Write about your first computer.
Sadly it was a brave new world I was completely unequipped for! 🤣🤣 I bought the ZX Spectrum 48k back in 1984 for the princely sum of £174.99. It was a huge investment on my part given my £300 monthly wage before tax, and an investment that my friends benefitted from far more than I did.
The ZX Spectrum was focused on games with its amazing full colour graphics. For younger readers of this blog you can look at YouTube for walk through videos or features like Top 10 ZX Spectrum games, and you are likely to be singularly unimpressed! For the time, however, they were amazing because the Spectrum name referred to the fact that the games were in colour, something made possible by the large 48kb memory, three times the size of the previous version.
The games were loaded via cassette using a long introductory tone to prime the computer then very fast bursts of binary tone that were read by the computer and turned into a game on screen. The two games I remember most are Pool, the only one I could play with any degree of success, and a game that put you in charge of a plane to bomb airfields, only a year and a half after the Falklands War that so obviously influenced it. My friends loved the game but I could never play it successfully. After about 3 months, the ZX Spectrum became a dust gathering white elephant that I ended up throwing away once I focused on my RAF basic training. Sadly, the computer age took off leaving me at the airport. I look back now and wish I had persevered with it more.
What’s the thing you’re most scared to do? What would it take to get you to do it?
To be honest, the list of things I am scared of is long and diverse. Heights, depths, confined spaces, flying, roller coasters and any kind of medical procedure. I have always been very nervous as a person and those nerves have got worse as I have got older. I put it partly down to my Asperger’s, because from what I have read it can either heighten or significantly reduce the sense of danger that the person feels. My oldest son, who is also on the Spectrum, seeks out thrills and danger so I have seen both sides of it.
The only thing that will force me to do something I am frightened of is necessity. If there is no option, I will try to gather up my reserves of courage, such as they are, and I will do it. Some things like flying and having blood taken, have become incrementally easier, though still not comfortable. Some things like heights and confined spaces have remained as fear inducing as they ever were. I am sure that if my family were at risk, I would bypass my fears, but I obviously hope never to test that out.
Some people enjoy the adrenaline rush of danger, real or controlled, others hate it. I will always hate it and go out of my way to avoid it. A life without physical risk is a life that for me is more enjoyable and much more sensible!
What do you complain about the most?
To quote the song from Scrooge, ‘I hate people’!! One of the lines is ‘Picked at random, I can’t stand’ em’! I can’t imagine complaining about anything more than other human beings. When you look at the politicians we elect, the people who gain power at any level from the office upwards, they reflect, in 90% of cases, the very worst of us. The only possible conclusion to draw is that they therefore reflect our basic nature. If our basic nature was good, we would elect better leaders, our companies would employ better leaders and we would quickly turn our backs on the people who represent our worst sides. We don’t, therefore we must be like them as a species. Think about your experience at school. I bet that you had barely crossed the threshold at the age of 5 before the bullying, name calling and unkindness started. Children are adults in the making and the prevalence of unpleasant behaviour of the youngest amongst us proves to me that we don’t come into the world as innocents. Our basic nature is genetically hard wired into us and that basic nature is to single out differences and treat those differences as unacceptable to society.
The bulk of humanity don’t care about the increasing injustice, inequality or unkindness in every country in the world. We elect leaders who don’t care about those things because we are in tune with them. The world is simply getting worse, both in terms of behaviour and in terms of climate, and many of my fellow semi-evolved apes welcome this. As a species we have stopped seeking truth, connection and empathy and instead retreated into silos of our own making where we instantly dismiss the arguments we disagree with, and I am definitely guilty of that.
So, there you have it. I will always complain about the people who I share the world with, and if I don’t complain about them, that is because they are the exceptions to the rule!
What are your favorite sports to watch and play?
