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peterbirksThe roof garden made progress this year, mainly through me buying some plants (on my mum's recommendation) from a catalogue. The downside of this is that, of course, I can remember the names of hardly any of them!
TinyPic has become a bit of a pain on LJ. I'm attempting to use Photobucket for the first time. Photobucket actually owns TinyPic, and I forgot that I already had an account (used when I was in Vietnam, where TinyPic is blocked). Miraculously, a random username and password selection worked (email address plus a password that I used quite often for non-relevant stuff in 2007).
The lavender that Jan gave me in February 2009 (an easy date to remember). Since then it has grown a bit unruly and I may have to put it somewhere else soon -- possibly the front garden, possibly at my mum's (I know that she has always coveted it). I want to create some space out back for a table and a couple of chairs, not that I'll ever need more than one chair, given the complete fucking alienated and lonely life I lead. Any woman who might be interested probably looks me up on the web and promptly runs a mile. And I can't say I blame them. I'm a fucking mess.
Two of this year's tomato plants, coming to the end of their life. Throwing these out at the end of the month will also free up some space.
A detail of the sunshine tomatoes -- probably the best of the the three varieties that I grew this year.
Not sure what this plant will turn out to be! One of the plants that I grew from seed. Clearly it won't flower this year, but it might do so next summer.
This rose bush was only about 12 inches high in May. It's flowered really well this year, and the early ones had a fantastic blood-red and yellow colour.
I thought that I cut this plant back too far in May, but it sprouted back with a vengeance.
And, finally, the bamboo! I let this grow too high, and the trough, heavy though it was, blew over. Luckily I kept it some distance from the edge, so it didn't fall into the tenants' garden below. I learnt my lesson and I have cut it back vigorously since then. It offers a good protection from the roof garden next door.
Speaking of which, the couple living there appear to have sold their flat. Not sure if they got the £235k asking price (I doubt it), but even if they accepted £215k, that would mean that my flat downstairs is probably worth not much less than I paid for it, given their relative sizes and the added bonuses of a real garden and a cellar for my flat downstairs.
Perhaps now might be the time to formalize my own roof garden, putting up some railings and proper floor tiling. But I don't feel like spending the money. Maybe a quick entry into the WCOOP. :-)
++++++++++
My losing dollar position shot back into profit this week, a £600 gain as the dollar gained five cents against the euro. This was partly due to the new euro troubles -- the ECB apparently spent €13.3bn last week buying up bonds -- and partly due to the Swiss National Bank's statement today that it would spend "unlimited amounts" weakening the Swiss Franc to $1.20 (compared to $1.10 before the announcement was made). These kind of government interventions give the heavy-duty intra-day currency traders nightmares. It also means that IG Index has to make some rather unpleasant margin calls! I remember the short time that I did this in 1995 when the yen moved by just two cents as a result of a BOJ intervention. That alone was enough to cause panic among our client banking traders. God knows what it was like on the proprietary currency desks today. I just hope that Goldman Sachs was on the wrong side of it for once, although I'm not holding my breath.
++++++++++
Kevin (see post below, under "Exercise") responded to my reply to his post. He asked me not to publish it, and I will of course abide by that request. He also expressed surprise that I had published the previous post, which seemed to me to miss two fundamental points. The first is that (and this goes back 40 years to my first foray into amateur publishing) unless you say something is not for publication, it is considered "for publication". The second is that I cannot reply to a post that I don't publish.
So, in Kevin's second post, he does have the courtesy to explain his position in depth, which at least gives me something to rebut, if not refute. I'm going to try to do this in a way that does not make too much direct reference to Kevin's second post, but at times I will have to allude to it. But I do feel I need to express my point of view and the reasoning behind it. This has the potential for such a long post that I almost have to put down a table of contents. I will attempt to be logically rigorous, but at times I fear emotion will creep in, because it upset me so much. I'll attempt to explain (logically), why it upset me so much. I'll also move on to set out my stall on how I think blogging should work, and the obligations which both writer and reader bring to the party.
So, the TOC runs roughly like this:
1) The cockroach. The start of the affair. My initial reaction. Why I reacted the way I did.
2) The receptionist's reaction when I told her about the cockroach.
3) My reaction to the receptionist's reaction.
4) Kevin's initial post and why it upset me so much that I couldn't post for more than a week.
5) The anonymous poster's post and what I think of it. The reason for my reaction to it
6) Kevin's second post and some of the general points that it raises.
7) The implications of all this and my philosophy of blogging
1) The cockroach:
It was about 10.30 in the evening. I switched on the bathroom light, and I saw this insect, which looked large to me. I know that you might think this incredible, but I have never been to Sydney (passim Pete Doubleday's comment), although I have been to Vietnam and the south of Spain, to the south of France, and to other parts of the world where, by the statements of Kevin, Pete and the receptionists, I should have seen cockroaches "everywhere". And, all I can say is, I had never seen a cockroach before. It was only when I got downstairs that I figured out what it might be.
