This bottle of Burgundy red was well worth waiting for.

Last night my girlfriend and I did something we’ve wanted to do for ages. Drive a stolen Ferrari around the Yorkshire Dales at high speed? Go to the finest restaurant in town and buy the most expensive food and wolf the lot down? Walk around the local village counting the number of people who watch TV with the lights off? Get drunk and then go clubbing? No, it was far more mundane than that.

Occam’s razor states that the simplest course of action is always the right one, and I’ve borrowed it to mean that the simplest pleasures are always the best (still waters run deep, etc.). In fact my girlfriend and I spent the evening apart, in our own houses, doing our own things. And it was fan-tastic. It turns out that we all need our own space from time to time and neither of us has really had space lately. The problem is that we both live in small, one-bedroom houses and with my brother living in mine then I’m a visitor there and a visitor at my girlfriends (which isn’t really large enough for two). So I get no time to myself - everybody else gets stuck with me. She gets a bit of time when I’m at mine but that is only temporary until I come around. It’s been a tough two months.

But my brother’s decided to have a “holiday” from my excessive nagging leaving me and my good lady to be able to live on our own again. And it’s wonderful. Just being able to sit in my house, do nothing, nobody’s there but me, and just relax is great. I guess I never realised how much I needed my space until I didn’t have it and then got it back again.

So I came home, put some washing on, spent about an hour doing some cleaning (I will never understand how showers get so dirty - I mean you clean yourself in one and wash all the dirt away…), then sat down and started to unwind. I cracked open one of the bottles of expensive red wine that I brought back from Burgundy and started on that. My girlfriend dropped by for a glass and then went home to some pottering around of her own. I had some food and sat down to watch my namesake (different spelling) in Terminator 2 and loved every minute of it of the solace. I can’t stress that enough.

I’m not saying my girlfriend and I want to live as hermits, but I will say that it’s nice to have some space and time to yourself now and then. The thing you never understand until you actually live on your own (it’s not the same if you flat-share and they’re out for the night) is how wonderful it is to have your own place. It’s a home and a refuge. As for tonight, maybe we’ll go down the Ferrari route this time…

I admit it. I’m not perfect. And last night I proved it with a short but undeniable act of selfishness. I’m not sure what prompted me to do it (although I suspect it’s the devil inside me) but it was funny all the same. Okay, here’s what happened.

Myself, my girlfriend and my brother decided to go and see the new James Bond film (more on that later). I needed to go via a cash machine to get some money to pay to get into the cinema (as you do). I drove along the high-street in my little village and there’s a cash machine on the left hand side. Normally I drive to a junction at the end of the street, turn around and park with all the other cars on the opposite side from the machine. But this time I decided, for no particular reason, to just park on the double-yellow lines in front of the machine. That meant that only one lane was negotiable by cars so people on one side would have to queue. No problem I thought. It’s a quiet road, there’s almost never any traffic, and I’ll only be a minute anyway.

As soon as I stepped out of the car a line of traffic appeared in both directions, one queue building up behind my car. When the people eventually had a clear road and could pass (after perhaps 30 seconds of waiting) one of the guys tooted his horn. Then another and another. One even shouted “get a license while you’re at it!”, which I would normally have returned with “fuck you” (people are really tough inside a car but few people will have a go with a 6′1″ shaven headed monster when it comes down to it - a fact I rely upon) but I found the comment quite funny and laughed instead.

So, a total of about 90 seconds has elapsed and I’ve got the money in my wallet and sprint back to the car. Another guy toots his horn and stares at me as he passes. I naturally respond with a bit of “bring it on” body language. I get back into the car and my brother is laughing and my girlfriend is trying to hide herself away in the back seat, clearly embarrassed by my thoughtless actions. And guess what. There was no traffic again. Not a thing, just as it was when I stepped out of the car.

We drove off and went to see the Bond film, which was great by the way. I was expecting a lot of product placement and it to be terrible (the Times gave it one star) but I really enjoyed it. While I preferred it when Bond wore a Rolex Submariner to an Omega Seamaster, I still thought it was class. You know what you’re going to get with a Bond film and I’d honestly say that it’s the best of the modern films.

So, if you were one of the people who got stuck behind my blue Citroen Saxo Vtr last night, I apologise. It was a moment of madness and quite out of character. However, you really need to calm down. Being stuck behind a selfish driver’s car for 30 seconds shouldn’t result in you losing your cool and getting tense. I’m not happy about people who can’t stay calm under pressure being behind the wheel of a vehicle that can move at 100mph and cause a lot of damage. Okay?

