LEE PAYNE

Tag: happy

  • I Write Wednesday #7 – ‘oversharing and its bitter aftertaste’

    I Write Wednesday #7 – ‘oversharing and its bitter aftertaste’

    The slightly prententious title to this week’s piece is not me trying to come across all earnest – it’s actually a lyric from the Arctic Monkeys song Anyways (which you can listen to below).

    I’ll be honest, I have been finding things a bit difficult recently. My anxiety remains, thankfully, at arm’s length but it is its ugly brother depression that’s been gathering in a cloud over me.

    That voice inside my head has been getting louder. ‘You’re useless’. ‘No one likes you’. ‘God, you’re such a loner’. I’ve been trying to use the techniques I was taught during my CBT sessions to shut that voice out, but it’s been difficult. Things came to a head on Sunday when work felt like an almost impossible task. I wasn’t fit for human consumption. I hid myself away in the kiosk. On the positive side, with some help, I got through it and was much better on Monday and Tuesday. But it can be jarring to think that the darkness can encroach at any moment. You’re never safe from it.

    So much for Project Happy, eh? Well, anyway, that can wait for now. The best thing I can do is look after myself right now and tackle it again when I’m feeling brighter.

    A book I recommend: I don’t read a lot of fiction but recently I’ve been engrossed in Danny Wallace’s 2012 novel Charlotte Street. I found it in a charity shop. The protagonist, Jason, sees a girl drop what she was carrying onto the pavement while she’s getting into a taxi and stops to help pick her things up. They exchange a lingering smile, then the taxi drives away. But Jason doesn’t notice that he’s still holding something of hers – a disposable camera. And from there an obsession begins!

    A song I’m into: Stockport indie band Blossoms released their new single this week, a collaboration with Jungle called ‘What Can I Say After I’m Sorry?’ – the video for it features Everton manager Sean Dyche. Yep. I’ve been playing it on repeat since it came out and constantly have the chorus stuck in my head. Listen below!

    If you’ve made it this far, thanks very much for reading and I’ll see you again soon.

  • I Write Wednesday #6 – I’m a normal, functioning member of society and there’s nothing anyone can do about it

    I Write Wednesday #6 – I’m a normal, functioning member of society and there’s nothing anyone can do about it

    Project Happy update

    The last few days at work have been the first time in a long time that I’ve felt on top of everything. Last night, in particular, we got everything done with time to spare. It felt good. I also really like nearly all the people I work with, and don’t want to leave them right now, so for the moment I haven’t applied for any more jobs. Project Happy continues in other areas, which I will explain at another time.

    What I’ve been up to

    The other Saturday I went to the Maids Head Hotel in Norwich for a former colleague’s retirement/birthday afternoon tea. I love the fact that I’m still invited to these things despite leaving two-and-a-half years ago. I was the only bloke there, surrounded as I was by 13 women, but then that’s kind of my life isn’t it? (That was a joke)

    It was a good afternoon, actually, even if this photo makes it look like I’ve nodded off with my finger up my nose. The food was good, the company was good. Hopefully they’ll keep inviting me to their social events!

    Fast forward a week, and I went to Norwich’s game against Bristol City with my friend Gavin – the one who made me walk 7 miles. I’m actually giving up my season ticket at Carrow Road after this season, and with this the penultimate home league game we sat in the River End, opposite my usual position in the Barclay, for the 1-1 draw. Norwich didn’t really turn up against a side that had nothing to play for and missed the chance to move up to 5th. Never mind. It’s Swansea at Carrow Road this weekend. Here’s me and Gavin looking like a couple of hunks:

    The faces were deliberate. Well, mine was, anyway…

    I had forgotten how good these songs were

    Here are a couple of songs that I recommend to you this week, two that I hadn’t listened to for a while and had forgotten just how good they were.

    First, Soft Cell’s 1981 no.4 hit Bedsitter:

    And second, The Jam’s The Bitterest Pill (I Ever Had To Swallow) from 1982.

    Short and sweet. Thanks for reading.

  • I Write Wednesday #5 – 7 mile walk, derby day delight and blimey, don’t Tesco make a lot of money?

    I Write Wednesday #5 – 7 mile walk, derby day delight and blimey, don’t Tesco make a lot of money?