Now, you can say that I might have been lucky, that "I haven't seen the world", that I should have said "hmm, a large insect in my bathroom, oh well, it happens", but, as far as I was concerned, it was something that needed fixing. How many cockroaches are acceptable? One? Two? Ten? I really don't think, therefore, that my initial reaction (photographing said insect, taking photo down to receptionist and asking for fumigators to turn up) was unreasonable given my knowledge of the situation.
2) The receptionist's reaction.
This woman had previous. She had upset someone else booking in by going "SSSSHHH" to a couple's children (who were only being typical seven and six-year-olds) as the couple tried to book in. When I had attempted to buy a weekly unlimited internet access (widely advertised by the lobby computer) she had said "we have this one only", pointing to the pay-per-use option, in a very rude fashion.
Her response to my (very polite) enquiry was what might be described as a gallic shrug of dismissal and the words "They are everywhere". Now, WTF does THAT mean? Am I in a hotel infested with cockroaches? For that is what the statement seemed to me to imply. All that she had needed to do, and all that a professional receptionist would have done, is to have seen that, even if cockroaches were common in Cyprus I was clearly unaware of this and that I was disturbed by the presence of one in my bathroom. She could have said "I'm afraid they are quite common in Cyprus, but we can get someone up to spray your room as soon as is possible if they disturb you". Not that clearly and precisely, perhaps, but something along those lines. I'm afraid that I don't take kindly to being dismissed as an irritant when I am a paying customer. And I do not think that I am wrong in reacting this way.
3) My reaction to the receptionist's reaction.
So, in shock, I simply shook my head and muttered "it's not good".
When I got upstairs, yes, the red mist descended. I felt that the receptionist had been poor throughout, but this was too much. So, sure, I could probably have got done what I wanted by going back down and being firm but polite. I lose my temper like this very rarely, (probably twice in the past seven years) so empirically I think I can state that, when it happens, the person on the receiving end has stepped over some kind of line, has broken the rules in a way that I think means they merit such a response. Now, I admit that this does not mean that I am absolutely justified in so responding. Many, perhaps most, people would either go away and grumble about it at breakfast, or go behind the receptionist's back and complain to the manager (an act I consider reprehensible, which shows where I tend to stand on at least confronting the guilty party to their face). Some would have just lost it completely and started smashing up the place. But I got pushed around too much as a kid without standing up for myself. When the red mist descends, I feel I have been slighted and I have to stand up for myself. I'm not a sneaky behind-the-back subsequent complainer. I don't bottle it up and take it out on the wife. It explodes, and it explodes through shouting. And it does me good. I see too many people who bottle it up until eventually they walk off a bridge or beat up their wife to release their anger. I might have caused a few minutes' unpleasantness, but nobody died. Compared to the raised voices I hear in the office every day as some of our researchers attempt to obtain data from incompetent office staff (who are often actually trying to be helpful), my short-term outburst was hardly a scratch.
And it got the job done. The receptionist had been disdainful beforehand, contemptuous, even. For some people, reason doesn't work. And I felt that I had tried reason. Now, I accept that a second intermediary stage of rather stronger firmness might have been best. But I'm not making a claim to sainthood here. I lost my temper, and I think her attitude through the week was the main factor in me losing my temper.
So, as far as I was concerned, I had stood up to a bully, and I had achieved my objective. We will come back to whether this was a delusional interpretaion of reality in later parts.
4) Kevin's initial post
This went
So, I should have been thrown out of the hotel. And "cockroaches are everywhere".
As I say, I must therefore have been extremely lucky in my 55 years of life in never having seen one. Clearly the "everywhere" description is plain wrong. But here we have a man who has never met me, who decided that I was such a piece of shit that, for raising my voice I
should have been thrown out on the street.
Now, this reaction honestly came as a total shock to me. Is this how I appear to the world? I don't know, because there was only a single sentence. Putting up these posts took time and effort, time that a non-blogger (which I suspect Kevin is) can never appreciate. If you post something with which people disagree then, for sure, put forward an argument why you disagree. But, I went away and thought about it for a week or so. That was why I failed to post for the rest of the holiday. I decided that, if this was how far out of synch I was with reality, there was no point in me posting anything. I want to entertain. I don't want to annoy or upset. If I can't judge which of these I am doing, I have no right to be posting.
5) My reaction to Kevin's post
It was a week or so later I felt differently. Hold on, I thought, who is this guy to me? He's not my boss, he's not my father, he's not my judge and jury. He's quick to establish his own moral code on my posting, without revealing anythying about himself at all. Just putting the name "Kevin" means nothing (it might as well be "the masked avenger"). I don't know his age, whether he is married, whether he has kids, nothing. And all that he knows of me is my blog. Twice he has got on a moral high horse and made an all-encompassing judgement, without any CV as to why he has the right to do it. The first time round (relating to a post I made re Alex Higgins) I backed down, just to be a peacemaker. But I didn't see why I should be bullied again by someone who seems to think that only his own moral code was right, and does so in no more than one line. At least Pete Doubleday did it in a vaguely useful fashion and at least he's someone who has known me for 30 years. Why should I take such shit from someone who is basically a total stranger to me and who makes me miserable?
