write.as/jonbeckett

Yesterday evening I was invited out to the “members evening” at the local brewery. If you become a member of the brewery – which costs an annual amount – you get discount off beer from the shop on-site, and you get to attend members nights throughout the year. I think they are every few months. Perhaps I should have mentioned that the beer is free and unlimited at members nights.

You might think offering people free and unlimited beer would be a recipe for disaster, but almost astoundingly I have never seen any trouble at the brewery over the years when I have been invited along. I had my own membership for a time years ago, but of course have more important things to spend the money on these days – socks, pants, school shoes, food, and so on.

I think the reason so little trouble erupts at the brewery can be explained by the demographic that walk the mile or so out of town to drink themselves silly. They are largely of a certain age, and more of the “rugby” than “football” supporter stereotype. What do I mean by that? I have been to many football (soccer for those in the US) and rugby matches – both large and small. Unfortunately the brush that tars many football fans appears to be absolutely true – a small minority become violent, obnoxious, abusive maniacs when gathered together, or combined with alcohol. They are the reason football grounds have to segregate the crowd, and often accompany travelling fans to and from the ground with mounted police. Rugby fans on the other hand will happily sit next to opposing fans in the same stand, drink beer with them (at the game – shock horror), and commiserate or congratulate each other on winning or losing.

You never hear rugby crowds singing “The Referee’s a Wanker”. That might possibly be because they are too drunk to care of course – or because they have been poisoned by half-cooked chips they bought for their children, while missing half the game.

So yes – we stood among the crowd last night, partook of several beverages, listened to a live jazz band, and put the world to rights at some length. Between my third and fourth pints of beer, I decided a beef burger was a very good idea. While standing in the queue, cheese and bacon also became very good ideas – it’s funny how that happens. After a couple of hours standing in the cold, trying to convince ourselves that free beer was great, we wandered home again – not before stopping at the brewery shop to buy guilt offerings to take home though.

Who knew there would be such a thing as “Marmalade Vodka” ? I do now, because they lined the miniature bottles up on the checkout, in the perfect place for you to notice them. I had only planned on buying a bottle of wine and some “artisan crisps”. The wine was chosen purely based upon the label being interesting – a painted 1920s style coastal scene, similar to those used by transport companies before the war. Oh, and I checked the label to make sure it wasn’t desert wine – I’m not quite that stupid.

Somehow a bag of pork scratchins fell into my bag too. It’s funny how you’ll pretty much eat anything after you’ve had a few beers.

After getting home, handing over the guilt offerings, and telling stories of the night, I collapsed into the chair in the junk room and discovered Glen Campbell had died.

This morning I found sitting alone in the study room once again, digging through old albums. I suppose in many ways Glen Campbell was a part of my childhood – along with the likes of Don Williams, Merle Haggard, John Denver, and so many more. My Uncle was in the merchant navy when I was young, and would return home several times a year with armfuls of vinyl albums that had accompanied him on his travels. Music from all over the world – music we had never heard before.

My first ever record player was a “Radiogram” – a not inconsiderable piece of furniture handed down from my Grandfather. It combined a vinyl record player, a radio, and a sideboard in one piece of (gigantic) furniture. For several of my early teenage years I would listen to the radio on it, and play the few vinyl records that had been stowed inside it for decades. One of them was the 45 single of “Rinestone Cowboy”, by Glen Campbell. When you first switched the record player on, it wouldn’t hold a constant speed for the first few moments – we (myself and my brother) would laugh hilariously as Glen Campbell varied between the laughing policeman, and shades of a Benny Hill chase scene.

I inherited lots of vinyl records from family during those years. Everything from old musicals, to a quite bizarre selection of novelty singles from the 1950s and 60s. Oh how we laughed at “Mad Passionate Love” by Bernard Breslaw (and the b-side “You Need Feet”). Looking back, listening to “Alvin’s Harmonica”, “Sparkie’s Magic Piano” and various other idiocy probably explains a lot about the way I turned out. I also listened to the songs from “West Side Story”, “Oklahoma”, and “Seven Bridges for Seven Brothers” too though.

By now you’re probably wondering why I mentioned the rain in the title of this post. It’s piddling down outside. It has been all day. It was forecast, therefore we consigned the entire day to quiet activities like watching TV, playing video games, eating cheese and pickle sandwiches, and emptying our head into blog posts.

