Six Degrees....

My cousin, Markus, popped in this morning. I have only really known him for 18 months or so. His Dad (my Uncle) wasn’t allowed to be in his life when he was growing up.
We have so much in common. Our reactions to things, sense of humour, our strong depressive streak, our bouts of introspection.
We sit, we drink tea and we talk.
He tells me about his difficulties in not having his Dad around while growing up (Which I can relate to) and I tell him about his Dad. When he reveals something about himself he doesn’t understand I chuckle and say,
“You get that from us!”
He smiles and says,
“Really?!”
We can do this for hours. When he leaves he says,
“Thanks for making me belong”.

Today we spoke about names.
Because of how his maternal Grandparents felt towards his Father, they changed his name to James. He explained that by doing that the made him into a non-person. If he was praised it didn’t matter because it wasn’t his name, wasn’t him. The same when he was bollocked.
This made me think about how important a ‘name’ is. To be called something. To belong. ATM changed my surname and I really didn‘t like it, but that just removes you from the ‘group’ of people to which you belong. Taking away your first name seems really brutal to me. Your name must be one of the first sounds you learn to recognise. How you place and define yourself in the world.

On a lighter note….

We are going to play a little game I have named, ‘Six Degrees Of Separatist‘.
Click on the ‘Next blog’ button at the top of the page and help me with an experiment.
You have got to click on the next six blogs then I want you to let me know how many clicks it took before you hit a Christian/Fundy/Happy Clappy site. In fact, any kind of ‘religious site‘. Or a picture of a car.
I bet it doesn’t take long.
Fly my pretties! Fly!

Why in films or on TV shows, is an axe always needed to open malfunctioning lift doors?. I have seen this in 3 different shows today and it’s putting me right off using them.. Lifts that is, NO problem with an axe!