(This, I point out, is an attempt to recreate the emotions I felt at the time, not tjhe emotions that I feel at the moment).
This was not a reaction I felt immediately; this was a considered reaction after a week. The post I put up ("Thank you for your input. We will not be in contact again") was one of the milder ones that I felt. I did not think that my life would be any lesser if Kevin was not in it. However, if he was in it, it had the potential to be far worse, a point I shall come to in referring to Kevin's second post (which, as I say, I have not published, as he requested).
5) The anonymous poster's post and my reaction to it.
This ran as follows:
Whenever I have disagreed vehemently with a blogger, I have never been scared of saying who I am (and that goes beyond just signing with your first name). I feel that this is the minimum etiquette of response.
When someone "steps over the line" as I see it, I will respond with an equally low blow. I do not turn the other cheek, and I do not fight by Queensberry rules if my opponent is a low-kicking dog. There are those who might think that bloggers are fair game and have to take it lying down. I no more take this kind of shit from anonymous posters than I do from rude receptionists. A bully is a bully, and I will fight back.
6) Kevin's second post
Now, this is difficult, in that I've promised not to publish it. Even referring directly to the content is a bit off when someone has requested that it not be published. But I will say that I appreciate Kevin's writing at length, and I will also say that I disagree (but respectfully disagree) with many of the points he raises.
I have covered some of the points he raises, but the one with which I disagree the most is his argument that I should treat people "who earn a pittance" with a bit more respect. I have to refute this argument on two counts:
a) The level of pay someone receives makes not a jot of difference to me. I treat everyone with respect as a default. If they forgo that right, I stop treating them with respect. This woman wasn't a poverty-stricken Greek Cypriot forced into indentured slavery; she was a Russian woman who was systematically rude in a way that only Russian hotel staff can manage. She can hardly have been earning a pittance if she was willing to travel a few thousand miles to get the job.
b) As evidence, I was very friendly with the other main receptionist. I invited her and her husband out for a meal should they ever be in London (she was happy to be leaving Cyprus, and the Russians, at the end of the season).
As proof, here is Katrina's picture (although she admitted that it didn't show her at her best).
Your argument is therefore that I should use the amount someone is paid as latitude for behaving badly (else why mention the level of pay as a parameter for the level of respect?). To me this makes no sense. She behaved badly to me and I behaved badly in return. I did not say "oh, she's paid poorly (something which I suspect wasn't true) so I'll cut her some slack". I am normally very courteous to people, rich or poor, well-paid or badly paid. I only show them no respect when they have acted in such a way that causes them to lose that respect. I got on with all of the staff with just two exceptions -- one was one of the waitressing staf who I felt was very rude to her underlings (but we did not have an argument -- I was just frosty) and the other was the Russian receptionist.
I also did not feel that I had to behave like some "wealthy tourist ambassador". In other words, when I am abroad, it is not my concern that the way I behave may reflect badly on "the wealthy west" or whatever. I consider this a terribly elitist attitude. I treat people as people and I expect other people to treat me as a person, not as the representative of a class. So, no, it did not concern me that the receptionist might have gone home to her family and moaned about "the wealthy tourist".
My final point here, Kevin is, what was the point of your initial post if, as you claim, you have no agenda? It would be my contention that everyone has an agenda. But if, as you claim, you were a disinterested observer, what was the point of your post? Just to make me feel bad about myself? To get something off your chest? If its object was to make me feel rotten, then it succeeded. It was only with cold reflection that I felt that you were wrong and that, quite clearly, our attitudes to life were so different that it would be best if we parted the ways. You appear to think that I am verging on mentally ill. Well, trust me, I've been ill. I spent 20 years as an alcoholic and I was such a shit then that even now, 12 years after quitting booze, I have horrors about how I fucked up my life and give thanks that I got out of it. So I don't need anonymous posters telling me about how divorced I am from reality, because I've been through more reality than that provincial scumbag can dream of. Every day of my life remains a small struggle to retain sobriety, to keep on an even keel. Most days I succeed; some days I do not. But the point is, I made it through. I'm sure that you think you are being well-intentioned, kevin, but the fact is you know virtually nothing about the real me, and the things you say do more to set me back than annything anyone else has said in the past few years. If your comments can drive me to want a drink, because "there's no fucking point anyway", then I am far better off if you are not in my life and you are not passing moral judgement on me. You aren't helping me; you are making me ill again.
7) A philosophy of blogging
I can accept "tough love" from people I respect, and these are people I know, and people whom I know, know me. Pete Doubleday (Aardvark) can say stuff because (a) he doesn't hide behind anonymity and (b) he knows me almost better than I know myself.
