so i wanted to quit my job today, but instead i find myself at hospital waiting to undergo a lumbar puncture to check for signs of brain disaster. which reminds me of the last time I quit a job, ten years ago, and i had a broken hip. i rushed back to the office as it felt a bit weird to give my notice via email from hospital. isn’t the universe mystical?

anyway, i was given the decision to make re the lumbar puncture. and i am a fearty. so tempted to draw a line under the affair. but i shouldn’t make another bad january decision just because i’m stressed and scared of a bit of needle.

weather in the west of scotland is not the most predictable. i type this two days after a powerful wind blasted across the island, taking roofs from houses and depositing them in the sea, and after returning from a very slow and cold run through sleet, ice and mud.

but last weekend it was mild. and next weekend i’m going cycling on the warmer windy island of lanzarote. last year’s cycling holiday was to gran canaria, where we endured winds about as strong as the ones that brought carnage here this week. like cycling through violent treacle. let’s hope for better luck this time.

there is an awkward symmetry to today’s date (25.1.25), which happens to be the 266th anniversary of rabbie burns’ birth. he is scotland’s national poet but his work is internationally famous, particularly ‘auld lang syne’, as traditionally slurred on hogmanay.

i hate the national anthem, ‘flower of scotland’. it’s a nationalist dirge, bleating on about medieval battles and nursed grudges. all the more outrageous when so many burns options are available. i would love to hear 50,000 scots sing ‘a man’s a man for all that’ before the soccer meet at hampden park. 

burns was also a pistol carrying excise man – a tax collector. so he really is my spirit poet. i don’t think i’ll be having haggis tonight but i shall be sure to raise a dram to our nation’s greatest scoundrel.

https://www.instagram.com/n.n_benn/

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@n.n.benn

*toblerone is now available on spotify / apple music etc. new music and videos will be released on the 1st of every month, with the poems dissected in the blog/insta over the rest of the month in daily posts*

burns’ night is 25 january, tomorrow. but clearly it was on my mind, as the haggis is notoriously, ‘the chieftain of the puddin’ race’.

maybe i will reflect more on our national poet tomorrow. today we have a big storm in scotland. its a red warning – the earth’s protective atmosphere is today dangerous to life. all the schools are closed.

except one: tough school, near kirkton of tough. it takes more than a bit of weather to deter the tough children of tough.

aristotle talked of ‘eudaimonia’ in the nichomachean ethics. this was the course of university that i failed to understand. i got a d. by far my worst grade. if only i had got a c, i would have got a first for my degree!

eudamonia is sometimes defined as ‘happiness’ – but that’s not quite right. it’s about living a virtuous life. living moderately. and what is the make of a man or woman?

we are just what we do. every time we act, we vote for the person we are. i actually heard this idea on a zoe nutrition podcast. i teared up a bit. i finally understood aristotle.

i come back to this idea often – we act like the architects of our lives. like we choose to do the things we do. that we engage our reason to work out how to live well. and we can maybe do that a wee bit.

but we don’t decide who to fall in love with, our body tells us it has happened and it is up to us to surrender to our feelings.

likewise, not everyone has to surrender to the life of a poet. but i do.

(because i do) and i know what’s owed

if your finger’s in the till, be aware the drawer slams closed

fairness and justice are very important to me. we are all responsible as individuals for our decisions. and we have to remember that they affect others as well as us. we do not live in isolation from each other.

if we are lucky enough to be able to pay ourselves a dividend, we have an obligation to share some of our windfall with our fellow citizens by paying our taxes. we should be happy to contribute.

sometimes, i need a reminder for me that some people don’t feel the same way as me. they are just out for themselves! so i keep good records.

i used to go for a sauna on a monday after work. i’d do maybe 20 minutes in the weight room, then multiple rounds of sauna and ice cold shower. i went to a council run victorian swimming bath in a rougher part of the city to do this. it was only years later i learned that this was the same public baths were my dad had learned to swim many years before.

anyway i had been for a run. it was rainy and windy and crap and january. i wanted a sauna. but it tuns out that the council shut all their saunas down after lockdown. other than the fancy one that isn’t included in your normal gym membership.

so i just had a bath.