While the other occupants of the house sat around sipping tea and watching breakfast television shows this morning, I jumped in the shower, had a shave, got dressed, and headed into town to get my hair cut.

Normally getting my hair cut would result in some kind of spectacularly entertaining conversation with the girl cutting my hair. That didn’t happen this morning, on account of the salon being closed for building work. I continued on to the place I used to get my hair cut – the place co-workers talked about a decade ago because it was staffed with pretty young things. They obviously grew up, and moved on – leaving a grizzled fifty-something guy, and a lady that tells you her woes if you give her the opportunity. I got fifty-something guy.

“Are you still coaching the football team?”

“No. Not for years.”

Ok. That’s the end of that conversation then. I can fake a “sporty mc sporto” Dad conversation with the best of them. All you really have to do is get them started, then you can sit back and switch off while they get increasingly uppety about something or other that only gets sporty people uppety.

After completing my “zero maintainance” haircut, and telling me about the political shenanigans of the local cricket club, he waved a mirror around my head. I thanked him, paid my money, and walked.

I think I had been in the house perhaps 10 seconds when Miss 12 ambushed me.

“Are we going swimming?”

“I just got back!”

“But are we?”

My other half looked at me, and raised an eyebrow.

“How about bowling?”

“Yes!!”

There is a bowling alley about fifteen minutes away by bus, and our youngest daughter has a bus pass. I had planned on taking all the kids with me, but that plan went out the window when we challenged Miss 13 on her choice of clothes.

“Are you going to get changed? You wore that to bed last night.” (she was wearing rugby kit – best not to ask why).

“I didn’t wear it to bed!”

“You did – we saw you.”

“RIGHT! THAT’S IT! I’M NOT GOING! SEE YOU LATER!” (she stamped off through the house, shouting unintelligible rants over her shoulder as she went)

And that’s how me, Miss 12, and Miss 16 ended up at the bowling alley 20 minutes later, looking at the few empty lanes, and the humungous queue ahead of us, and decided that maybe Bowling was going to be a total and utter waste of time. Given that the cinema is next door, an alternative plan formed.

We could see “Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets” in 40 minutes time. Maybe we should get some lunch. There was a “Yo Sushi” next door.

I’ve never been to Yo Sushi, and I think it’s fair to surmise that I will never go to one ever again – not when you have two eating machines in tow that rapidly ate their way through the same amount of money you might normally spend on food for a week. For the first time ever, I stopped eating because I was in fear of my credit card bursting into flames there and then.

Next stop – movie theatre. I managed to crash the first self-service kiosk we tried to use, so moved on to the next one. “Valerian” had nobody at all booked to see it. That’s odd, I thought – but a couple of hours later I realised why.

Let’s preface this by saying that I love movies, and I’ve loved a lot of Luc Besson movies in the past. The Fifth Element is one of my favourite movies, for all sorts of reasons. Valerian looked amazing, and sounded amazing, but there was something odd that I couldn’t put my finger on for the longest time.

Here’s the thing – if you lead a huge movie with two angsty millenials who either frown their way from scene to scene, or don’t appear to care about anybody or anything – then you don’t care what they are doing, or what happens to them either.

I almost fell asleep towards the end of the movie.

Let’s summarise the day. I got my hair cut, then I set a colossal amount of money on fire on forgettable food, and a forgettable movie. I’m wondering if we can spend several days spending no money what-so-ever in response. Board games. It’s supposed to rain tomorrow, so perhaps a day of playing board games isn’t such a bad idea at all.

Oh, and I’ll look up the comic book that “Valerian” is based upon – it’s not going to have to try very hard at all to be more entertaining than the car-crash of a movie.

Over the last ten years I have emptied my head from time to time into the pages of a paper notebook. I remember buying the first one – a Moleskine, because that’s what everybody seemed to be raving about at the time. I had recently bought my first Macbook, and was actually putting effort into the whole “blogging” escapade.

Ten years ago I was working in London for four days each week – commuting four hours each way aboard a succession of trains. I read books, listened to podcasts, and wrote vast quantities of forgettable nonsense in the pages of journals. I would arrive at Paddington Station in central London half an hour earlier than I really needed to, buy a coffee from the cafe looking out over the station concourse, and record the succession of strangers passing by.

