"And what is more- You'll be a man, my son"

It was National Poetry Day five days ago, and what with being back at uni and having an absolutely no spare time for about a fortnight I missed doing any sort of post about it. Still, even though this is late it has given me an opportunity to write something a bit more than "It's National Poetry Day. Brill."

This is because of two things. One, I've been thinking a lot about Kipling's If, pretty much my favourite poem of all time ever since we were preparing a stand at work a couple of weeks ago for NPD where each of us had to pick our favourite poem and write a small reason why. In my defence, the question was sprung on me before I'd had any caffeine as I walked in the door. Which is why I picked Ozymandias by Shelley instead of letting my brain kick into gear.

Anywho, I was stuck with that choice. But in reality I would probably have plumped for If. And given a few things that have happened over the last few days (all, you understand, my own doing) I've realised I like it all the more.

There is absolutely no excuse for being an unexpected and total dick, blowing up in the face of someone who has done nothing to deserve it. This happened. And I would like to say

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you

then you're a stellar and outstanding individual. If even one person is screaming and shouting in your face, more or less, and you can reply calmly and show them what a twat they're being, quite honestly you're brilliant.

I'm normally quite a mild-mannered individual. For reasons unknown I did, the other day, go from this



to this

(Imagine he's punching a puppy, for looking at him. That's how deranged it was)

and the recipient has been brilliant about it. Because I'm normally not a raging twat, I don't normally need to say sorry. But I learned the other there's nothing wrong with admitting you've been an idiot, and people are generally nice when you do, which oddly feels like a fuzzy sort of thing to know.

Now that's the end of that soppy self-punishing business. More rants to come soon.