September 2009

Welcome to AGONY AUNT, the column in which I sort out a central, or peripheral, life problem for some poor bastard out there – if you have a dilemma or heart/soul/mind conundrum you would like to share with me, and thereby the viewership of the site, please write in and I’ll be happy to put on my ‘see you jimmy’ thinking cap on your behalf. Anonymity can be yours!

And I hope you noticed that I said that I WILL sort out the problem, not that I’d TRY to – that’s because trying doesn’t work, as a teacher of mine once demonstrated to me.

He said “Try to pick up that glass Leven.” I picked up the glass and looked at him.

“No no son – that’s PICKING up the glass, now TRY and pick it up.” Disconcerted, I moved my hand towards the glass and left it (my hand) hovering in mid air.

“Aye, now, ye see son, trying doesnae work.” They were smart alecs back in those days – I’m sure they still are.... I know what you’re thinking – did he fire five shots or six – to tell the truth, in all this excitement I’ve lost count myself, so you’ve got to ask yourself – do I feel lucky – well, do you – PUNK? Sorry, got momentarily lost in my Dirty Harry persona – what I meant to say was, you’re thinking, is Jackie actually in any guise qualified to consider my problem, never mind share it and its solution with the sort of quarter-wits that are likely to visit his site? It’s a fair concern – let me tell you a bit about myself.

Of course I have no formal counselling qualifications, but I was head counsellor for The Core Trust (the award-winning holistic approach to addiction centre I co-founded many years ago in central London – still running well) for some years. In fact, it was hilarious when the project gained enough money to be able to hire trained counsellors. They turned on me, saying “you can’t work here – you’re not qualified”. I said “you should have thought about that before you accepted the job – we’re not doing things as other projects do – that’s why we’re winning awards – we are a prime example of the truism – ‘the joke, the threat, the obvious’ – as an organisation being viewed by others, we’re currently moving from joke to threat, which is why you find it threatening that I’m not qualified to do a job which I’m manifestly doing with great success”. Those were the days...

I’ve done a lot of complementary learning and training over the years – I attended the poet Kathleen Raine’s Temenos Academy, was a permanent course participant with Noel Cobb and Eva Loewe’s London Convivium For Archetypal Studies, qualified in Applied Kinesiology with Brian Butler, and, of course, spent many years working with great thinkers like Robert Bly, James Hillman and Michael Meade. I also worked, at the invitation of director Doctor Ruth West, at The Koestler Foundation – a magical time, when in the morning I could be helping out on a project concerned with the roots of coincidence, and in the afternoon helping out on a project concerned with localised logistics of African famine relief. I hope this is pretentious enough for you - I see myself as part Rab C Nesbitt, part Frasier Crane...

My apologies to the woman who has been waiting a fair old while for an answer to her problem – what to do with a husband who clings onto, as she sees it, a childish or childlike crush on the band Depeche Mode, even though the man in question is now a ‘grown-up’. This is of course a common problem, more often than not expressed as a concern about men on the part of womenfolk: it has its roots in cultural problems, like the loss of initiating ceremonies in western societies in which boys formally pass from boyhood into manhood. For this kind of reason men often find themselves unable to put away ALL the toys of childhood. Indeed, this is a quality which women often initially find attractive in a man, although this attraction tends to wear off, as it has in this case. Women often fall for a man’s ‘boyish charm’ but then become turned off when they feel the guy is just ‘a big kid’....The trouble is, the man of whom we speak is exhibiting a lightness and a darkness of character at the same time – it is entirely lighthearted to still be fond of the music and allure of Depeche Mode (who have actually got better as a group as the years have passed – oops, I’M doing it now....) but there is a darkness there if the fella cannot see, or ruefully agree, that a certain micky taking is appropriate on the part of loved ones, indeed would even be a healthy emotional counterbalance in his fundamental relationship.

My answer is alchemical in nature – when a darkness and a lightness are imposed upon each other, as they are in this case, you end of up with a sort of grey – I’ll just bet that this household is a symphony of greyness – grey sofa, a bit of cream, some chrome, and more grey (curtains perhaps?). You need to start, slowly (softly softly catchee eejit) changing your colour scheme in the house, bringing in Scandinavian yellows and reds plus gold here and there – these colours need to come into mainstay elements of the household look – walls, curtains, carpets. Slowly at first but then gathering pace. He will offer, or raise objections – men tend to – but just nod and aver that you hear his concerns but that he should trust you – he will like the end result. There will be conflict, but nothing you can’t handle. It will slowly but surely shunt him into a ghetto of blokedom about his Depeche Mode habit and music – no music is more redolent of grey and chrome than theirs – apart from Gary Numan’s – in fact that would be a good thing to start saying once the house is largely in new colours – ‘thank fuck it’s not Gary Numan’s music you feel like this about!’

This will seriously disconcert him, and between considering that he may be residing in the same hellish spectrum of appreciation as fans of Numan’s music, and the slow but sure appreciation of the new warmth of the home, his allegiance to the Mode will melt away, like a Magnum ice lolly left on an ironing board.

NEXT PROBLEM! (an interesting one this – very Scottish in tone – reply next month)

Dear Agony Jack – I am English and have recently moved to Glasgow for work reasons, and shall probably be here for at least two years. I already have Scottish friends and associates, but it’s one thing to encounter them in London, quite another to, as I now do, start meeting their families in their family homes. I’ve noticed something that arises on every occasion when I find myself round at my pals’ parent’s houses, or hooses as they call them. I’ll be welcomed in, and after the usual pleasantries, the mother or father, before serving us alcohol, will turn to my pal and ask, in a very particular voice – ‘Does he take a drink?’ The question is always exactly the same, but what I’ve noticed is this – my pal(s) will always reply ‘Aye’ (because I do ‘take a drink’) but there is more to this ‘aye’ than meets the eye –a code is at work which I don’t understand.

Am I being paranoid here, or is there a further dimension, as I suspect to ‘Does he take a drink?’ – ‘Aye’?

(Terence – Barrhill).