I still can’t believe that was ten years ago. A decade. Everybody I worked with will most probably have moved on to different jobs. Some of them will have families now. I wonder what became of a few of them – the perpetually grumpy project lead, the predatory girl at the Christmas party, and the quiet young lad that looked like a magazine cover model. I guess life has probably happened for them too.

There is a line of moleskine notebooks on the shelf – filled with introspective drivel. I have never picked any of them up to re-read their contents -I can’t imagine they will be at all insightful or interesting. Many of the better fragments were written into blog posts at the time – stories about people dragging trolleys through underground stations, or the sea of perfect people in the city, led by stepford girls working in the financial institutions.

I’m not sure how I fell off the “writing in a journal”horse. I just did. I suppose the blog took over entirely. Even though the blog is far more filtered and processed than the paper journal, it still tells largely the same story – just without the incendiary rants, or the soporific contemplation of the mundane. Ok. Strike that. That’s kind of all this blog consists of – the soporific contemplation of the mundane.

In many ways today was the first day of my vacation. The first day when I wasn’t racing through chores in the usual breakneck effort to achieve something approaching normality. What do I mean by normality? Maybe I mean making sure there is something to eat for dinner, making sure the clothes are washed, and making sure the house and garden don’t look like a minor war didn’t just happen within them.

Hang on a moment.

My other half is attempting to watch the one TV show she watches each week in the living room. The attempt obviously triggered a subliminal “must be a pain in the arse” switch in our youngest daughter’s head, because she’s now sitting behind me in the junk room as I write this. She has been barred from the living room, and now doesn’t know what to do with herself. There’s at least another 15 minutes until bedtime and nobody will drop what they’re doing to entertain her. She’s spinning slowly around on an office chair in the dark behind me, whispering words into her phone.

I spin around.

“You’re bored, aren’t you.”

She grins at me.

I’m surprised I’m managing to write this. The “Favourite Coffee House” playlist on Spotify is being periodically drowned out by the sound effects from some idiotic game she just installed. I dare not take any interest, because she will use that as a delaying tactic when I turn around in ten minutes and tell her to get ready for bed. She’s a ninja at delaying tactics.

Where was I? Oh yes – being on vacation.

The only event of note today was a visit to the garden centre half a mile up the road. The children have been growing tomatoes in the back garden, and the plants had crossed the line from “cute little things” into “mangrove jungle hell”. This was all fine until half the contents of the ocean fell on town earlier this week, and turned the tomato jungle into a twisted and broken mess. Who knew you could buy scaffolding for tomato plants? We now have a 6ft tall recreation of the John Hancock Centre in Chicago, built around the remains of the afore mentioned plants. We also have a huge quantity of green tomatoes lined up along the kitchen window, in the hope they will turn red. Apparently this is entirely possible – my other half says so.

Miss 12 just gave up on delaying tactics for the evening and went to bed. Her last throw of the dice was an announcement of several ailments – one of which was a bad stomach because she ate too much for dinner (two hours ago). Nice try.

I expect I’ll be rather euphoric in the morning – waking up with the radio alarm clock, and then remembering that I don’t have to go to work. I’ll get up of course – for some reason getting up is easier when you’re on vacation. I’ll listen to the local breakfast radio show over a coffee and some toast while the rest of the house carries on snoring. The cats will arrive in the kitchen in talkative mood until I feed them, and the fish will gather in the nearest corner of their tank doing a song and dance act until I feed them too.

I have no idea what the rest of the day might bring. I promised a trip to the local coffee shop with our eldest, but that has somehow grown to include the younger children too. Suddenly a quiet coffee with Miss 16 and a newspaper or magazine will be turned into ordering whatever cream/ice/strawberry monstrosity that takes at least three times longer than anything else to make. I will apologise to the staff for ordering the damn things, while the children look on clueslessly. Five minutes after arriving they will be bored, and want to do something else. I will look across at Miss 16, and she will roll her eyes.

Anyway. Let’s try not to predict the future. Let’s hope that the coffee shop will be quiet, that the coffee will be lovely, the magazine interesting, and the passers by as strange or weird as possible.

While catching up with a distant friend on Friday, I got told that my blog was “GREAT”. I of course questioned what she had been drinking or smoking, and immediately dismissed her appraisal. I suppose self deprecation is a way of life for me – in the real world I’m one of the quiet people that makes things happen for others – I’m not a social butterfly, a blow-hard, or an attention seeker. It therefore comes as something of a surprise when anything I do is noticed or liked.