I blog because I have something to say. But anonymous readers who find some of the stuff useful have no ownership of the content. If you think you know me just from what I put in the blog -- which is, as everyone who knows me, knows, often a mater of grumpy old man self-parody -- then you are wrong. You do not know me at all. You know my name, and that's as far as the relationship goes. If you want to judge, then have the decency to show your own glass house, your own frailties, and ask yourself "do I really have no agenda"? And, please, let me continue with my own recovery, one day at a time, in my own way.
May your god go with you. Because my life was one long fuck-up for 43 years, and I'm damned if I'm going to let people fuck it up again. I stand alone.
The end.
____________
TinyPic has become a bit of a pain on LJ. I'm attempting to use Photobucket for the first time. Photobucket actually owns TinyPic, and I forgot that I already had an account (used when I was in Vietnam, where TinyPic is blocked). Miraculously, a random username and password selection worked (email address plus a password that I used quite often for non-relevant stuff in 2007).
The lavender that Jan gave me in February 2009 (an easy date to remember). Since then it has grown a bit unruly and I may have to put it somewhere else soon -- possibly the front garden, possibly at my mum's (I know that she has always coveted it). I want to create some space out back for a table and a couple of chairs, not that I'll ever need more than one chair, given the complete fucking alienated and lonely life I lead. Any woman who might be interested probably looks me up on the web and promptly runs a mile. And I can't say I blame them. I'm a fucking mess.
Two of this year's tomato plants, coming to the end of their life. Throwing these out at the end of the month will also free up some space.
A detail of the sunshine tomatoes -- probably the best of the the three varieties that I grew this year.
Not sure what this plant will turn out to be! One of the plants that I grew from seed. Clearly it won't flower this year, but it might do so next summer.
This rose bush was only about 12 inches high in May. It's flowered really well this year, and the early ones had a fantastic blood-red and yellow colour.
I thought that I cut this plant back too far in May, but it sprouted back with a vengeance.
And, finally, the bamboo! I let this grow too high, and the trough, heavy though it was, blew over. Luckily I kept it some distance from the edge, so it didn't fall into the tenants' garden below. I learnt my lesson and I have cut it back vigorously since then. It offers a good protection from the roof garden next door.
Speaking of which, the couple living there appear to have sold their flat. Not sure if they got the £235k asking price (I doubt it), but even if they accepted £215k, that would mean that my flat downstairs is probably worth not much less than I paid for it, given their relative sizes and the added bonuses of a real garden and a cellar for my flat downstairs.
Perhaps now might be the time to formalize my own roof garden, putting up some railings and proper floor tiling. But I don't feel like spending the money. Maybe a quick entry into the WCOOP. :-)
++++++++++
My losing dollar position shot back into profit this week, a £600 gain as the dollar gained five cents against the euro. This was partly due to the new euro troubles -- the ECB apparently spent €13.3bn last week buying up bonds -- and partly due to the Swiss National Bank's statement today that it would spend "unlimited amounts" weakening the Swiss Franc to $1.20 (compared to $1.10 before the announcement was made). These kind of government interventions give the heavy-duty intra-day currency traders nightmares. It also means that IG Index has to make some rather unpleasant margin calls! I remember the short time that I did this in 1995 when the yen moved by just two cents as a result of a BOJ intervention. That alone was enough to cause panic among our client banking traders. God knows what it was like on the proprietary currency desks today. I just hope that Goldman Sachs was on the wrong side of it for once, although I'm not holding my breath.
++++++++++
Kevin (see post below, under "Exercise") responded to my reply to his post. He asked me not to publish it, and I will of course abide by that request. He also expressed surprise that I had published the previous post, which seemed to me to miss two fundamental points. The first is that (and this goes back 40 years to my first foray into amateur publishing) unless you say something is not for publication, it is considered "for publication". The second is that I cannot reply to a post that I don't publish.
So, in Kevin's second post, he does have the courtesy to explain his position in depth, which at least gives me something to rebut, if not refute. I'm going to try to do this in a way that does not make too much direct reference to Kevin's second post, but at times I will have to allude to it. But I do feel I need to express my point of view and the reasoning behind it. This has the potential for such a long post that I almost have to put down a table of contents. I will attempt to be logically rigorous, but at times I fear emotion will creep in, because it upset me so much. I'll attempt to explain (logically), why it upset me so much. I'll also move on to set out my stall on how I think blogging should work, and the obligations which both writer and reader bring to the party.
So, the TOC runs roughly like this:
1) The cockroach. The start of the affair. My initial reaction. Why I reacted the way I did.
2) The receptionist's reaction when I told her about the cockroach.
3) My reaction to the receptionist's reaction.
4) Kevin's initial post and why it upset me so much that I couldn't post for more than a week.
5) The anonymous poster's post and what I think of it. The reason for my reaction to it
6) Kevin's second post and some of the general points that it raises.
7) The implications of all this and my philosophy of blogging
1) The cockroach:
It was about 10.30 in the evening. I switched on the bathroom light, and I saw this insect, which looked large to me. I know that you might think this incredible, but I have never been to Sydney (passim Pete Doubleday's comment), although I have been to Vietnam and the south of Spain, to the south of France, and to other parts of the world where, by the statements of Kevin, Pete and the receptionists, I should have seen cockroaches "everywhere". And, all I can say is, I had never seen a cockroach before. It was only when I got downstairs that I figured out what it might be.
