A Curtain or A Wall? - Thoughts on Online Personal Boundaries

I've been doing a lot of thinking this week following my previous post.  

Primarily about this blog and what it's for and also the wider issue of where the boundaries in your lives are, whether they are solid, moveable or exist at all. 

As a Social Media Professional (don't laugh), I have attracted a cult following (as in small and crazy) on some social media channels like Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ who expect me to post links and ideas on Social Media, new ideas, platforms, tactics etc. and how they can best use it.  I use Facebook primarily to catch up with and communicate with friends so I have already compartmentalised my social media consumption thusly. 

How have I reacted in the past when other people's boundaries start getting blurred and their real lives have intruded into their professional online persona's?  I follow a lot of social media and tech bloggers and I admit, I become more intrigued and interested when the realities of everyday life come over, because it personalises them more.  

I'm a big fan of the writer Gretchen Rubin and her Happiness projects. An attempt to lifehack and reprogram/force yourself to be happier in all aspects of your life.  Her books are an enthralling read and full of background reading, information and examples from the lives of philosophers, statesmen, spiritual leaders and other inspirational characters but the most compelling parts for me are her interactions with her husband, kids, friends and family and what happens when the rubber of her theories meets the road of reality. IE, what happens when you become a real person, not an esoteric author. 

It reassures me to know they are a real person with real life problems and not a digital avatar sat on a silicone throne pontificating on Pinterest Pages from on high, removed from the everyday digital and detritus we all have to deal with.  

Of course there are limits, WH Smiths has a tragic life story section now for horrendous memoirs so I do like them to go back on topic occasionally but the fact that they are willing to share their own experiences somehow makes them a more real writer and authentic voice than before.  

I thought about this very carefully before writing about our current immigration travails. I know the blog is different, especially this one, as it is meant to be a filtered mirror into my life back in the UK, and this problem is currently weighing me down significantly, so if I didn't make mention of it then I think I'd be doing the reader a disservice. You're here for a couple of reasons but primarily I guess, it's to hear from me.  Guy Bailey the person, not the social media enthusiast and expert, or the writer or the PR/Comms freelancer. 

I link to my blog on LinkedIn, where maybe the personal stuff should be kept to a minimum, and on Facebook where the professional stuff should be put on a leash so I apologise if I let light in on magic by lifting the corner of the curtain, but ultimately, no matter why people follow, read or connect with you on Social Media or even offline, it's because of you. 

Your knowledge, opinions, thoughts, prejudices, ideals, humour and ideas are all facets of you and while some filtering and a process of segment marketing your personality are in operation every minute you're awake, maybe it's not such a new idea. Before the internet it used to be called a conscience.

So I'm not going to make any more apologies for keepin' it real.  You're here (or on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Vine or someplace else) to hear from me, and even though I know a bunch of stuff about a bunch of stuff, none of it means anything without the filter of life and living to give it the human context.  

All the fun of the unfair

Some readers may be a little confused as to why Vince and I have moved back to the UK and Stacey remains in the US.

Basically in July 2012, new rules were brought in to curtail British people bringing their partners and family members into the country if they are non-EU citizens.  Not just folks from those funny sounding countries either, but Americans, Australians, South Africans - you know, our friends.

The upshot of which is that in order to bring your partner, you have to find a job earning a minimum amount of money (£18,600), to sponsor them for two years and an additional £2,400 for each non-EU child.  Vince is dual so doesn't count in that equation but Stacey does which is why my freelance Social Media/Consulting business is on ice and I'm working for Bloggs and Son to meet this figure so Stacey can come over.   It is ostensibly to stop her signing on the dole when she arrives, which of course is foremost in any immigrants mind but also disallows third party sponsorship, so even if I was the son of Richard Branson or Alan Sugar, this would not be taken into consideration.

The Visa processing process takes two to three months itself and costs £850 to apply. Stacey has to apply from the United States, cannot do it from the UK, and has to hand over her passport in the process to make sure there are no sneaky trips to, you know, see her son and husband in the meantime.  There is also no right of appeal if the request is turned down so you'd better make damn sure you've got all your ducks in a row.

