate exhibits around the rest of the V&A, I suspect he will now be questioning the relevance of any artwork that doesn’t involve, reflect or interact with the viewer.
Interaction; with our machines, objects, materials, environments, and each other, will soon become something that is simply expected. And anything that we can’t communicate with will have decreasing relevance over the coming decades. Those who snobbishly dismiss interactive art as being “something for kids” should remember that soon it will be these very same kids who will be making the decisions as to what is and isn’t art.
Both of my boys are too young to be interested in any life tips I may have to share right now, and (according to the Nick Cave Conjecture) by the time they are old enough to listen to me I’ll doubtless be so uncool and embarrassing they won’t take me seriously anyway. So, for the ages, I’ll impart everything I know about getting on in life here and now, in a single blog post, and they can then choose to ignore me at their leisure, without having to disturb me when I’m trying to watch the bloody telly.
Success is easy. There’s no “secret” to success. In the absence of luck, privilege or sleeping with the right person, you just need focus, dedication, passion, hard work, persistence and maybe a few good ideas. The only hard bit is finding the right field in which to apply your focus, dedication, passion, hard work, persistence and ideas. This is the challenge.
If you find something you truly love doing, that you care about enough to to be able to dedicate your life to it, the rest comes easy. I can’t claim I’m the expert on this, but I’ve done okay; I have a job that doesn’t make me weep in a morning, or forces me into inebriation every Friday night; that allows me to listen to loud electronic music while I’m working and has earned me the respect of at least seven (at last count) of my colleagues. I’m happy with my lot.
It’s probably too late to steer me off my path of least resistance (especially with you two little darlings bleeding me dry) but I can still give you one epiphet of advice to enable you to do better, and it is this – spend your twenties farting around as much as you can.
This is my message. The thing that needs the hard work is finding the thing you love doing; the thing you could still bear to be doing when you are as old and uncool as your dear old dad, the thing that will still mean something to you long after you’ve got over the need to impress your mates, or bed beautiful ladies, or pay off your gambling debts. And the only way you stand a chance of finding this elusive vocation is by trying everything.
This is the future, and these days adolesence doesn’t end with your teenage years. I believe that at least the first thirty years of one’s life should be dedicated to experimentation, to making mistakes and trying new things, while avoiding anything that might be seen as habit-forming; – religion, hedonism, the civil service, over use of drugs, or Her Majesty’s Forces. There’s plenty of time to worry about making a living , and being a good citizen, later. And, if you find you are afraid to try new things, remember there are enough people on the planet for you to be able to get away with making a total tit of yourself in front of several thousand souls and never having to see them again.
Stick with this plan and you stand at least half a chance of a successful life. And if you haven’t sussed it by thirty, splash around for another ten years or so. Do whatever it takes to find whatever is bareable.
But if you’re not rich enough to support your mom and me by fifty, consider yourself written out the will. No-one likes a sponger.
This is my second son, Oscar Jack Pearson, who was born on Sunday.
Ozzy was our first natural birth, although calling a process as distressing and traumatic as that “natural” is surely a misnomer; women of the world, I hear your roars. On Sunday I learned more about gynaecology that I have ever felt the need the know, and will probably spend the rest of my life struggling to unlearn it all.
But I also learned, or perhaps belatedly realised, that my wife is one of the most amazing creatures to have ever walked this feeble planet. The effort she put in to producing that little 8lb ball of flesh was truly olympian and I know I’m one of the luckiest bastards alive to have her. You’ll have to excuse my gushing but I’m over-flowing with love for Deb, my two sons and, well, just about everyone and everything at the mo.
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