Now, you can say that I might have been lucky, that "I haven't seen the world", that I should have said "hmm, a large insect in my bathroom, oh well, it happens", but, as far as I was concerned, it was something that needed fixing. How many cockroaches are acceptable? One? Two? Ten? I really don't think, therefore, that my initial reaction (photographing said insect, taking photo down to receptionist and asking for fumigators to turn up) was unreasonable given my knowledge of the situation.
2) The receptionist's reaction.
This woman had previous. She had upset someone else booking in by going "SSSSHHH" to a couple's children (who were only being typical seven and six-year-olds) as the couple tried to book in. When I had attempted to buy a weekly unlimited internet access (widely advertised by the lobby computer) she had said "we have this one only", pointing to the pay-per-use option, in a very rude fashion.
Her response to my (very polite) enquiry was what might be described as a gallic shrug of dismissal and the words "They are everywhere". Now, WTF does THAT mean? Am I in a hotel infested with cockroaches? For that is what the statement seemed to me to imply. All that she had needed to do, and all that a professional receptionist would have done, is to have seen that, even if cockroaches were common in Cyprus I was clearly unaware of this and that I was disturbed by the presence of one in my bathroom. She could have said "I'm afraid they are quite common in Cyprus, but we can get someone up to spray your room as soon as is possible if they disturb you". Not that clearly and precisely, perhaps, but something along those lines. I'm afraid that I don't take kindly to being dismissed as an irritant when I am a paying customer. And I do not think that I am wrong in reacting this way.
3) My reaction to the receptionist's reaction.
So, in shock, I simply shook my head and muttered "it's not good".
When I got upstairs, yes, the red mist descended. I felt that the receptionist had been poor throughout, but this was too much. So, sure, I could probably have got done what I wanted by going back down and being firm but polite. I lose my temper like this very rarely, (probably twice in the past seven years) so empirically I think I can state that, when it happens, the person on the receiving end has stepped over some kind of line, has broken the rules in a way that I think means they merit such a response. Now, I admit that this does not mean that I am absolutely justified in so responding. Many, perhaps most, people would either go away and grumble about it at breakfast, or go behind the receptionist's back and complain to the manager (an act I consider reprehensible, which shows where I tend to stand on at least confronting the guilty party to their face). Some would have just lost it completely and started smashing up the place. But I got pushed around too much as a kid without standing up for myself. When the red mist descends, I feel I have been slighted and I have to stand up for myself. I'm not a sneaky behind-the-back subsequent complainer. I don't bottle it up and take it out on the wife. It explodes, and it explodes through shouting. And it does me good. I see too many people who bottle it up until eventually they walk off a bridge or beat up their wife to release their anger. I might have caused a few minutes' unpleasantness, but nobody died. Compared to the raised voices I hear in the office every day as some of our researchers attempt to obtain data from incompetent office staff (who are often actually trying to be helpful), my short-term outburst was hardly a scratch.
And it got the job done. The receptionist had been disdainful beforehand, contemptuous, even. For some people, reason doesn't work. And I felt that I had tried reason. Now, I accept that a second intermediary stage of rather stronger firmness might have been best. But I'm not making a claim to sainthood here. I lost my temper, and I think her attitude through the week was the main factor in me losing my temper.
So, as far as I was concerned, I had stood up to a bully, and I had achieved my objective. We will come back to whether this was a delusional interpretaion of reality in later parts.
4) Kevin's initial post
This went
"I think you should have been ejected from the hotel for shouting at the poor receptionist like that. Cockroaches are everywhere. Calm down.
Kevin
So, I should have been thrown out of the hotel. And "cockroaches are everywhere".
As I say, I must therefore have been extremely lucky in my 55 years of life in never having seen one. Clearly the "everywhere" description is plain wrong. But here we have a man who has never met me, who decided that I was such a piece of shit that, for raising my voice I
should have been thrown out on the street.
Now, this reaction honestly came as a total shock to me. Is this how I appear to the world? I don't know, because there was only a single sentence. Putting up these posts took time and effort, time that a non-blogger (which I suspect Kevin is) can never appreciate. If you post something with which people disagree then, for sure, put forward an argument why you disagree. But, I went away and thought about it for a week or so. That was why I failed to post for the rest of the holiday. I decided that, if this was how far out of synch I was with reality, there was no point in me posting anything. I want to entertain. I don't want to annoy or upset. If I can't judge which of these I am doing, I have no right to be posting.