The reason the rule was brought in is a classic example of realpolitik.  The government wants to reduce immigration so it can go to the polls in 2015 and say - "Look, we reduced immigration!".  There are several methods to do this but the one they have decided on impacts non-EU citizens immigration rules, which they can control as opposed to EU citizens free movement which they can't.  So, by erecting barriers to non-EU citizens, the number of successful applications falls, immigration goes down and it's a policy triumph. Regardless of how many families and homes are split up in the process.  Japanese and Chinese research students go to more welcoming universities in the US, taking their goodwill, money and brains with them, willing immigrants from countries that are our past and present allies linger on the sidelines whereas citizens from countries with a dubious grip on human rights, rule of law etc, yes Russia & Dubai, we're looking at you, can have the red carpet rolled out if they have £62,500 in the bank.  I should have mentioned that the Government has left a loophole for 'high value' migrants that have that amount of spare income.

A report by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Migration has been published today which reacts as any fair-minded individual would when informed of the wrong-header, cruel policy put in place as a sledgehammer to crack the walnut sized problem of non-EU/British family immigration.  The report addresses cases like us and calls for a review of the procedure - good luck with that.

As a last insult, the rule does not apply to non-British EU citizens and their non-EU partners so Jose from Ireland and his American wife or Bert from Spain with his Brazilian partner can bring them in as soon as they get to a wifi access point to submit the paperwork.

I never thought it would be easier for me to emigrate into the US than Stacey to come here but there we are. I hope this sheds some light on the frustrations and outright outrageous unfairness we face in trying to reunite our family in the UK. Expat message boards are full of heart breaking stories of families breaking up and British citizens being forced into exile just to keep their families together.

But I'm sure it's worth it to keep those darn New Zealanders out...

Update 1 - As ever, our good friends at The Northern Echo are first out of the gate

Update 2 - I also spoke to Amy Lea on BBC Tees drivetime about the issue yesterday too. 

Blessay From America now available on Amazon!

Well I'm officially an author.  

Blessay From America, the ebook, is now available on amazon.co.uk, amazon.com and everywhere else with an Amazon.

It's a lot easier than going all the way back through the previous blog so save some time and get yourself one.

You're Welcome. 

Sun Days and Bizarre Love Quadrangles

It's an extended bank holiday weekend followed by half term week so it's an advantage to be off work so I can enjoy the sun and entertain Vince this week.

Starting as we mean to go on, Vince was invited to a classmates birthday party.  Like a lot of places on Teesside, I haven't been to Thornaby Pavilion in years and it's certainly smartened up since I used to play 5-a-side there.  As has Thornaby itself. 

There is a large silver golf ball on the roof, a kind of miniature Sunsphere which for the first time this year, was working.  The sun does funny things to Northern people. The first sniff of a rising temperature then off come the tops, out come the tatts and (muffin) tops and the trousers shrink faster than in a Jam video from the early 80s.  My unofficial 'worst bodyart in the north east' competition has now gone from the qualifying rounds at Splash baths to the first round proper.  Leader so far is an inept drawing of The Hulk on one guys calf who looks more like an annoyed Jolly Green Giant opposite an equally bad Iron Man but we've got plenty of time left.  Like a mate of mine commented 'I've never seen a butterfly with a middle aged woman wing design'.

The party was great fun. It's was a girls disco and Vince was one of the only boys but this didn't perturb him or me.  He's a good looking young chap so had better get used to being chased around by girls - literally.  The women spent most of their time dancing with each other and chatting while the dads were glued to the walls checking their phones and mumbling to each other. Exactly as I remembered school discos.

