All that Cecil wanted Was a shiny yellow bike So he wrote to Father Christmas And he told him what he’d like A dozen gears Suspension spring A horn to honk A bell to ring.
Then little Cecil posted His missive in the box With a postscript at the bottom Saying “Please don’t bring me socks! A paint set’s fine Or Lego bricks A football shirt A box of tricks.”
But Cecil he insisted Whatever else he had He had to have a bicycle Or else he’d go quite mad He’d stamp his feet Or scream and shout He’d make a scene There was no doubt.
Yet Cecil had a problem Though he really didn’t know His parent’s impecunity Was something of a blow They had no cash To throw around He wouldn’t like What they had found.
And so on Christmas morning Young Cecil was bereft And he railed at Father Christmas For the rubbish that he’d left But he didn’t scream He didn’t shout He grabbed his coat And just went out.
Though Cecil went a-walking To heal his broken heart The lack of what he wanted Was tearing him apart He held back tears He wouldn’t cry His Christmas dream Was just a lie.
The hollow Christmas Story Was nothing but a joke If Santa wouldn’t help him Because his folks were broke It wasn’t fair It wasn’t right He made a plan He vowed to fight.
So Cecil took his chances Imagination fired He scanned the streets around him And stole what he desired The Christmas dream Became at best “Take what you want And sod the rest.”
The moral of this fable Is don’t just sit and moan If Santa doesn’t bring it Then go and get your own A sin, it’s true Maybe a vice You steal the bike And pay the price.
The price for our poor Cecil Was screaming in his head He wanted to be honest But he’d turned to crime instead A cost in pride A price in grief When conscience says “You’re just a thief.”
So Cecil took the cycle And made an honest stance He twice tried to return it But the owner said “No chance. My parent’s paid All that is true But it serves them right – I wanted blue…”
I am 67 years of age, I have had more than enough time to earn my ‘Cynical Badge’ and yet, fundamentally I am a believer: fairies, pixies, ghosts, werewolves, dead certs, 100% guarantees, honest politicians, ‘humble’ film stars, karma, parallel universes, the Big Bang, UFO’s, Big Foot, Santa Claus, Donald Trump’s conscience, I have an unrivalled capacity to believe, and at this time of year my openness to the suspension of scepticism is legendary. I do believe in father Christmas, not as the white bearded, ruddy-faced individual who drops a gift off at every house in the world over the period of a single night, but as the reason that the mince pie and glass of whisky I leave out every Christmas Eve is always gone by the morning – and let’s face it, it’s a far more logical thing to believe in than Donald Trump having a conscience.
There is a good will at Christmas that is almost defiant. The soldiers who ceased fighting on the Western Front in order to play football (Germany won by the single goal in extra time) share rations and show one another photographs of their loved ones were not smiled upon by their superiors. It was tolerated, eventually, but definitely time-limited. Anyone unprepared to skewer the man with whom they had shared their duff just hours before could expect to be shot by their own side. The higher echelons were so worried that this spirit of camaraderie between the two armies might persist that they withheld pigs in blankets until the troops could produce a chit affirming that they had robbed at least one child of a parent on Boxing Day. The spirit of Christmas can prevail, but seldom for long in the face of those with something to gain.
In my life, the spirit envelopes me at the beginning of December and lasts for the whole month, generally crashing around my ankles on the dreaded New Year’s Eve with the singing of Auld Lang Syne and the reckless expectation of hugging people whom you wouldn’t touch with a bargepole at any other time of the year. We all fear that we are that person.
So December is all about ignoring the fact that January is on its way and with it the two great portents of mortality: New Year’s Eve and another birthday. New Year’s Eve generally sees me in bed and asleep in time to be woken by the midnight fireworks; New Year’s Day is often the day on which my wife begins to pack Christmas away and January Second is the day on which I become another year older. Death is not something I choose to think about – it is an inevitability – but it does come ever closer along with its sister inescapability, infirmity. Illness is something I do think about, but if I’m honest, in a very abstract sense; never deeply enough to actively delay it. Over these three days, though, my thoughts do turn to the final days, weeks, months, or even years of sub-standard existence and, should I make any resolutions – always broken by the 2nd – they are always to do with keeping myself on my feet and doing the crossword. (I am aware that elderly people traditionally take up Sudoku for brain exercise, but it is a complete mystery to me. Numbers float in all directions and every grid features two 9s.) I am fortunate enough to be relatively fit and mentally acute – I know that neither are ‘given’ – but always on the lookout for signs of deterioration. Forgetting to put the cat out is a worry, forgetting that we’ve never had one is far more so. I try to enjoy each Christmas as if it is my last which – for all of us – it could possibly be.
Of course, nobody wants their last Christmas to be marred by family feuds, burned turkey or indigestible Brussel sprouts. (To many, Brussel sprouts are always indigestible, but Christmas without them – like Love Actually – is unthinkable) so the pressure is always on to make it a good one. Children embrace it properly and are even prepared to forgive you for being totally lame for anything up to twenty-four hours. The even become suitably competitive for the Christmas Hat Game*. They might even sit and watch a film with the rest of the family and abandon their phones for minutes on end. I suppose it says much about our nation that the most cherished ritual of Christmas is the afternoon nap. It wouldn’t be Christmas if you didn’t sleep through The Kings Speech and wake up with the desperate desire to open the windows.