When I went over to Japan in 1995, Sumo was already on my radar because of Channel 4 in the UK, which covered the sport for about a year or so in the late 80s. The sport immediately fascinated me, but when it stopped being shown I pretty much forgot about it because there was no other way to access Sumo in those far off pre-internet days!
I got over to Japan at the end of July, just after the end of that month’s tournament so my first experience of live day by day Sumo was in the September tournament (they are held in January, March, May, July, September and November) and I was instantly hooked once more. I was able to use that interest to learn some Sumo specific Japanese which enabled some rudimentary conversation to take place. Sadly, for a variety of reasons, lifestyle, time, stresses and lack of aptitude my everyday Japanese stayed at a disappointingly low level. Unfortunately, some of my colleagues considered it was the result of laziness and lack of interest without knowing the full story. Sumo and Japanese baseball were my way in with the students who appreciated me more than many of the adults!
Sumo is fascinating because it is a combination of history, religion, culture and sport. Although it skews towards an older demographic, in a similar way to cricket in the UK, there are always young people who are interested in the sport and adults who rediscover the sport as they get older. Once you start watching it regularly, you can become a fan of particular rikishi (the Japanese term for participants) and root against others. They are not just faceless fighters but real characters on and off the dohyo (the ring). Currently, the Sumo ranks are packed with characters. Ura, is a small, compact rikishi whose fights feature rare winning moves that he has developed to help him compete with opponents who are much bigger and taller. Tamawashi is the Iron Man of Sumo who has just celebrated his 41st birthday and is still fighting at the highest level. Aonishki is a Ukrainian rikishi who has won the past two tournaments with dynamic fighting. He is currently an Ozeki, the second highest rank. At the highest rank are two young Yokozuna, Onosato and Hoshoryu who are both incredibly exciting rikishi who have been so good over the past two years in particular that they have raised the standards of the sport as the rest of the field train and fight harder to ensure that they can compete.
Sumo is an incredible experience live and I was lucky enough to go to the Nagoya Basho (tournament) twice in my time in Japan. When (hopefully) Janet and I go to Japan again, it will be on an odd numbered month and we will be going to at least two days of the tournament. It’s a sport we love and every two months we look forward to seeing our favourite rikishi, and those we don’t like, fight it out!
What would you do if you won the lottery?
Once again, this is very similar to a previous prompt. I don’t know if it is deliberately done or whether the AI algorithm just gets asked for any random prompt it can suggest. Anyway, I thought I would look at the issue with the lottery as a concept that keeps people dreaming rather than focusing on the reality of their situation, even if it’s just for a couple of hours a week.
When we look at the lottery of life, we see people who start with at least four out of the six numbers on their entries. They have rich parents, they go to private schools and in those schools they meet the people who will smooth their way through life through the network of contacts who they can call on whenever they need a favour. They can afford to work for free on internships even if they don’t really need to. Their path to the jackpot of life is gilded and straightforward. Now I know what some people reading this will say. They will point to the people who started off with no numbers on their entries but still hit the jackpot. I realise that this happens very occasionally, but it is vanishingly rare in every walk of life apart from sport, and they have a different trajectory as a result of their talent. For every person who succeeds, and supposedly proves that success is possible for everyone, there are 99 people who do not. It’s not to do with effort, despite what the influencers will tell you, because the vast majority of those who do not hit the jackpot try just as hard as those who are fortunate enough to succeed. Although they don’t know what necessarily causes them to fail, they will be told it’s down to them. The myth of a meritocracy where it is down to talent and hard work is, for the vast majority, just that, a myth. The Lottery of Life is simply stacked against anyone who is not from the upper echelons. Even if they get to the top through luck and merit they are looked down on by those who got there thanks to their advantage of birth.
Do I despise success? No, I don’t. What I do despise is the narrative that it’s all about you and your efforts as it is incredibly damaging to individuals and society as a whole. Now, I am going to finish this blog and spend a few quid on tonight’s lottery!!
David Pearce - Popular Culture and Personal Passions 