    Hello again. This Wednesday I’m going to tell you everything I have on my mind in a handy bullet point format:

    • In pursuit of Project Happy, I applied for a job last week and had an interview. I liked it and thought it went well, but didn’t get it. That’s fine, it was a good experience. I still have a job to go to while I search.
    • My friend Gavin, whom I met at university and bonded with over a shared hatred of shorthand lessons, went for a light stroll last week and ended up walking 7 miles. The orange juice and lemonade I had at Wetherspoons afterwards had never tasted so good. In future, I must wear proper walking boots and never again let him plan the route. Photos below.
    • Saturday was the East Anglian Derby, the football match that I love and hate in equal measure. I love it because there is no better feeling than seeing Norwich beat Ipswich but the thought of losing to that lot sickens me. Thankfully, Norwich won 1-0 thanks to a cracking free kick from Marcelino Nunez. I sat downstairs from my usual seat, with my mum and her posse of nutters, and the atmosphere was electric. A day that will live long in the memory.
    • Tesco announced their latest financial results this morning and they caught my eye. They made £2.3 billion in pre-tax profit in the year to 24th February, up from an already half-decent £882m the previous year. Dear old Sainsbury’s is the UK’s second biggest supermarket chain by market share, but in last year’s results made less than half as much money. Sainsbury’s will reveal this year’s results on 25th April. There’s no excuse for Tesco not to drop their prices now, right? Or pay their staff more money?
    Gavin and I got so fed up with walking that we checked bus times. It never arrived, so we carried on.
    The view from my seat at the East Anglian Derby
    Mum looking sharp for the derby
    Caught by the Sky cameras at the football
    ‘I swear, I’ll walk out into that road’
    The route Gavin and I took
  • I Write Wednesday #3 – under a cloud, Blackpool Tower isn’t on fire and the darts sensation that makes us all feel inadequate

    I Write Wednesday #3 – under a cloud, Blackpool Tower isn’t on fire and the darts sensation that makes us all feel inadequate

    It’s a new year, and I begin 2024 under both a literal and metaphorical cloud.

    Here I am, soaked through and knackered, pushing trollies in the work car park last night. I took the photo because I didn’t think it would be believed that I actually had to go out there during Storm Henk. After an incredibly busy Christmas period, I am shattered. There are still two months until I get a week off work. I sense that I am on a downward slope.

    Anyway, that’s enough self-pity. Here’s a few things that have caught my eye this week.

    Daft news story: in the media, there are two ‘silly seasons’. One is in August, when everyone is on their summer holidays and nothing much is going on. The other is that weird week between Christmas and New Year. Last Thursday I was in a cafe with my mum and stepdad when my phone vibrated. The big breaking news story was that grand old Blackpool Tower was on fire! A bona fide English landmark was going up in flames! Not quite. It turned out to be some orange netting at the top of the tower blowing about in the wind. There was no fire. The media made a hasty retreat. In less than a week, the Blackpool Tower ‘fire’ has become a meme.

    A sporting sensation: Luke Littler, who is 16 but – let’s be honest – looks about 35, has taken darts by storm by cruising into the final of the World Championship in his debut year. Impressing everyone with his consistent high scoring and seemingly nerveless disposition, Littler only became world youth champion in November but has beaten Raymond van Barneveled and Rob Cross, who have six World Championship titles between them, in the main event. He plays the world number one and pre-tournament favourite Luke Humphries at Alexandra Palace in London tonight.

    I love the darts. I used to watch it with my dad when I was a kid. Even now, I think the Christmas period only really starts when the World Championship begins. It’s immensely entertaining, and fantastic to watch people who are good at things do what they do. Last year, an incredible leg in the final between Michael Smith and Michael van Gerwen saw both players on course for a nine darter (the perfect leg of 501). van Gerwen missed the double 12, but Smith hit it. That got everyone talking – this year it’s Luke Littler that has captured the imagination.

    A book I’m reading: my Christmas presents this year consisted mainly of books, which is fine by me. One of them was Everything To Play For: The QI Book Of Sports, which I’ve been thoroughly enjoying because it avoids the dreaded sporting cliches and takes a step outside of the bubble us sports fans tend to be in to take a forensic look at what sport actually is, how it began and why it exists. I recommend it, even if you don’t like sport, because it will explain to you that sport is far from a pointless activity and that it is actually built in to the human psyche.

    Thanks for reading my musings this week. See you again soon.

  • The funniest love song I’ve ever heard

    Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, when supermarkets shift a lot of flowers and chocolates love is in the air. Musicians have long been inspired by matters of the heart, so it takes a different approach to the subject to stand out. Here, I’d like to introduce you to the funniest love song I’ve ever heard.

    The Turtles might not be familiar to you, but you will probably have heard at least one of their songs. In 1967 they had a big hit with Happy Together, knocking The Beatles off the top of the US charts.

    Happy Together, the biggest hit The Turtles had

    They were talented musicians, so naturally they wanted to go down new routes and change their sound. Their record company, however, motivated by the cash Happy Together brought in urged them to write a very similar song.

    Fine, they thought – if that’s what you want, that’s what you’ll get. The Turtles recorded a parody of their biggest hit, dripping in sarcasm – it was called Elenore.

