What’s a conspiracy theory you actually find believable?
According to Britannica.com ‘A conspiracy theory is an attempt to explain a harmful or tragic event as the result of secret activities by a small but powerful group, rejecting the official narrative.’
People who believe conspiracy theories ignore the evidence in front of them and instead look to attribute real events to shady groups. As they have no basis in fact the supporters of nonsense say that the evidence against is evidence of the conspiracy because the rich and powerful are conspiring to keep the real evidence away from the public 🙄
There have always been conspiracy theories but they have been supercharged by the Internet in the last 20 years or so. Old conspiracy theories such as the Kennedy Assassination and man not having walked on the moon have been joined by those surrounding the Covid pandemic and 15 minute cities.
So, by definition, none of the conspiracy theories can possibly hold any water and I have wasted enough time on the subject!!
How do you deal with uncertainty?
As The Beatles sang, ‘I’ve got to admit it’s getting better, it’s getting better everyday. (It couldn’t get much worse!)’
That’s a perfect summary of my journey through uncertainty. I have absolutely hated uncertainty throughout my life. This might have something to do with my position on the Autistic Spectrum but I don’t know if that is the full story. My childhood was peppered with moves to different houses and different schools and I never really felt settled or certain about what was ahead. Some people deal with it well while some people don’t and I was definitely in the latter group.
Given the above it makes no sense that I have had a life that has been as uncertain as you can imagine. We have moved to three different countries, and I have done a job that is part of the ‘gig economy’ at times. I have finished full time work far earlier than many others, despite not being rich, and am reliant on getting summer teaching work. Years ago I would not have entertained the idea, so what’s changed.
Well, I have the Calm App which has helped so much in retraining my brain and developing my resilience over the last few years. I, of course, have Janet to ensure that all the uncertainty has been bearable. The uncertainty has made my life more interesting, richer and much more fun. I am never going to be comfortable with uncertainty but I am much more accepting of it.
If you want to try the Calm App, which I really do recommend, here’s a free trial. Might be first come first served so if isn’t available when you click let me know and I’ll send another link to you.
Hey! Here’s a limited time guest pass to try Calm, free for 30 days. Calm is great for helping me manage stress and improve my sleep. https://www.calm.com/gp/YM3NYEHPWPXWE4JK86
What’s a moment when you realized you were officially an adult?
The prompt says ‘officially an adult’ rather than felt like an adult. For me, it was on taking up my first job that I was entering into the adult world. (I still felt like a kid for a number of years after that, something I share with just about everyone else.) That first job was a right of passage that a majority of the people I went to school with postponed by going on to higher education. After 7 years at the Maths School the idea of more education was not on my radar.
My first job was at Lloyd’s Insurance in their Gun Wharf building on Dock Road in Chatham. I was a Non Marine Policy Checker whose task was to ensure that there were no mistakes in the documents. It was a task I was wholly unsuited for at the time as I had no attention to detail whatsoever. That became abundantly clear over the next 10 months, 9 months of which I spent struggling before spending the last month working in the post room, which was probably seen by others as a final indignity because it was a job for unqualified people, but was actually a job I enjoyed and was actually pretty good at. The men I was working with were fun and they just treated me as one of the team.
By the time I left in July 1984, I had already secured my next job, as a Royal Air Force recruit, although I was not to start that until November due to the sheer number of people joining the service at the time. In the interim I worked on my fitness by running 5 miles a day every weekday morning and earning two pounds a game as the scorer for Frindsbury Cricket Club. It was like being a kid once again, with no responsibility and a focus only on myself. Even when I joined the Royal Air Force I didn’t feel like an adult because I had no say in anything that happened to me as the lowest of the low. It was almost as if the Lloyd’s job was simply a short incursion of adulthood into my extended adolescence, a state of affairs that lasted until I took my second full time permanent job in Civvy Street in February 1987, not long before my 22nd birthday, and was once again officially an adult.
Which is the best restaurant in your city?
I hardly ever go to restaurants for two main reasons. For a start they are expensive when compared to meals I can cook at home. To be honest, on the odd occasion I do go to one I spend the time looking at the menu not in choosing what I want, but in locating the cheapest dishes and choosing between them. Even then, when the bill comes I am left thinking how many meals I could have bought and cooked for that price at home. The overriding feeling I get from going to a restaurant is one of guilt over the amount of money I have spent.
There’s another problem for me, namely the fact that I am a very good home cook. I have said previously that there are very few meals that I can get in a restaurant that I couldn’t cook just as well at home for a fraction of the price. However, there is another element that I don’t often reflect on. Restaurants use ingredients like sugar and salt in amounts I would never dream of, so often all I taste is the sweetness or saltiness of a dish. I am well aware that the vast majority of people enjoy the liberal use of those ingredients but I never add extra salt to any meal whilst cooking and I never combine sweet and savoury ingredients. Sometimes, I regret my choices of meals and that makes me feel even worse when the final bill arrives.
There was a time when I used to enjoy going to restaurants, but that was a time when I was first going out with Janet and we had some disposable income. The restaurants we went to were usually chains and therefore cheaper but I enjoyed the opportunity to go somewhere for dates where we could be on our own and just talk. Also, at that time, I never had anywhere to cook which was conducive to making decent meals. Through times of relatively small income and the arrival of our children, we got used to taking sandwiches and other food from home to save our money and if we did go out it was to a McDonald’s in the majority of cases.
We went to a Wimpy last weekend, the same Wimpy we used to go to regularly when we were first dating and I did enjoy that, but even that is a couple of times a year style treat. We don’t have friends who we go out for meals with, but if we did I would do everything I could to persuade them to eat at our house so I could cook something much cheaper and, to me, far more edible.
If you had a time machine and could send just one message to your past self, what would it say?
I would tell myself to be ready to find a way to answer very similar prompts in different ways! On June 16 we were asked to send a message to our 20 year old self and now less than two months later I am asked to send a message to my past self at some unspecified juncture in life.
Well, I would tell myself to place £1000 on Leicester City to win the Premier League 2015-16 at 5000-1, thereby solving my retirement funding problems at a stroke!
David Pearce - Popular Culture and Personal Passions 