The Adventures of Dysfunctional Dan

2021 is finally drawing to a close so it's time for my now traditional end of year post where I round up some of my favourtie bits of media from the last twelve months. TV I've been finding that I am actually watching less TV than ever now I am have complete control of what's on the box. The BBC have given us some great dramas this year- Line of Duty was as thrilling as ever and I felt the ending was apt and Vigil was a brilliantly tense if somewhat absurd submarine murder mystery. There was also Doctor Who: Flux , by far the best series of the show for some years with it's tense series-long story.  It was Disney though who really captured my attention on the small screen with Marvel Studios branching into TV for the first time with exclusive shows for Disney+. There was The Falcon and the Winter Soldier which was a bit hit and miss but had some breath-taking moments, animated multiverse show What If? , and the superb WandaVision , Loki and Hawkeye. All three of the lat...

A year ago today I officially became a homeowner so it feels like a good time to reflect on the experience of living on my own and indeed on 2021 as a whole.  Perhaps my biggest concern about living on my own was the potential to feel somewhat isolated. I've generally found ways around that and actually living on my own has actually pushed me to be more social than I used to be. Covid though has made life more difficult. As well as having to isolate for a couple of days due to a possible close contact, I got really ill from the first Covid vaccine in February and had Covid at the end of October.  All in all, I've spent far more time contained in my flat than I ever thought I would, often feeling pretty awful health wise. These periods have been really tough. I've never found silence so overwhelming. I am quite an introverted person and don't mind a bit of time on my own but this year I've really gained an appreciation of being able to spend time with people.  On the...

It feels like some unknown enemy has engaged in biological warfare against me. I only recovered from Covid about six weeks ago and my sense of smell remains largely absent yet this week I was infected with what turned out to be one of most unpleasant stomach bugs I've ever had. My body has really taken a battering this Autumn. It has long been a tradition when I've been ill in December to watch The Muppet Christmas Carol . I've literally done it for longer than I can remember, through infant and junior school, secondary school, university and work. In the years I've remained illness free it instead becomes a celebration of the start of the Christmas holidays.  I maintain that  The Muppet Christmas Carol ( TMCC henceforth) is not just one the greatest Christmas films ever made, but one of the greatest films ever made full stop. It's not simply nostalgia for a film I loved during childhood   because the film actually gets better as you age. Why is it so fantastic? Wel...

I recently met up with a friend who I hadn't seen for a few years due to busy lives and you know, this pandemic thing. If it's someone you're close to it doesn't matter how much time has passed, it still feels just the same as it always did. We chatted about a range of subjects but one thing that came up was some mental health struggles he'd gone through.  Laster as I reflected on this it occurred to me that I've had similar conversations with quite a lot of men around the same age as me. My own anecdotal experiences mean I recognise the scale of the issue but the statistics if anything are more disturbing. Suicide is the the biggest killer of men between 20 and 49 in the UK, eclipsing road accidents, cancer and coronary heart disease. Around 75% of suicides in the UK are of men.  I didn't imagine I'd particularly relate to Princess Diana when I went to see the film Spencer but there was one moment which I connected to. Diana stands at the top of some ta...

Fighting Covid was tough but getting over it was probably tougher.  For the first few days after testing positive I felt ill and my body was facing an unpleasant battle against the nastiest virus it had ever come across. Then the main symptoms began to dwindle away and I sort of thought 'well, that could have been worse'. The problem was, it didn't end there.  Obviously one of the biggest issues is that having Covid means you have to self-isolate for ten days. When you are feeling really ill this isn't a great issue because you have no desire to leave the house anyway. But once you start feeling better it's pretty unpleasant. Of course I totally understand that I have been infectious and that I could spread this disease if I broke the rules and headed out. That did not however mean that I in anyway enjoyed being under house arrest.  We've all been through lockdowns and have spent much more time indoors than we would normally would during the pandemic but this fe...