A cat’s response is always fight. But that’s because they’re playful predators.

One of the things I used to wonder about when I was younger was how I’d react to a fight situation. I did a bit of boxing and karate as a youngster so I theoretically knew how to handle myself. But what about the real thing? If a couple of tough guys started making trouble what would I do? Would I just stand there and freeze? Turn and run away like Carl Lewis? Or stand my ground and make mincemeat out of these punks like Chuck Norris? It was a pointless thing to think about but people’s reaction to unexpected events is an interesting one. (For the record, when I got older I learned that the best approach is to run away rather than give a Bruce Lee style beating to somebody).

The answer is that you don’t know how you’ll react to a given situation until you encounter it. The exception is if you have training, such as military, that conditions you to stay alert in such situations and not “stick to the program”. It turns out that most people freeze and resort to the fright response. It all comes down to the fact that most people follow scripts in their lives. This can be clearly illustrated by an example.

A few years ago in the US, a large fire broke out in a shopping mall. Quite a lot of people died, but investigators couldn’t understand why. There were plenty of fire exits and plenty of warnings before the fire raged out of control. Further study showed why so many died needlessly. A large concentration of the bodies were found in a restaurant. When the fire had spread the staff ran, but a number of customers stayed and continued to stay while the flames licked around them. Get this: they were waiting to pay for their food. It’s all about scripts.

When you walk into a coffee shop you expect to get a table, have an order taken, drink your tall cafe latte, pay the bill and walk out. You assume that everybody else will follow the script and you don’t give it a second thought. In fact a great deal of social interactions like that are learned and then subsequently followed to the letter. But when somebody changes the script or you encounter something completely unexpected, quite often people’s brains just switch off and a vacant look glazes over their eyes.

Douglas Adams (author of “The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy”) once mentioned a SEP field. It was a way of hiding something from people by making it “Somebody Else’s Problem”. The example was the appearance of a large spaceship at a cricket match, which nobody noticed because it was painted bright pink. The idea of a pink spaceship landing at a cricket match was so preposterous that nobody would believe it and therefore nobody saw it. In a sci-fi kind of way, that’s exactly what happens in real life.

Just a few miles from my house a man was beaten to death on a busy road in the early evening a year or so ago. The fight will have been witnessed by perhaps 100 people driving past. But did anybody stop? No. Street muggings happen all the time and people don’t intervene. Maybe it’s self preservation, not wanting to be one of those have-a-go-heroes that end up dead. I can accept that, if five shaven headed muscle-bound monsters are beating up somebody I wouldn’t expect someone to step in, roll up their sleeves and go to work on them. That’s suicide. But unnecessary inaction happens on a much lower level than fights and muggings.

For instance, when I was in an Amsterdam nightclub, one of the guys collapsed down the stairs. Myself and two others sprang to our feet to assist (one was in such a state that he needed to sit down himself) but not everybody reacted. No disrespect to them, but that’s what most people do, and it’s a human condition. I remember one time in Dundee seeing a guy wandering around, clearly disoriented and with a large gash on his head that had been bleeding profusely. But he might as well have been wearing Harry Potter’s cloak of invisibility. People were just turning a blind eye and pretending not to notice. Road traffic accidents are the same, most people will just drive on by, slow down to have a good look, and assume the somebody else will call the police or try to help. Hey, maybe it’s a fear of getting involved in an unsavoury circumstance.

Well, I just want to say for the record that I do react. And I don’t freeze. Maybe it was having a father in the army or climbing in the dangerous mountains of Scotland, but I’ve been quite pleased to see how I react to unexpected situations. I’m lucky in that I stay calm under stressful situations and manage to think rationally, which has come in handy a few times. And I’ll tell you one thing, if I’m in a restaurant and it’s burning down, I’ll not be looking around for a waiter to pay the bill, I’ll be getting the hell out of dodge.

I’ve just been to see the latest Harry Potter movie and thought it was excellent. All the fun, action and adventure of the first one carried on in the second and I’d see it again. It’s strange though, because the whole Harry Potter phenomenon nearly passed me by.