    I feel as if I can go no further without showing you the song’s lyrics in full:

    You’ve got a thing about you
    I just can’t live without you
    I really want you, Elenore, near me
    Your looks intoxicate me
    Even though your folks hate me
    There’s no one like you, Elenore, really

    Elenore, gee, I think you’re swell
    And you really do me well
    You’re my pride and joy, et cetera
    Elenore, can I take the time
    To ask you to speak your mind?
    Tell me that you love me better

    I really think you’re groovy
    Let’s go out to a movie
    Whadda you say now, Elenore, can we?
    They’ll turn the lights way down low
    Maybe we won’t watch the show
    I think I love you, Elenore, love me

    Elenore, gee, I think you’re swell
    And you really do me well
    You’re my pride and joy, et cetera
    Elenore, can I take the time
    To ask you to speak your mind?
    Tell me that you love me better

    (One more time)
    Elenore, gee, I think you’re swell, ha-ha
    Elenore, gee, I think you’re swell, ha-ha, ha-ah-ah

    I long to use the line ‘I really think you’re groovy, let’s go out to a movie’ on a woman.

    The trouble is, The Turtles did such a beautiful job of their act of self-sabotage that it backfired. The lyrics were a joke, but they were delivered so well and backed by such terrific production that the song became another top ten hit in the US and went to number seven in the UK – five places higher than Happy Together had managed.

    It never fails to make me smile.

    The funniest love song I’ve ever heard

    Another love song I like

    This one’s not a parody, it’s just a really great song. It’s The Dave Clark Five with their 1963 song Glad All Over.

    An absolute banger, it was a number one hit in the UK and broke the top ten in the US – highly unusual for a British group that wasn’t The Beatles back then.

    You may have heard it at a football match, it’s an anthem for Crystal Palace. It’s well worth a listen.

    Glad All Over by The Dave Clark Five

  • Going back ‘home’

    I am prone to spells where I feel out of control and as if I’m ‘going mad’.

    I’ll try not to bore you – this is about the benefits I believe there are to be had in going back to where you felt happiest and safest – but I need to give you some background information first.

    The vast majority of my childhood was spent in the Mile Cross area of Norwich. Those who know it will probably not speak highly of it. It’s not a nice place. But for me, it was home. From when I was a toddler until I had to move away in 2010, aged 17.

    Specifically, it was this house. The one you can see the side of here. That was my bedroom window for nearly 15 years.

    20civicgardens
    This is from Google Maps, as I didn’t want to feel awkward taking a photo of what is now someone else’s house.

    You may have seen my old cul-de-sac doing the rounds on the internet actually – as when viewed from above it does rather look like the Millennium Falcon.

    It’s now more than six years since I left, but I admit I just can’t get over it. I still wish I lived there. I still have dreams in which I am back on familiar ground. When I’m having one of my bad spells I think about it even more.

    Today I had a bit of free time so I got in my car and went back to where I still call home.

    Being back there, walking around the area, it was an odd feeling. It was as if my head was properly screwed on – I don’t remember even thinking about where I was going, my feet just took me on a circuit of the estate and right back to where I started.

    You are entitled to think ‘for god’s sake, get over it and move on’, but believe me if it was that easy I would have done it a long time ago.

    Not a great deal has changed. I only glanced at my old house as there was a car in the driveway and I’m not sure how I’d feel if I looked out of the window to see someone staring up at my home, but it was pretty much identical to how it looked when I was there. Although I don’t like their choice of curtains. Our old neighbours are also still there.

    I went down a passageway out of the cul-de-sac and walking round to Bowers Avenue saw the first change. A newly built block of flats.

    2016-01-21 12.38.21
    These flats weren’t there when I lived in this area.

    I carried on and came to the biggest buildings on the estate.2016-01-21 12.44.18

    These blocks of flats are unmistakably 1960s, and they are big enough to be seen from Mousehold Heath.

    I ended up going down the hill and taking a walk around Sloughbottom Park, the scene of countless kickabouts with my dad and where I used to train with and play for the Norman Wanderers Under 11s and Under 13s before I realised – some time after everyone else – that I was hopeless at football.

    Looking towards the changing rooms.
    Looking towards the changing rooms.
    Looking towards the main road.
    Looking towards the main road.
    The very same pitch I played on 10 years ago.
    The very same pitch I played on 10 years ago.

    The pitch was in a rather better state than it used to be when I played on it about a decade ago.

    If you’ve made it this far, thank you. You’ve put up with me being rather self-indulgent. But let me explain – I did this to attempt to reconnect with who I used to be. The happy, studious kid I was. For reasons I won’t share here, things went south for me when I stopped living here. So coming back enabled me to get those feelings of safety and security back, if only for an hour or so. Writing this up has helped me make it last that little bit longer.

    Everyone has a place like this. A place where they have memories, a place where they were happy. If you’re feeling down or a bit lost, why not go back to that place? I promise you, it will do you the world of good.