Today was more of the same weatherwise so I headed off to the coast with Lil man to meet one of his idols - Kwaazi Kitten from the Octonauts at Scarborough Sealife center. We went via Whitby so we could have a clifftop picnic in the Abbey grounds.  He's a little young to learn about Dracula and the fate of the Demeter in the rocks below but the sun and views of the town compensated enough. Plus it adds another cultural touchstone to his lexicon. He already looks for and is excited by the sight of the transporter bridge every time we go to Middlesbrough and recognises the pictures we have of it around the house.  We've got several more of Saltburn and Whitby too so these will be further mental connections waiting to be made.  I did miss the sea in Atlanta, must have been why I enjoyed our trips to Charleston and the Carolina coast so much.

We drove along Scarborough south bay seafront, Diet Blackpool if you will, and headed to the center. We had some time before our entry so we rode a narrow gauge railway to nearby Peasholme Park for a lolly and an ice cream and back.  Vince has been brought up on steam trains thanks to Thomas and the brick sculpture of the Mallard just outside of Darlington which he insists we stop at every time we can.  The journey is only 10 minutes but is one of the most picturesque you could enjoy. By the sea, beach and castle perched on the clifftop on one side to the park, bridge, tunnel and park lake on the other where miniature battleships used to reenact naval engagements hourly for the tourists. It reminded me of enjoyed another warm week in Scarborough back in the early 90s.

I was going out with a girl who was way more into me than I was her but it wasn't her fault. I was in love with her best friend who she was sharing a flat with at the time but was going out with a guy from Leeds, one of my least favourite cities. To add to my antipathy, I once spent 30 minutes inadvertently impersonating him on the phone with her mother when I finally plucked up enough courage to call. Her mother answered and assuming it was him, gave me the state of the nation address. Our Mike Leigh week passed off without any such incidents but definitely laid the myth that lots of women are mind readers.

The center isn't as large or expansive as the Georgia aquarium but more downhome and charming for it.  A black cat meandered lazily outside the penguin enclosure which closely resembled a cavernous bunker on a decent golf course. After leaving the penguins of the Sahara, we watched the lazy sunbathing seals living the life and then inside for the sharks, rays and eerie Alaskan Spider Crabs.

We watched a huge turtle sloping across the tank until Kwaazi the cat pirate appeared and enchanted the young audience. It's a measure of the Octonauts success that we were able to identify several fish and creatures from sight.   We had a quick round of crazy golf in the sun afterwards, only spoiled by a swarm of pasty skinned meerkats swearing loudly at each other while slurping Stella on the slipway while the tide came in. Sadly not swiftly enough.

We took a leisurely drive back over the moors counting horses, sheep and cows and knowing that an already sleepy vince would  have a solid nights sleep, I drifted back to the unrequited week.

I did eventually date the girl I had set my hat to. My genius idea of a movie followed by a night on the tiles was prematurely scuppered by the choice of Leaving Las Vegas where - Spoiler Alert - Nic Cage plays an alcoholic script writer who moves to Vegas to drink himself to death.  Not being able to so much as look a coke in the eye afterwards, the initial momentum stalled and she bombed me out soon after for a guy who removed barnacles from recreational boats on the Tees. I'd been winkled.

The great thing about the seaside is the constant renewal occurring in front of your eyes. The sand, waves and even rocks will be there again offering warm memories yet they are unique offering constant renewals and the promise and idea that you can begin again, anew, brighter and better than before. The best sand castles will be washed away but can always be rebuilt in the sunshine.

2003 called, It wants its shirt back

Last weekend was one I've been looking forward to since I arrived back in the UK. I headed off to Stratford Upon Avon, birthplace of Shakespeare for a golfing weekend and FA Cup Final cocktails with some very good friends of mine - Rich, Les, Tom and Paddy. Collectively we were known as the House of Kwong after a nameplate on the house we used to share in Oxfordshire after University. 

It's something of a tradition for us to take off for FA Cup Final weekend for golf and gottles of geer. All are memorable and fun, a chance to catch up with the guys, talk nonsense for a few hours and have some convivial drinks in great company. We've been to Nottingham, Norwich, Bath and several other places but one of the more outstanding adventures we had was 13 years ago on this very weekend in 1993, we had a similar weekend on the Isle of Man which we went to, to play in a Football tournament.  I chronicled the various events, and it was eventful, and let you download the full report 'Manx Tales' for your delectation.  