The first I heard of him was when I found out that my girlfriend was reading the books. I thought it was ridiculous as they were children’s novels and she’s an adult. I then saw on the news that she wasn’t alone. Parents all over the country (and later the world) were reading the stories to their children and then continuing to read the stories themselves after the kids had fallen asleep. J.K. Rowling was earning millions and everybody was snapping up her latest work. Being a well-educated adult I’d never dream of reading a children’s novel so I stuck to Tom Clancy and Brett Easton Ellis. But when the first Potter film came out I went to see it and loved it.

The storylines are nothing that children’s novels like “A wizard of Earthsea” by Ursula Le Guin haven’t done before. There’s nothing clever about the characters and the plots are simple, like all children’s novels and Star Wars films are. But the appeal to both adults and children is quite something. Children love to use their imagination and the Potter books allow them to explore that imagination (I certainly used to when I was a kid). Adults love the books because they transport them back to their childhood days when they had such wonder for the world and dreams of wizardry, spells and adventure. Everyone’s a winner.

So I went to see the first film when it came out and I loved it. I also saw the “Lord of the Rings” film at about the same time which I found extremely disappointing. Don’t get me wrong, it was a great rendition of the book, but as a film I didn’t feel it stood up well on it’s own. Films are always somewhat different to books and that’s mainly because the narrative in books cannot always be directly converted into a visual format. So filmmakers need to change things around and pad things out a bit so that they make more sense to the viewer. This didn’t happen in “Lord of the Rings”, it was a very accurate representation of the book. Unfortunately some of the subtleties of the book, for example the background of the characters, didn’t translate well onto the big screen and I found myself really struggling to care about the players. I also found the story incredibly slow and tedious. I’ve seen a lot of films over the years and I’ve never found myself in such a state of disagreement with most people, who happen to think it was great.

Still, at least we agree about one thing. Harry Potter Rules!

You won’t catch me doing this in a ballot box.

I remember the first time I was eligible to vote. I believe it was for the 1992 UK General Election. It felt great. I knew all about the generations that dedicated their lives to ensuring that everybody has a free vote and it would have been an insult to their struggles if I didn’t exercise that right. So I voted. And that was the last time I did. Begin rant…

You see, since that time I’ve lost all faith in politics in the UK. Britain as a whole is a pretty small country in the world scheme of things, except that it has a great deal of self-importance. Whenever I travel to other countries I almost never see a mention of Britain on the news. But when I come back I realise why. The news here is filled with tabloid stories like “Diana’s former butler in gay marriage claim” and “celebrity drugs and sex shame”. The only other thing that seems to get reported is political bickering and sleaze. It’s pathetic.

Okay, so I’m exaggerating and perhaps ranting again. But what I’m illustrating is the state of mind I have when I think about voting. I just don’t have any faith that if I vote for any party that life in this country will improve in any way. I’m not bothered about myself, I earn plenty money and have a pretty damn good quality of life. If I have to pay a bit more tax to see our health service improve, or improvements in education, then I’m not going to complain. But it doesn’t work that way.

In the years since I was eligible to vote I’ve seen no improvement to this country, all I’ve seen is degradation. When you come back from America or France or any other civilised country you really notice what a dilapidated place this is. The roads are clogged, in very poor condition, the health service sucks (don’t get me on that one, it gets personal), crime is on the increase (it is you know) and the summers are rubbish. Okay, they can’t do anything about the weather, but the government should do something about the rest. When the Labour party replaced the Conservatives nothing changed. There was a real sense of optimism after a single party had been in power so long. But that optimism turned to apathy with me soon after.

I guess my problem is with politicians. The trouble is that they’re human. I’m sure that many of them do what they do because they passionately believe in making the world a better place. They seek a position of power so that they can try to make a difference. But sadly a great many of them are not there for that reason at all. It’s all about personal power. Spin. Never answering the question asked but instead putting a political point across that may be related, it may not. Seeming to say and do the right thing rather than doing the right thing. About staying in power at all costs once in power. It’s not noble. And as the old adage goes “all power corrupts but absolute power corrupts absolutely”.

There is a great deal of research done when an election is upcoming to determine the cause of voter apathy. For example, more people voted on the series Big Brother than voted for the Labour party at the last election. Well, the reason for my apathy is simple. I have no faith in politicians making anything better. No matter who is in power I just don’t believe anything will change. To me political parties in Britain are all the same. They’re stocked with the same people. They talk the same rhetoric. And they achieve the same results. Very little.

All views expressed above represent those of the author. Okay?