5) My reaction to Kevin's post
It was a week or so later I felt differently. Hold on, I thought, who is this guy to me? He's not my boss, he's not my father, he's not my judge and jury. He's quick to establish his own moral code on my posting, without revealing anythying about himself at all. Just putting the name "Kevin" means nothing (it might as well be "the masked avenger"). I don't know his age, whether he is married, whether he has kids, nothing. And all that he knows of me is my blog. Twice he has got on a moral high horse and made an all-encompassing judgement, without any CV as to why he has the right to do it. The first time round (relating to a post I made re Alex Higgins) I backed down, just to be a peacemaker. But I didn't see why I should be bullied again by someone who seems to think that only his own moral code was right, and does so in no more than one line. At least Pete Doubleday did it in a vaguely useful fashion and at least he's someone who has known me for 30 years. Why should I take such shit from someone who is basically a total stranger to me and who makes me miserable?
(This, I point out, is an attempt to recreate the emotions I felt at the time, not tjhe emotions that I feel at the moment).
This was not a reaction I felt immediately; this was a considered reaction after a week. The post I put up ("Thank you for your input. We will not be in contact again") was one of the milder ones that I felt. I did not think that my life would be any lesser if Kevin was not in it. However, if he was in it, it had the potential to be far worse, a point I shall come to in referring to Kevin's second post (which, as I say, I have not published, as he requested).
5) The anonymous poster's post and my reaction to it.
This ran as follows:
Took the words right out of my mouth..
If it isn't people rubbing off him on public transport, it's tiny little insects.
Some people are so divorced from reality, it's ridiculous.
Whenever I have disagreed vehemently with a blogger, I have never been scared of saying who I am (and that goes beyond just signing with your first name). I feel that this is the minimum etiquette of response.
When someone "steps over the line" as I see it, I will respond with an equally low blow. I do not turn the other cheek, and I do not fight by Queensberry rules if my opponent is a low-kicking dog. There are those who might think that bloggers are fair game and have to take it lying down. I no more take this kind of shit from anonymous posters than I do from rude receptionists. A bully is a bully, and I will fight back.
6) Kevin's second post
Now, this is difficult, in that I've promised not to publish it. Even referring directly to the content is a bit off when someone has requested that it not be published. But I will say that I appreciate Kevin's writing at length, and I will also say that I disagree (but respectfully disagree) with many of the points he raises.
I have covered some of the points he raises, but the one with which I disagree the most is his argument that I should treat people "who earn a pittance" with a bit more respect. I have to refute this argument on two counts:
a) The level of pay someone receives makes not a jot of difference to me. I treat everyone with respect as a default. If they forgo that right, I stop treating them with respect. This woman wasn't a poverty-stricken Greek Cypriot forced into indentured slavery; she was a Russian woman who was systematically rude in a way that only Russian hotel staff can manage. She can hardly have been earning a pittance if she was willing to travel a few thousand miles to get the job.
b) As evidence, I was very friendly with the other main receptionist. I invited her and her husband out for a meal should they ever be in London (she was happy to be leaving Cyprus, and the Russians, at the end of the season).
As proof, here is Katrina's picture (although she admitted that it didn't show her at her best).
Your argument is therefore that I should use the amount someone is paid as latitude for behaving badly (else why mention the level of pay as a parameter for the level of respect?). To me this makes no sense. She behaved badly to me and I behaved badly in return. I did not say "oh, she's paid poorly (something which I suspect wasn't true) so I'll cut her some slack". I am normally very courteous to people, rich or poor, well-paid or badly paid. I only show them no respect when they have acted in such a way that causes them to lose that respect. I got on with all of the staff with just two exceptions -- one was one of the waitressing staf who I felt was very rude to her underlings (but we did not have an argument -- I was just frosty) and the other was the Russian receptionist.
I also did not feel that I had to behave like some "wealthy tourist ambassador". In other words, when I am abroad, it is not my concern that the way I behave may reflect badly on "the wealthy west" or whatever. I consider this a terribly elitist attitude. I treat people as people and I expect other people to treat me as a person, not as the representative of a class. So, no, it did not concern me that the receptionist might have gone home to her family and moaned about "the wealthy tourist".
My final point here, Kevin is, what was the point of your initial post if, as you claim, you have no agenda? It would be my contention that everyone has an agenda. But if, as you claim, you were a disinterested observer, what was the point of your post? Just to make me feel bad about myself? To get something off your chest? If its object was to make me feel rotten, then it succeeded. It was only with cold reflection that I felt that you were wrong and that, quite clearly, our attitudes to life were so different that it would be best if we parted the ways. You appear to think that I am verging on mentally ill. Well, trust me, I've been ill. I spent 20 years as an alcoholic and I was such a shit then that even now, 12 years after quitting booze, I have horrors about how I fucked up my life and give thanks that I got out of it. So I don't need anonymous posters telling me about how divorced I am from reality, because I've been through more reality than that provincial scumbag can dream of. Every day of my life remains a small struggle to retain sobriety, to keep on an even keel. Most days I succeed; some days I do not. But the point is, I made it through. I'm sure that you think you are being well-intentioned, kevin, but the fact is you know virtually nothing about the real me, and the things you say do more to set me back than annything anyone else has said in the past few years. If your comments can drive me to want a drink, because "there's no fucking point anyway", then I am far better off if you are not in my life and you are not passing moral judgement on me. You aren't helping me; you are making me ill again.