I've also got The Great Gatsby on my mind. Not so much the book as Baz Luhrman's new adaptation starring Leo DiCaprio as the eponymous Gatsby. I've been looking forward to it since it was announced several years ago and now it's here, accompanied by a blisteringly good soundtrack. the themes and ideas of the greatest American novel come flooding back. Particularly one - The idea that you can't repeat the past. Or can you?

We're all older, heavier, more weathered and experienced but have we fundamentally changed? If so, how? 

The golf itself was tremendous fun at a club outside of the main town. Rich, the most diligent golfer in our group and previous winner of the Kwong Championship came to the fore but the battle for second was tight between the rest of us. I was glad to get through 18 holes in one piece, not having played for at least two years but a glorious birdie followed by two pars set nervous pulses racing until normal service was resumed and the only participants worried about my form on the course were the ducks.

We went back into town on the evening, taking care to note all the various authentic Shakespeare tie-ins including his genuine boyhood coach terminal and gift shop and immediately sought to recapture the evenings of youth in the company of various cocktail pitchers, bottles of foreign lager and something of a Kwong trademark, a round of BMW's.  Rod Stewart's tipple of choice, a Bailey's, Malibu and Whisky, as lethal as it is luscious.  The night ended in a surprisingly sparse Chicago Rock Cafe before we sloped back to the hotel.

I first began to doubt the veracity of my theory on the past when I woke up to paraphrase The Blackadder - feeling as if my head had a Frenchman living in it.  Two schoolboy errors of not drinking sufficient water before turning in and not taking paracetamol to head off the runaway hangover express that was heading your way. 

We went back out at lunchtime to eat and take in the first football match of the day. I had conspicuously bought a new shirt for the event, specifically similar to a blue and white Hawaiian number I used to rock in the early 2000's, an effort to create a kind of like a sartorial time machine to see if the act of recapturing your dress could recapture your thoughts and feelings of a particular time and place.  This one was holed fatally when my good friend Paddy complimented me on my 'Alfie Moon' shirt.  

More football and frolics followed including a solid hour of power which involved drinking five bottles of blue WKD within the allotted time frame, another theme-drink of lost early middle-age. A great cup final followed by a really nice Indian meal before we made our way back to the hotel  definitely feeling older if not wiser.

So what did we discover in our 48 hours on the banks of the Avon?  That for all the silk shirts and pink suits on Long Island, the past is a feeling, not a place, and definitely not one that can be reached by conventional means. And would you want to repeat it at all? Notorious party animal Keith Richards thinks his own reputation is somewhat overblown and admits that he rarely drinks/smokes more than one accelerant as you cannot create the initial buzz and rush so it is a waste of time, money and energy doing what so many others do and trying. 

I did realise, surrounded by some of my closest friends and fellows I've shared many drinks, meals, nights, insults, ideas, heartbreaks, setbacks and victories with, that the past is not fixed, it's evolving and exists only to bring you to the most important time in your life. Right now.  Your ultimate duty is to make the most of this time and surround yourself with the very best and most important people, ideas, goals and dreams right now.  This time will be past soon enough, and while you might not remain Young and Beautiful for long, your memories and friendships will, if you give them half a chance. 
.  

Unfinished Business

If you're looking for a word to describe my relationship with the great northern city of Manchester, it's unrequited.  True, I graduated from Manchester University (class of 96) but the three years I spent were mainly in Warrington, 12 miles to the west as this is where our faculty was based.  I visited on many occasions and had a great time in the early Britpop years, and made great plans for a triumphant return after graduation.

I was working at a shipyard in Middlesbrough (who's got blue collar credibility?) and was saving up for my return. Every day when we worked into town for lunch, I saw the Manchester Airport train idling at the station, seemingly letting me know it was ready whenever I was and in January 97, I made the move back.  I got a room in Didsbury, the leafy suburb of choice for the young professional, had friends in town, and even landed a job at a business ratings company in Old Trafford, a stones throw from the cricket and football grounds.  Life was going to be great.