He was one of those teachers that you knew by reputation long before you actually saw him. Some kids nicknamed him “lines” because he had a fondness for the phrase “50 lines” as punishment for anything he deemed fit. He was an old-school teacher. He didn’t follow the modern rules new teachers learned in teacher training college. He did things his way and nobody, not even other teachers, would dare argue he did otherwise.

I’ll never forget my first contact with him. I was in second year (aged about 13) and our history teacher was off sick. So he filled in for the one hour lesson. And so it was that I met Mr. Tom Casey, one of the guys who made me the man I am today. He was perhaps in his early 60’s. Tall and slim. Grey, receded hair. Half moon glasses and a thin, hard face that would scare any school child (or teacher) into doing anything he said. I later discovered that he was an ex-SAS officer back in the days when “they didn’t officially exist” and he controlled a classroom the way an army instructor controls raw recruits.

He would pace around the room, making sure everybody kept looking straight ahead, and he’d ask a question. You were just sitting there praying that he wouldn’t tap you on the shoulder and expect you to answer. But quite often you would and you’d better be damn sure you gave the correct answer. I don’t really remember that first lesson because we were all in such a high state of alertness and concentration that nothing entered our heads except the sound of his voice.

You could easily tell the people in his class because they’d be the ones sprinting to get to him as quickly as possible. He reckoned you could get to his room from anywhere in the school in two minutes. So once the bell rang to end one class, you had to get to him as fast as you could. He’d stand by the door and peer over his half-moon glasses at you and, once two minutes was up, he’d close the door. Anybody who had to open that door was subjected to a lecture about punctuality and instructed to complete “50 lines” saying that they wouldn’t do it again.

When it came to choose my subjects to sit O Levels and the new Standard Grades in I chose to do history and it turned out I was in Mr. Casey’s class. It was probably the best thing that ever happened to me. I was a lazy student and never really tried very hard at anything, always happy to do the minimum. But for two years I endured his militaristic approach to teaching and I was scared all the time of not being able to answer his questions over the homework exercise, or turning up late to class (I’d just like to say that I never once had to do any lines for him). He made me work hard at what I did and take pride in it.

So when it came to choose my Highers (the Scottish equivalent to A-Levels) I chose history and made damn sure I was in his class. I originally wasn’t but I complained and ensured that I was transferred to him. He was just as hard a teacher as ever but was the one I most looked forward to seeing. Once you were used to the fact that you had to concentrate all the time and give it your all, you realised that he was truly passionate about history and loved to teach. I eventually got a B and for my final year at school I selected, amongst other subjects, to do SYS history (as in Sixth Year Studies, one step above Highers). Not surprisingly I ensured that I was in Mr. Casey’s class, and he was teaching 13^th Century Scottish history, which was great.

But something changed. Mr. Casey wasn’t nasty any more. He no longer tried to scare us. He no longer lectured about punctuality. He didn’t pace around the room like he had a gun pointed at us. He didn’t try to menace us at all. He didn’t need to. We had earned his respect and he knew that we were doing SYS history because we too were interested in it. We did it because we wanted to, not because we had to. So he treated us with respect and earning that respect is one of my greatest achievements. In fact, he was an incredibly nice guy with a very sharp sense of humour. He didn’t teach us about the Scottish Kirk (the Church) because he didn’t agree with it, and he didn’t vote because “there was nobody worth voting for”. He was his own man and did what he thought was the right thing. And he was usually right.

That final year of being taught by him was great. He was a powerful ally and all the other kids couldn’t believe that he was such a nice guy - he wasn’t to them. The only thing I learned in school that I still remember today is what I learned of Scottish history in the times of Robert Bruce that year, and the six points of the charter championed by the Chartist movement of the 19^th century (he drilled them into everybody’s head until you could recite them on command - in fact during my sixth year he’d occasionally demand that we recite it to see if we still remembered, which we all did). For your records, the six points of the charter are as follows: universal suffrage, vote by ballot, payment of MPs, equal electoral districts, abolition of property qualifications for MPs and annual elections.

He was the only teacher that former pupils often came back to see at my school. These adults would turn up who he used to teach and he’d chat away with them for ages, genuinely interested in how they were getting on, always offering advice if he could give it. And once I left school I was one of them. The thing I realise now is that he didn’t try to scare pupils because he was a nasty man. In fact the opposite was the case. He loved to teach, and nothing pleased him more than to see children grow up and become adults and maybe learn something of value along the way. He was the hardest-working teacher in the school and although he didn’t always play by the rules, he always got results. He didn’t punish those who couldn’t produce, he only punished those who didn’t try.