7) A philosophy of blogging
I can accept "tough love" from people I respect, and these are people I know, and people whom I know, know me. Pete Doubleday (Aardvark) can say stuff because (a) he doesn't hide behind anonymity and (b) he knows me almost better than I know myself.
I blog because I have something to say. But anonymous readers who find some of the stuff useful have no ownership of the content. If you think you know me just from what I put in the blog -- which is, as everyone who knows me, knows, often a mater of grumpy old man self-parody -- then you are wrong. You do not know me at all. You know my name, and that's as far as the relationship goes. If you want to judge, then have the decency to show your own glass house, your own frailties, and ask yourself "do I really have no agenda"? And, please, let me continue with my own recovery, one day at a time, in my own way.
May your god go with you. Because my life was one long fuck-up for 43 years, and I'm damned if I'm going to let people fuck it up again. I stand alone.
The end.
____________
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-09-06 08:18 pm (UTC)I too allow anonymous whackjobs to get me bent completely out of proportion, and I get them fairly frequently (so as you can imagine I allow the imaginary voices on the internet too much control over my emotional state of mind).
I must say since I started screening anonymous responses matters have improved somewhat. I do recommend that as a course of action. It doesn't get rid of the wankers completely but it does increase the burden of action on them before they can wind you up.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-06 08:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-06 08:42 pm (UTC)And yes, as you say, it's easy to assume that one's enjoyment and approval passes to the writer by some form of invisible osmosis!
PJ
no subject
Date: 2011-09-06 08:43 pm (UTC)PJ
no subject
Date: 2011-09-06 09:15 pm (UTC)Heh! Ain't it the truth... It's like the difference between satisfied and dissatisfied customers, and how many other people they tell, isn't it?
Pete, just in case it's not obvious, please know that in the absence of any specific comments or rebuttals, you can assume that my default response to any posting of yours is "Good work!" (-:
Up against the wall
Date: 2011-09-06 09:35 pm (UTC)Keith S
Re: Up against the wall
Date: 2011-09-06 09:41 pm (UTC)Doubt that Mountain Goats will be back anytime soon, given that this was their second concert here within six months. But I'll keep my eyes open.
Thanks for the kind words.
PJ
Labels, dear boy, labels
Date: 2011-09-06 10:33 pm (UTC)As a mate (and mediator) I would comment that when I read your blog of "The Cockroach & The Receptionist" saga I did think being assertive was the answer rather than shouting. Why ? Because its so easy to get yourself on the wrong side of the issue if you do lose control and shout. If for instance the Manager had appeared at that moment he/she would have almost certainly backed the receptionist, whereas if you were being firm and determined they would be much more prepared to hear you out. The same applies to other witnesses. I realise its easy for me to say that but I'm not being judgemental.
I would also say that in this day and age just as you need to be wary of the attentions of the unscrupulous towards your property in crowded places etc I think you need to ensure you dont give the less tolerant in society an excuse to have a pop at you. There are guys out there who would look to use that situation to pick a fight. In the last couple of years I've seen instances ranging from John Lewis electronics department to the East Terrace at The Oval last Sunday where the younger "out for a bit of aggro" type would be looking for the merest reason to have a go.
Anyway, old friend, get back on the horse and keep blogging - and going to the gym. You've got a lot of supporters out there and the vast majority (like bryangb said) are (silently) shouting "good work" and remembering lots of high points too over the last 35 + years. I would certainly buy two if not three chairs.
PS thanks for the note about Jared Diamond. His work & name came up on Uni Chall this week !!! Love you Richard
Glad you're back.
Date: 2011-09-06 11:22 pm (UTC)Ross McConnach
Counting My Outs: A lucky introduction.
Date: 2011-09-07 12:49 am (UTC)I have thoroughly enjoyed your blog since and fully echo the comments of other posters regarding "the silent readers"
It is rare to find something so consistently well written and thought out.
Ben
Liverpool
Re: Glad you're back.
Date: 2011-09-07 06:00 am (UTC)PJ
Re: Counting My Outs: A lucky introduction.
Date: 2011-09-07 06:01 am (UTC)You have commented a few times in the past and I have always felt your responses to be constructive and helpful in pointing me in the right direction for future posts. Thanks for the kind words. They are much appreciated.
PJ
The Doctor Is In
Date: 2011-09-07 08:59 am (UTC)I've holidayed twice in Cyprus, probably 7 or 8 times in other parts of the Med and Jamaica and I have never seen cockroaches in a hotel room, even in some pretty low-rent accommodation. Mosquitos a-plenty (which are unavoidable) and ants (which I complained about). It was clearly something that needed addressing and your receptionist was wrong on two levels. It is an issue that I think most Westerners would regard as unacceptable and they are selling their rooms to Westerners in general. But on a second level, you're a guest and if you wander downstairs with something that may seem piffling (one of the taps is dripping slowly, say), then you're still the guest and they should treat your whims with respect because you're paying. Customer service and all that.