And it was until I broke my leg playing football as a ringer on my cousin's team on a Friday night and spent the subsequent six months in plaster up to my thigh. I had to let the job and room go and convalesced at my parents.  During the intervening 16 years, I've had a couple of other close calls about going back, jobs that weren't right, or I wasn't right for then, ,as John Lennon sagely observed, life is what happens when you're busy making other plans. 

This week however, saw an unexpected but welcome opportunity to revisit the old place for a job interview.  I took the train in from Darlington and was trying to conserve my battery as I thought I might need the map navigation when I got there. Ridiculous because as soon as I came out of Piccadilly Stations impressive glass fronted atrium, I could find my way around blindfolded through Picadilly Gardens and the new Arndale.  This is a city of warm memory for me - I had my stag do here, Stacey and I have had some great nights here going to the Lowry and cavorting round Deansgate.  It was here I met my old BBC pal and fellow Boro fan Paul for lunch at the Moon Under The Water, formerly my favourite pub in Manchester and scene of some delirious celebrations in 1998 when Middlesbrough contrived to win 3-2 against Manchester United.  In the days before mobile phones, my friends were worried they might not be able to find me in one of the biggest pubs in Europe.  They told me they could hear me singing as soon as they set foot in the door later. 

After a pleasant catch-up we parted and I made my way up Oxford Road to my Alma Mata, the University of Manchester, to the old Quad where we graduated on a rainy June day back in 1996.  It was having expensive refurbishment work done but it is always pleasing to read of the achievements of other notable alumni such as Anthony Burgress, writer of A Clockwork Orange, Alan Turing, father of modern computing and Ellen Wilkinson, first female Minister of Education and MP for Middlesbrough as well as being a great socialist.  My interview was here - at my old school.

It's a situation worthy of further consideration. I want to stay close to my friends and family in the North East but new media jobs are hard to come by in our enclave of The Far Corner, the title of Harry Pearsons' seminal 1994 book on North East Football, so I might find myself commuting farther afield.  Driving in Atlanta has given me an appreciation for the longer commute that most American workers take forgranted.  Manchester would previously have been off limits but there are some calls you really must take - and one from your old school, in the industry you love in your favourite city is one.  

Manchester and I have always had unfinished business and while I've been cautious about pulling on the loose ends of the tapestry of my life lest it begins to unravel, my link to Mancunia feels more tethered than most.  

For one reason or another, I may not end up back at the University but I at least have opened up another possible route back into employment and enjoyment and removed another self-imposed limit from my outlook and my life.  I've already done as Horace Greeley and the Pet Shop Boys once advised, 'Go West!', so maybe we'll end up doing it again and achieving a British manifest destiny of our own. 

Made Of Stone

I was back in the North West last week so I took the chance to visit my old college for the first 

time in years.

It was always a quiet, leafy campus and still is with some superficial changes but essentially the spirit and essence of the place remains the same. 

I spent 1993-1996 at Warrington Padgate Campus, now part of the University of Chester, and really had the time of my life - meeting a lot of lifelong friends and setting me on the journey to becoming the person I am today and tomorrow.  But what about yesterday?

You cannot help but think back to the times past when you return to an old home or school, to the person you were and what became of you.  I wandered around the town centre too to see our old pubs closed and refurbished, shops opening and mainly closing and the vestiges of individuality of any town being eroded with another soulless identikit shopping mall.  In a house I lived in for a year, my bedroom overlooked the River Mersey floating by and I was constantly willing my future to come floating along with it. 

In the same way your experiences stay with and mark you, so you sometimes mark them. The first week of term In 1993, I engraved my name in wet cement outside the hall and 20 years later it's still there. I find this immensely comforting, that no matter what I achieve, there will always be proof of my existence here, safe from rebranding, reinvention and inevitable decline. As my body and mind break down and ultimately perish, at least I'll have a good name somewhere...