The work ethic I learned from his classes has stayed with me for life. I never realised until I thought about it last night what an impact he has made on me. Many of my personality traits bear a striking resemblance to his. I lost touch with him a few years ago after he retired and I moved to England. I don’t know if he’s still alive. But if I’m anything to go by, his legacy will live on in everybody who was lucky enough to be taught history by him.

I’ve always wanted one of these. And thanks to my brother I have one.

I have to admit it. In many ways I’m just a stereotypical male. As the quote goes: “Human nature is what we’re here to rise above”, but I don’t always succeed. My Achilles heel, like many, is shiny bits of technology. I’m like a Magpie. I see something shiny and I want it.

I’ve tried to control this urge to buy high-tech gadgets for many years with varying degrees of success. I’ve got gadgets coming out of my ears: laptop, digital camera, photo printer, mobile phone, my own bowling ball, car with lots of fancy toys, mountain bike, a watch that I’m not even going to mention because you’ll think I’m insane for buying it and many more things that I don’t really need, but make life more fun anyway. It’s a terrible affliction really. Take my current obsession.

I’ve had various mobile phones for years and for the last year and a half I’ve had a Nokia 6210, which is a fine piece of kit. It synchronises with my laptop via an IR port and my contacts appear in Outlook for my convenience. The battery needs charging about once a week and it does everything I’d ever want in a phone. End of story? Not quite. Nokia have brought out a new phone that has caught my eye, the 6610. I first spied this one about six months ago and it was scheduled for release about now, so I’ve been waiting. It’s got a colour screen, polyphonic rings tones, FM radio, hands-free speaker mode (how cool is that?), is tri-band and you can run java applications on it (like games). But now that the phone is about to be released (in the next couple of weeks) I’m not so sure.

I’ve spent a lot of money lately on one thing or another and the price of the phone is going to be around 170 UK pounds. Which is a lot to pay to replace my current phone when there’s nothing wrong with it. My long-suffering girlfriend (who has good monetary sense) says that I shouldn’t waste my money. And she’s right. But the problem is that I’m quite impulsive and I know that within ten minutes I can walk into a shop and buy the phone. So this is a test. A test of discipline and mental toughness. She suggested I wait until after Christmas to see if the price has gone down (which it inevitably will) - and that makes perfect sense. So that’s what I’m going to do. Really.

But one of my friends has just gone out and bought an even fancier phone priced at around 200 quid. Playing with his phone reminds me of why I’d like to buy a new one, so my brain was constantly saying “can the Nokia do this?” and “can the Nokia do that?”. My imagination also wanders a bit and without realising it I’m visualising going to the shop, buying the phone, taking it back, plugging it in (you need to charge them for ages the first time), reading the manual, fiddling with all the new options and features, choosing my ring tone, messing about with photo messaging and adding all the swear-words to its internal dictionary.

I’ve got to snap out of it. I don’t need it. My current one works perfectly. And by buying a new one I’m just falling into the hands of all those evil marketing people out there who try to persuade you that everything is obsolete as soon as you’ve bought it. Everybody’s got to have a vice. Some people smoke. Some people take drugs. Some people smoke and take drugs. I buy shiny kit. Maybe I need some sort of support group. I could start a charity and call it: Support and Help for Idiots with Technology Engrossment (or SHITE for short)…

On Friday night I went to see the thoroughly action-packed film XXX. This 21^st century James Bond with steroids picture was a lot of fun. The dialogue was cheesy, the stunts were ridiculous, the storyline implausible and the one-liners awful. Precisely what I used to love about the Bond films of the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. So that was refreshing and it served as an excellent advert for what a beautiful city Prague is. I really must go there.

Not the best camouflage in the world of nature.

Saturday evening, on the other hand, was quite a contrast. I went to see the musical Chicago in Leeds. For those of you who don’t know (including me prior to Saturday night) Chicago is a musical set in, eh, Chicago. It’s a story of murder, sex, more murder, exploitation, the American legal system and also murder. More than this was that nearly every girl in the show was scantily clad and in excellent shape. And for the ladies, there were plenty of good looking muscular male dancers on hand. I really did enjoy it and, while the only other big musical I’ve seen was Phantom of the Opera (now that was superb), I do like a good show.

