#555.

A bit of a new start. Or a bit of an old ending. Or maybe neither. Rambling and incoherent, like Proust or Biden. A refresher and a reflection. Something of something and nothing at all, as so many things in life. To put it bluntly, it’s a bit shit, but I don’t care because it’s an anniversary.

I’ve just finished watching a mini series called ‘The Narrow Road To The Deep North’. I’ve watched quite a few things in my time that have somehow horrified and saddened me at the same time but I’m not sure if they come as close to that as this has. The series (I believe the industry lingo labels it a “limited series”, which means it doesn’t matter how popular it becomes because it’s not meant to be endlessly stretched out to the point where the stench of money has far outstripped the virtue of art, not to mention common sense) is based on a Booker prize winning novel by the Australian author Richard Flanagan and is a potent cauldron of sex, desire, deception, youth, regret, friendship, failure, emptiness, aging and, in a repeated hammer blow of abject misery and suffering, the horrors of war – in this case the experience of Australian POWs working on the Burma railway for their Japanese captors. I haven’t read the book and I doubt I ever will now because I really can’t see how it could be as traumatising as watching it unfurl across five full colour episodes; if it is less so it will fail to engage and if it is more so, well, I don’t really want to be that traumatised again. Life is traumatising enough as it is.

A very wise man told me recently, as we discussed a wide range of problems (his, mine, those enjoyed by assorted other people), that he had recently read a quote (from whom I cannot remember, sorry) which basically suggested that if you were to congregate in a room with everyone you know and you all put your problems on the table for everyone to see it is highly likely that even if you were allowed to swap your pile for another you would probably just choose to stick with your own, pop it away somewhere safe and gently depart. It’s a fair point and is a source of some comfort in these troubled times. I often lie awake mulling over the dark creatures that occupy my personal corners, usually the same creatures that woke me up in the first place. True, they aren’t the biggest problems in the world on the grand scale of things, but in my bed, or caught in a weak moment, they seem to me to be problems that are both bottomless and epically widescreen. They feel like being in the ring with a indomitable opponent, knowing that you must stay in the ring to have any chance of winning but that by staying there you are never going to get away without anything less than a battering to the mind, body and, perhaps most of all, the soul. At least this way I know I have a soul to batter, which is more than can be said for some. Isn’t it fun being a human being?

But I’m not that self-obsessed; my problems really are small if you compare them to the hummers and the dingers. I don’t have the considerable challenges being faced by the people of Gaza. I don’t have the problem of trying to cross the channel on a small boat or the problem that one day I might have to engage in a conversation with Sir Kier Starmer at a drinks event where they’ve run out of drinks. I’m not addicted to crystal meth and I’m not a murderer. I have food to eat and clothes to wear and wine to soften the edges and a modest collection of odds and sods that serve to keep me happy, or at least as happy as I can be. I have a small handful of genuine friends left and a loving family. And I also have onstupidity.com, which has given me quite a lot of pleasure over the years; it may not have bought much (read: any) fame and fortune but then that was never the real intention – it was just meant to be what it is and whether you like it or not you can’t really argue with the reality that onstupidity.com is exactly that. It is what it is. And it’s also mine and as I write this, the 555th post (and there are 222 unfinished drafts too, satisfyingly enough) I’m suddenly quite proud of it. I haven’t done much of note in life but I have done 555 posts, and some of them really aren’t too shabby, if you’re in the right mood. That said, some are beyond crap, but there’s no harm in finding something to be cheerful about.

Anyway, I’m certainly a lot luckier and in a lot better shape than those Australian POWs, stuck in a bastard’s belly of heat, decay and disease in the Burmese jungle building a railroad that barely operated beyond the end of the war; a war that needed two atomic bombs to finally get the last few signatures on the dotted line. Starved and shattered into submission and then whipped and kicked into hard labour; no bank holidays or a lunch hour for them, just pain and suffering and indignity and, crucially, no end in sight, nothing to focus on, nothing to look forward too. It can’t of been like hell because it must have been worse than hell, though even then the Aussies were treated substantially better (relatively, of course) than the legions of Chinese prisoners who must have woken up every morning and wondered if they were even human beings anymore. But I suppose that in a personal pickle of any nature it’s often best to just get on with it, if you can muster the strength. Another wise person, or possibly Joan Rivers, once said that if you’re going through hell, keep going, ideally even faster than you already are. God knows if we haven’t all tried that at some point, even if the floor is often ankle deep in the Devil’s own treacle and your feet have really started to hurt.

There’s always hope too. And the rough with the smooth. And the silver linings and counted blessings too. But I’ll save those for another time. Here’s to the big 555! If I can just stay in the ring I’m sure there’ll be a 556 sooner or later.

G B Burton. 13.08.2025