In the same situation I'd be eating a cold dish of revenge, utilising my blog and writing to the manager of the hotel group to 'explain your concerns' in measured tones. I'd also be all over Tripadvisor giving the full story. If you got some bollocks back with an apology and guff about issues marked for training then I'd be content. You don't want offers of future free accommodation - the anger that you feel and manifested is not about the situation in which you found yourself but about not being heard. To play amateur shrink, you're someone who wants and needs to be heard (no-one else from within zine publishing can have written quite so much), so it pains you when this breaks down. That and you're inclined to being a stroppy bugger.
Re: Kevin - I've thought when Kevin has contributed before that this was young Mr Warne. But then since he doesn't have a good handle on the idea of submitting comments and responding to them, I assume he comes from some other angle. Strikes me that he and your anonymous contributor were being thoughtlessly provocative (they'd had a bad day) and that's how I'd have put them down or they were just trolling (in which case I'd have ignored them. As your psychiatrist, I'd say that you had a phase of lack-of-confidence and that normally you'd have shaken your head and swatted them appropriately. There are some times when the demons in the head that keep saying "you're shit" just talk a bit louder and you need the external reassurance of people saying "you're alright".
You're alright. And they did shift the roach.
COCKROACHES
Date: 2011-09-07 01:06 pm (UTC)I have followed your writings - in GH and now on the Interweb thingie - for a good long time now. Parenthetically, that good long time dates back to a games convention at the Rex Hotel in Whitley Bay more than half a lifetime ago.
In all that time, I have always found your writings informed and insightful. Under no circumstance cease to publish. We - your readers - need the intellectual input.
As to cockroaches, there are indeed many parts of the world where they are endemic. Cities in warmer parts of the world (in my limited experience, New York is the worst) are plagued with them. Controlling them requires literally - and repeatedly - hosing hotel rooms down with pretty-damn-scary chemicals.
I am surprised that you had never seen them in Las Vegas. On both occasions that I have been there, cockroaches have certainly been in evidence.
Like you, I am not keen on them. I am not sure, though, how rational that dislike is. I contrast my own reaction to encountering them in a hotel room (something approaching disgust) with that when finding, say, a small gecko in a rented villa in Spain (which is closer to "oh, how charming").
The receptionist was in the wrong.
To attempt to excuse the problem with "they are everywhere" is no more acceptable than saying the same of a rat infestation. And rats really ARE everywhere - in cool climes as well as hot.
You were in the right.
It is true that losing your temper does risk ceding some of the moral high ground in such circumstances, but if you have been faced with an inadequate response when trying the alternative approach, then none should condemn you for so doing.
The customer is always right.
Cheers
John
P.S. See you at Midcon?
Re: The Doctor Is In
Date: 2011-09-07 01:33 pm (UTC)I'm sure that part of the cause of my heated reaction was the sheer unexpectedness of her response. If I know how something is going to pan out, I can have the "escalate to polite but firm" stage two in my head. But her curt dismissal literally threw me. In poker terms it would be as if your opponent did something so completely unexpected that it didn't figure anywhere in your game plan of how the hand might develop.
Funny you should say that you thought it was Mr Warne, because when he posted the put-down of me over Alex Higgins, I initially thought it was Kevin O'Leary. I'm pleased to say that Mr O'Leary quickly disabused me of this notion.
PJ
Re: COCKROACHES
Date: 2011-09-07 01:37 pm (UTC)To be frank, if I were accustomed to them, I don't think that they would bother me. It was the shock more than anything.
I was going to raise your rat analogy. London had an infestation of mice last summer, but if I were trying to sell my house and one wandered across the kitchen in front of a potential buyer, I wouldn't just say "yes, they are everywhere this summer".
Unlikely for MidCon, but you never know. The games hold little appeal these days, although if the right people were going, it might be good for a meal or two.
PJ
Re: ANOTHER NOTE FROM KEVIN
Date: 2011-09-07 05:27 pm (UTC)I'm happy to accept that apology, that Kevin didn't know that what he said whould have such an impact, and also to accept that, as Geoff says below, perhaps if I'd been in a different mood I wouldn't have reacted so strongly.
As such, I'm happy to put this matter behind us, and I hope that he is too.
Once again, many thanks for the kind words from everyone. It's always encouraging tho know that you are not writing for the void.
Pete x
no subject
Date: 2011-09-08 07:44 pm (UTC)Although posting here very rarely, I do read regularly.
We should have dinner sometime, it's been far too long.
Iain
no subject
Date: 2011-09-09 09:47 am (UTC)Yes, dinner soon. Thursday to Saturday night best for me for obvious reasons. I'm working in Farringdon Road now.
Pete
no subject
Date: 2011-09-11 05:30 pm (UTC)A Thursday night would work for me; I'm down the Wharf these days. Feel free to call me out on the blog if I don't offer you a date soon.
Iain
Abercrombie et Fitch Pas Cher Soldes 70% UNDERNEATH TYPICALLY
Date: 2011-10-06 07:44 am (UTC)