John Altman, who played Nick Cotton in the quintessential British soap opera Eastenders (about down-trodden life in the east end of London) played the money-obsessed lawyer and it must be said that while his singing was excellent, his American accent seemed to wander from English west country to South African to American. It was quite funny and only added to the performance. I’ve sat through amateur dramatics before and - while some have been great - I’ve also spent plenty time watching the second hand of my watch rolling around. But with this I was glued to it and enjoying of it from start to finish.

My long-suffering girlfriend’s brother’s partner (are you with me?) knows me quite well and couldn’t believe I was going to a musical. I suppose most modern stereotypical males aren’t supposed to want to do that sort of thing. While I’m not the classic lager-drinking post-modern lad (in fact I almost never drink), I’m not exactly the shandy-drinking, limp-wristed, over-sensitive wet blanket type either. I guess like most people I’m somewhere in between. I just do the things I like, and I like the things I do (I love those phrases, like “winners never quit and quitters never win” or “it’s nice to be important but it’s more important to be nice”, I know dozens of them).

Sunday was spent mostly loafing around and eating, with a bit of kicking a football around (which I like to do). I train Monday to Friday so it’s always nice to have at least one lazy day at the weekend replacing all those burned calories (at least that’s my excuse). But if you’re thinking of going to see a musical but you either can’t be bothered or don’t think it’s your style, then my advice is to go. It’s better to try and fail than fail to try.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking since my mother passed away in June. I’ve come to realise that losing her is something I’m never going to come to terms with. I’ve had so many times where I’ve thought to myself “oh, I’ll have to tell my mother about that” or “my mother would like one of those”. My brain is having a hard time realising that I’ll never see her again. When I go back to Scotland to visit my father everything seems normal, except that she’s not there any more. It’s like a black hole, a missing piece of the jigsaw. It’s emptiness.

Memories are a good and a bad thing. They remind me of all the good times we had and make me smile. But they remind me that those days are in the past and I can never share a joke with her again. She had a characteristic booming laugh and whenever we’d have people over to the house I could always hear her laughter whatever room I was in. I miss hearing it. And there’s no consolation. But the point of this piece is not a negative one. I don’t need to bear my soul and I’m big enough and ugly enough to take care of myself.

My mother had a really good sense of humour and she’d appreciate some of the strange things that have happened recently. The first was on the morning of her funeral. To recap, I was setting up the sound system in the church to play - at her request - “All along the watchtower” by Jimi Hendrix. As I was speaking to one of her friends (who was arranging the flowers) I had this strange urge to switch the radio on. As soon as I did the line “cheer up sleepy Jean, oh what can it mean, to be a daydream believer…”, which is by the Monkeys. My mother’s name was Jean and I was surprised to say the least. If it was a coincidence that that song (which I’d not heard in years and haven’t heard since) should happen to play at the exact moment I seemingly randomly switched the radio on, then the odds would have to be astronomical. But that’s not the only such instance of strangeness.

My mother’s best friend and my father were having a cup of coffee in a local coffee shop. They were talking and she was telling my father how she really missed having my mother to talk to and that she was having a hard time. No sooner had she uttered the words “now that Jean’s gone I don’t have anyone to talk to” than the radio that was on in the background suddenly played “All along the watchtower” by Jimi Hendrix. Another coincidence?

Next it was my brother’s turn. And he swears this is true. He was lying in bed one night thinking about life after death. He, like me, is not religious at all so he, like me, worries that after life there is nothing. He was just going over in his head all the possibilities and trying to be positive, hoping that he might see my mother again some day. He said over and over in his head “give me a sign”, looking for hope when suddenly the idea popped into his head to turn the radio on. When he did the song that was playing was “Unchained Melody” by The Righteous Brothers. In case you’re one of the handful of people who’s not seen the film “Ghost”, that’s the song that’s played when the hero (Patrick Swayze) goes into the afterlife at the end of the film. A very emotional film it is too.

These thing could be considered to be coincidences. I walk into Morrisons supermarket and hear songs that my mother used to love all the time. But the significance of events like those I’ve described are more profound. I don’t believe in the idea of heaven and hell. I believe that when your body dies your memories and personality go with it (although not necessarily your soul). And I don’t believe in God. However I do believe that there’s more to life than this. There has to be. And the only thing I know more certainly than that is that I’ll never know what it is while I’m here. That’s as it should be. And that gives me hope. Some people get hope from religious faith, and I can understand that.

But with the sort of signs that I’ve described cropping up from time to time I feel like maybe I’m not alone. And I get hope. And life with hope is a mile better than life without.