Receiving a compliment got me thinking – about the amount of effort I (don’t) put into writing this rubbish. Sometimes I look back at old posts, and realise that now and again I do seem to be able to string a few words together, and sometimes it’s even entertaining. I read a few of the more famous blogs from time to time, and can draw parallels between the way I write and they way they do. Of course the major reason I’m not famous is because I was never fired for writing the blog – and of course I have also moved the blog between every damn blogging platform in the known universe over the years. I think the only people left that still know where to find my words are those that I’ve either told, or those that harassed me into telling them where to look.

I suppose it would help if I had any clue why I write any more. I really don’t – it’s just something I do. A hobby. Somebody pulled me up a few weeks ago, and said “you’re such an idiot – you’re a WRITER!”. Maybe writers don’t really choose to write – they just do it? Does the simple act of writing make you a writer? I very much doubt it – but then again, is that the self-deprecating “nothing to see here” gene kicking in? When I think of writers, I think of Earnest Hemingway, and F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Anyway. I’m trying to embrace the compliment for a change, and forging ahead with this idiotic hobby of writing one word after another, and occasionally standing back to see what I’ve written. It will surprise nobody to learn that I often publish posts before proof reading them, and then return three or four times to correct spelling, grammar, and punctuation. When you write something, and then post it, it feels like you’re being spontaneous, raw, and true – and then you read what you’ve unleashed on the world and think “oh God no – let me just change this, and that, and that”.

I wonder how many times I’ll have edited this post before you read it?

Watching the clock tick down this afternoon at work was interminable. It reminded of countless begging sessions with grandparents when I was little, when they would promise to take me somewhere, get something, or do something “presently”. Presently was this undetermined, and seeminly infinite quantity of time that only grandparents used or understood.

Needless to say, the end of the day arrived precisely when it should have – not a minute earlier, and not a minute later. I didn’t escape “Woody on Bullseye” fashion as the work day came to an end though – because I wasn’t heading home.

Each summer our children take part in a huge summer activity club in the middle of town called “Lighthouse”. It’s run by an army of helpers, and involves the local churches to provide the children with a week of fun, education, and hopefully constructive thoughts that they might carry with them when they leave. This year’s mayhem was drawing to a close with a family picnic, and I was invited along. It amused me greatly that as I grew closer on my bike, dark clouds congregated in the sky above like the scene from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Given my absolute lack of belief in any creators wearing bed sheets with long flowing beards and lightning bolts from their fingers, I did wonder for a moment if I might be wrong. Was this The Almighty coming to make an example of me in front of the believers?

It didn’t rain. Well – not much.

I always find it difficult to mix in large groups. After arriving on the field and saying hello to one or two people, I quickly realised that I was surrounded by people I knew. I wandered from family to family, making conversation, and doing my best to defeat a natural propensity to sit quietly in the corner and wonder how long until we could go home.

After faking the social butterfly thing for a couple of hours, drinking several cans of fruit cider, and debating endlessly about the hidden preservatives in a bag of chopped apples, the sky finally fell on our heads and everybody scattered like so many ants. Twenty minutes later we were home.

So – I have two weeks ahead of me filled with nothing. Of course “nothing” is a relative term. We know there will be washing up, tidying up, gardening, ironing, cleaning, and so on. The usual things. There will not be any work though, and I’m kind of relieved about that. Perhaps I’ll find time to read a book or two – or find time to write endless blog posts about very little (no change there then).

Here’s to the days to come, whatever they might bring.

I have a little over seven hours left in the office tomorrow before two weeks vacation. To say I’m looking forward to it would be a colossal understatement. We are not going anywhere – we can’t afford it this year – so we’re doing a “staycation”. That’s code for “fight to keep the house tidy for two weeks”, along with “do gardening non stop”, and “go to the rubbish tip every other day”.

Anything feels preferrable to work at the moment. I’m usually pretty resilient, but recent projects have chipped away at me – I need a break. I could write at length about my frustrations, but am choosing not to.