Realistically, it's only a matter of time before everyone suffers a bout of Covid at one point or another. Unfortunately this week it turned out to be my turn. I'm not actually sure when Covid first hit me. Last Sunday I woke up and felt pretty ill so the first thing I did was take a lateral flow test. I waited the allotted time and it remained negative. I spent much of the day feeling unwell and being sick but I gradually began to feel better and had had no symptoms that matched Covid whatsoever so I went to work on Tuesday. Later that evening I felt worse but just assumed I perhaps should have taken another day off and went to bed. I awoke at 2AM and was instinctively aware that something was wrong, took another lateral flow test and a second line indicating I had tested positive appeared.  The moment of realising I had Covid was quite overwhelming. My first thought was for the people I'd seen over the previous few days. I felt really guilty about having gone into work bu...

Sometimes I have a period where I go about my business considering myself to be a normal person but then something happens that is a bitter reality check. I'm dyspraxic and my brain doesn't function in the same way as most other people.  This week is Dyspraxia Awareness Week and I always like to do my best to spread a little awareness. I spent my whole childhood and adolescence continually feeling different and inadequate before finally learning I have dyspraxia aged twenty-one. I'm still really annoyed that I was denied any support due to the ignorance of the world at large. If you look at a list of dyspraxic traits in children I ticked pretty much every box yet no-one had any clue whatsoever. Other neurodivergent conditions like autism, ADHD and dyslexia are fairly well understood by the general population and certainly are well understood in most educational environments (though there's still enormous room for improvement) but I feel that dyspraxia is still something...

Twenty years ago today, on the 11th September 2001, four US passenger jets were seized by suicide attackers. Two were flown into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York, another crashed into the Pentagon and a fourth crashed in a field in Pennsylvania after passengers fought back. Just under three thousand people were killed. I have no direct connection to the event but in a way it still changed my life.  I was nine at the time and had had an ordinary, forgettable day at school. It was the lollipop man that safely guided us across the road twice a day that asked my Dad if he had seen what had happened. Whilst the internet very much existed, this was before the time when you were constantly connected to the world and no-one I knew had a smartphone. My Dad had been working and hadn't switched on the TV, which was the main source of news in those days.  We arrived home and someone switched on the TV. We'd always watched children's TV for a while before dinner tim...

I always get so much benefit from spending time in nature and every so often something truly magical happens... It was a Sunday morning and I'd arranged to meet my parents after they'd finished what they were doing in Christchurch by late morning. It suddenly occurred to me that we would be meeting quite close to one of my favourite nature reserves, a place called Stanpit Marsh, and the timing meant I could easily have a few hours wandering around there before the meet.  I was up and out the house unusually early for the school holidays and found myself parked up with my shiny new walking boots adorning my feet. Off I went and shortly after I began walking the sun broke through the clouds, which was much needed after a gloomy week.  Butterflies and bees flew between flowers in the hedgerows as I headed to the entrance of the nature reserve. Many people overlook the smaller side of nature but I have a special fascination with invertebrates. You only have to stop and look a sunn...

This time last year I stole the format of one of my favourite podcasts to be used as a blog post . Each week on 'Films to Be Buried With' host Brett Goldstein tells a guest they've died and then gets them to talk about their life in film. Since then Brett has added a new format that allows him to have returning guests subtitled 'The Resurrection' and so this week I'm stealing the new format!  You died by tripping over an uneven paving slab, falling into the road and getting hit by a lorry but good news, you've been brought back to life! Excellent. I've had a very busy year given I've been dead all this time! Everyone wants to know all about your life but they want to know about your life through film. What was the last film you saw? At the time of writing that was French lesbian drama Portrait of a Lady on Fire . I'm going through a phase of more arty films right now and this critically-acclaimed film was one of them. It's so brilliantly well...

Scars- we all have them. There's nothing metaphorical going on here, I'm literally talking about scars, i.e. a mark on the body where a wound has not healed completely and fibrous connective tissue has developed. With every scar telling a story, I thought today I would take you on a journey through time and my scars- a sort of scar trek if you will. (I am not saying I have written that post entirely because of that pun I'm very pleased with but must admit that it played a significant factor.) Most people don't realise that I actually have quite a decent scar on my face and that's because it's hidden under my left eyebrow. It's not that difficult to find though and would be very obvious if I were to shave my eyebrow off. This occurred when I was round about three years old and was having an excellent time using my Mum and Dad's bed as a trampoline. Somewhat inevitably after a little while this went wrong and I ended up falling off the bed, catching my hea...