I have found myself wondering about moving on in recent months – I’ve been working as a consultant software and web developer for the last sixteen years. I’m something of a unicorn among my peers, because I didn’t always do this – I was once the lead developer at a manufacturing company – building and evolving systems without a budget, or a project plan. I miss working on a small number of projects, and improving them over time.

I’ve also been involved in a number of open source projects in the past – some of which are available at GitHub. I suppose the most significant were a blogging platform, a content management system, and a Tumblr-like social writing platform. I always found it amusing when people realised I designed and built them single-handed. Yes, developers like me do exist. There are lots of us out here.

I guess in some ways I’m stuck. I need to provide for my family, I don’t particulary enjoy what I do any more (even though I’m good at it), and I have no idea what I might do instead. Why can some wealthy benefactor not fall in love with my writing and fund me to sit in boutique coffee shops recording the world going by? Isn’t that what the niche blog hipsters do (when not buying clothes and photographing their try-on sessions).

I’m SO not a hipster, or a “millenial”. I’m not even a Generation X-er. Most of my year at college studied law, and yet nobody I recall went on to jobs in the legal profession. I had no clue what I wanted to do for years, and drifted into being a software developer completely by accident. I started writing up my story for “National Novel Writing Month” a couple of years ago. Perhaps one day I’ll carry it on.

Maybe during the time off I’ll coerce the children into some damn-fool adventures with me – adventures worth writing about. Maybe a trip to the museums in London, or a bike ride or two. Miss 16 loves coffee shops, so maybe I’ll talk her into setting up camp with me in town – sipping cappuccino while live-blogging the clientelle. If you see a long rambling post about strangers sitting near me, you’ll know why and how it came about.

Before any of that I need to survive tomorrow without jumping from any windows, headbutting any walls, or smashing any keyboards through monitors. Perhaps I could fall off my bicycle on purpose on the way to work, and feign injury? Actually, that’s too much like tempting fate – some trophy mum en-route for a yoga class or coffee morning will probably run me over now.

Over the last few months I experimented with writing under an assumed name – not for the first time. While it was fun to contemplate the idea of writing about subjects I might otherwise avoid, the reality proved to be somewhat different. I wouldn’t say I grew fearful of emptying the unfiltered contents of my head – more that I grew tired of choosing “who to be” when sharing something with the wider world.

Going back to writing under my own name means either re-titling my existing blog, or starting something entirely new. It would mean telling everybody that follows my writing (both of you) that I’m moving AGAIN. I can imagine your eyes rolling, believe me. There is also the decision of where to set a new blog up – should I remain at Wordpress, where I have written for years, or should I do something different? I have been sitting on the fence over the whole “blogging platform debate” for years. It’s not really a debate of course, because I’m the only one debating it. I’ve tried out just about every popular platform out there – Blogger, Wordpress, Ghost, Drupal, Joomla, Squarespace, LiveJournal, and quite a few platforms that don’t even exist any more – Yahoo 360, Vox, MySpace, Posterous.

I’m moving the blog to Squarespace.

I moved it back a month later…

It resided at Squarespace once before – several years ago. Because there is a cost associated with Squarespace, I will admit to agonising for quite some time over the justification for spending money on a blog – but then something occurred to me. I don’t really have a hobby as such – in many ways writing has become my hobby. In order to divorce myself from the mayhem that generally surrounds me from day to day, I sit at a keyboard and empty my head (through spectacularly heavy filters) onto the public internet. I suppose in some ways paying for the privilege to pollute the internet with my words is forcing me to re-evaluate what I do as “writing” instead of “blogging” – to perhaps try a little harder, and make the posts worth something – both to myself, and to others. I’m not sure I will, but it’s a lofty goal.

I’ve decided on a pretty straightforward method to help fund the Squarespace account – I’m going to stop buying wine and chocolate. Perhaps once a week I pick up a bottle of wine and a bag of cookies from the supermarket on my way home from work, while supposedly picking up food for dinner. Stopping those impulse purchase will not only save far in excess of the hosting fees, but also stop my backside from forming it’s own gravity. Honestly – if I didn’t cycle to work, I hate to think how unfit I might be.

So – if you’re reading these words, you’re among the first to see the new blog. It’s still in limbo at the time of writing because it takes domain transfers time to happen – the site may well vanish for several hours over the coming days as the final pieces of the jigsaw fall into place. It feels good though – to be back writing as “me” – not hiding, and covering my tracks. If you’re wondering what on earth I have been writing over the last few months, feel free to scroll back through the posts, or visit the archive page. I’m working on an easy way for people to subscribe too – so watch this space.