The summer holidays are underway after what felt like a very long academic year. It was hugely challenging in numerous ways from staff changes to the ever pesky pandemic. Despite this I have found this academic year hugely fulfilling, enjoying working in a team that have really gelled together well and seeing the incredible progress our students have made. I feel quite proud to say that other than two days where we all had to isolate, I managed to be at work every single day of the academic year, through two lockdowns. I'd like to think that this is the last academic year of covid-related chaos but with the way things are, it seems likely we will have a third. Even so, after a rest I am looking forward to what the next academic year will bring. I mentioned a short period of isolation- this happened a couple of weeks back when our class had to close and both staff and students had to isolate whilst we waited for the result of a PCR test. I'd actually been quite up for a period o...

I've written fairly extensively about having dyspraxia here and the way it affects me in my adult life. I don't really think of dyspraxia that much on a day to day basis. I've come up with solutions to most challenges I face on a regular basis and have ways of going about things that work for me.  My colleagues found it amusing as I explained that I use the same space at every place I need to park at. I recognise that this is perhaps not normal practice and share some of the amusement but it works for me- I feel far more confident at parking and leaving the space if it's one I've practiced at and beside, this method means I always know where my car is. The flaw is of course that it relies on the space being empty and a wave of anxiety does wash over me if one some stranger has dared to park in the space I lay personal claim to.  Whilst I do have my own tactics for getting through everyday life every now and then a new challenge comes along. Usually these arrive comp...

Until this weekend I had a certain level of sympathy for Matt Hancock. Generally the UK's Health Secretary isn't really in the public eye in the same way as some of the other members of the cabinet but only a few months into his tenure and he had to deal with a global pandemic. There never seemed to be a moment when he looked like he knew what he was doing and he couldn't cope with being interviewed on camera at all, always appearing like his programming still had some serious bugs. There was the moment he attempted to cry on camera which was unconvincing to say the least and the bizarre moment he talked to a Sky News journalist and then suddenly jogged away down the street. Even Boris Johnson called him 'fucking hopeless'. As much as I was continually frustrated about the decisions the government made I'd felt that Hancock was just a decent man (or possibly android) attempting to do his best in a difficult situation.  But no, Hancock turned out to be a massive ...

Since moving to Bournemouth at the end of last year I've barely spent any time back in my hometown other than in my parent's house. Over the last couple of weeks though I've spent a bit more time there as my parents are away and I've stayed there for a few nights for security reasons and to feed the cat (not that she has noticed my presence).  I decide to go for a walk, retreading footpaths I've travelled along so many times for so many years, pretty much daily during the first lockdown. I find myself feeling oddly melancholic. I have very much enjoyed living in Bournemouth and on my own but all the same I will always have a huge affection towards my hometown.  I turn the corner at the end of the street and pass the playing field and memories of being forced into activities I didn't have the skill for quickly wash over me. When I was around eight or nine my father took me over there to practice my catching skills- he didn't posses a cricket ball at the time ...

Moving into my own flat and coming out of a pandemic (though we may not quite have heard the end of it yet) felt like an opportunity for self-improvement. It's a concept I had considered as my completion date approached that was sort of put on the backburner during lockdown but as restrictions eased it felt time to get on with keeping the promises to myself. I have discovered that the idea of self-improvement is not straightforward.  At the start of March I began to work on losing some weight. I've never really been very happy and confident about my body and having spent much of 2020 in the house I'd put on a bit more. For the first few weeks I went on a really strict diet and since then I've been relatively healthy with my diet and concentrating on exercising a bit more. I've stepped up with walking to work and despite get soaking wet on a number of occasions I've been able to walk at least four days a week lately. Sometimes it can quite hard forcing myself out...