Oh – and thankyou for reading :)

We live in the corner of a green, which is surrounded by houses filled with many families we have never met. That all changed today after a number of the local residents organised a street party – or “party on the green” in this case.

While cutting the hedge at the front of our house this morning I saw bunting being tied between the trees around the green, and waved to one of the few neighbours I do know, who seemed to be very busy orchestrating things.

I think we were all a little worried about the weather – the forecast last night was for torrential rain, thunder, lightning, brimstone, and plagues of frogs. By morning the forecast had changed, predicting an end to the world by early evening, and then when the time came, we appeared to have been let off – dark clouds rolled over like a Vogon Constructor Fleet, but never really let rip.

After heading out a little after mid-day and setting out our picnic rug up-wind of the barbecues, I grinned at the “who can piss the heighest” gazobo competition that seemed to be going on. This town never changes. Then somebody magicked a public address system from somewhere, and started playing a commercial radio station on it – with the volume turned up to 11.

Now I’m no lawyer, but given that there’s a fair number of old people living nearby who would rather have the green built on than anybody have any fun, I wondered how long it would take until somebody called it in, and the police arrived to shut down the music. Thankfully that didn’t happen.

It was great to finally meet so many of the families that live nearby. It was also a bit disappointing to realise that only perhaps a quarter of the residents turned out. I’ll admit to being a little apprehensive myself – I’m not the most outgoing person – but got over myself and headed out with the kids. Even Miss 16 came out – I was so pleased for her – mixing with strangers is a massive thing for her, and shows just how far she has come in the last few months.

The afternoon and evening flew by. I drank more pear cider than was probably sensible, took part in a ridiculous never-ending game of Rounders between parents and children (Rounders is like a simple, mini version of baseball), and spent a good few hours putting the world to rights, and listening to hilarious stories from some of the characters that live nearby. By all accounts the last few people were still on the green long after the sun had set.

I will admit to absolving myself from one conversation that started to escalate rather rapidly. The subject of religion somehow came up, and I mentioned that our house was “interesting”, on account of my other half being a regular church goer, and me decidedly not being a regular church goer – or believing in any of it really. The girl sitting next to me then piped up “Well I’m gay, so you can imagine the rest” – followed by the local builder who proudly proclaimed after numerous bottles of beer “I’M A MASSIVE ATHIEST”. Everybody got very quiet all of a sudden – perhaps because most of them go to Church.

You know those moments when you would rather hide behind a nearby tree? It was one of those moments. Thankfully the conversation changed course to ridiculous memories of pet dogs drinking seawater and ejecting the contents of their stomach in public places. Disgusting, but endlessly entertaining. My face hurt from laughing so much.

I guess in many ways today proved that community still means something – that if we all drop our guard, and take the time to find a little out about each other, the world becomes a better place. I will now know lots of faces to wave or nod to when leaving for work or returning home. I won’t remember their names, but I will at least know their faces.

Do you ever have moments, hours, or even entire days when you feel like you have been running on autopilot? I do. Maybe not entirely offline, but sometimes it feels like it. Take cycling home from work, for instance. I turn the pedals, the bicycle travels along, and I daydream about anything and everything – at least until an incline, when my concentration shifts to “how far does this hill go on for again?”. While weaving my way in and out of traffic, I suppose a greater proportion of my brain comes online – both to protect the idea of my continued life, and to invent new insults to mutter at idiotic or thoughtless car drivers. “Wanker” always seems to be a good go-to word when nothing else comes to mind.

When I stop to think about it, I perform most of my day on autopilot. I turn toilet-rolls around without a second thought if they are on backwards, I make beds as I pass the children’s bedrooms (this drives them nuts for some reason), and I will absent mindedly pick up clothes and fold them while continuing conversations in the same room. I unload the dishwasher while waiting for coffee, take garbage out, and a hundred other things – all without consciously thinking about them.

I laughed at myself after arriving home this evening – I needed to use the bathroom, so wandered in, and locked the door behind me. I am home alone. I have been here on my own all week. Why on earth was I locking the door behind me ? There is nobody else in the house. It got me thinking about how many other things we do because we’ve always done them, regardless of any sensible logic.