I am supremely lucky to be part of an extended family that wants to spend time together. We gather, in various formations, as often as we can. Because there are so many of us we tend to drift in and out of one another’s Christmas these days – even if only by Zoom – but Christmas is a day when nobody minds a phone call during dinner or a visit just as the pud is being lit. ‘Come in, pull up a chair and grab a spoon. There’s plenty of everything, and not a single cynic in the house. So, what did Father Christmas bring you?…”
*Everyone wears the paper crown out of the Christmas Cracker. When the first person (hopefully discreetly, but after a couple of snowballs, who can say) takes theirs off, everyone else must follow suit as subtly as possible. The last person left wearing their hat must accept the ridicule from the room as well of the responsibility of being the first person to remove their hat in the next game – and there will be a next game, there always is: it is surprisingly addictive.
…And nobody ever thinks about the Elves, do they? The fat bloke in the red suit – one day a year he works – is the man who gets all the plaudits. Thousands of bloody doppelgangers all around the world he has, sweating their nuts off in cheap polyester onesies, fur trimmings, elasticated beards, pinned down by screaming kids, while you-know-who snores the month away in bed, scratching his balls and dreaming of mince pies. He gets all the credit whilst up here in Lapland, we Elves slave away in the old man’s freezing sweatshop three hundred and sixty four days a year, trying to guess at the start of January what the little buggers are going to be asking for come the start of December, before they change their minds and decide they’d sooner have something else at the last minute and who gets the credit when that all works out ok hey? Is it the poor pointy eared little person in the scratchy pea-green suit who actually made it all happen? No, of course it isn’t, it’s Glory Boy, obviously, who takes all of the credit despite the fact that he’s still wearing his reindeer slippers and no pants whilst all the real work is taking place. It’s like being Taylor Swift’s drummer. She knows that nothing works without him/her, but as far as the audience is concerned they might as well be a piggy beetle with a wooden leg stomping about on a biscuit tin. Nobody ever asked what poor sod had to spend his working day rubbing Fiery Jack into Elvis’s dodgy pelvis did they, even though there would have been no show without him. We may not have to massage Elvis’s groin, but without us Santa would be substantially lacking in Ho-Ho-Ho.
We talked about going on strike once, we did, convened a meeting and everything but the world is full of cheap Chinese Elves these days, isn’t it? He’d sack us as soon as look at us and replace us with untrained Chinese Peasants, even though they’d all be too big for the uniform.
It used to be ok of course: a child who wanted a lead-painted wooden pull-along train in January could generally be trusted to still want one in December and, anyway, a sharp parental clip around the ear was generally sufficient to deter bouts of fickleness. Not now. Nobody wants to give the kids wood these days on account of the risks associated with Dutch Elm or such like and whatever silicon chipped gizmo they wanted in January – when we sat down to start assembly – will have been superseded by fourteen more advanced models by November, not to mention become ‘totally lame’ and certain to elicit nothing but ridicule from their friends whose parents have connections in Japan and therefore access to ‘the latest thing’ before it even hits the production line. There is always a newer model and it almost always comes out at the very moment you’ve wrapped the old one.
Of course, I have tried to help: I’ve told the Big Man that we need to modernise. We could save so much if we dropped all that personalised delivery malarkey and replaced it with a card through the letterbox informing the recipient that the gift has been left in the registered ‘safe place’ or the recycling bin, whichever is easier. Perhaps we will need to instigate a free returns policy – or at least a free QR code to work out how much it is actually going to cost – as a quick and convenient way for people to divest themselves of all the amusing mugs, bookmarks with the wrong name and foot spas that are the true hallmark of Christmas present. I mean, what’s wrong with a nice on-line catalogue? All that writing a letter to Santa and posting up the chimney nonsense is pretty archaic isn’t it? Just open the Christmas App and drop whatever you fancy into your cyber-sack. Choose exactly what you want and return when you decide you don’t – that’s bringing the whole thing into the 21st century isn’t it?
And of course, bringing the whole thing up-to-date will have far reaching and positive effects here in Lapland. We Elves will be able to concentrate on producing the toys that we’re good at – I, for instance, am very proficient at the tin xylophone – knowing that if orders come in for goods that we haven’t made the client will just get an email on Christmas Eve informing them of unavoidable delays and the possibility of a refund sometime towards the end of January – right after our post-Christmas shutdown. There is, however, still next day delivery available on hand painted novelty musical instruments etc etc. Also, with no deliveries to be made by our own carriers, we can finally lay off those stinking flippin’ reindeer. They think that they’re so special. Alright, they can fly faster than the speed of light, but they only have to do it for one day a year and somebody still has to clean up after them for the other three hundred and sixty four. There’s little worse in this world than reindeer shit all over the soles of green felt slippers let me tell you. I can’t wait to put them out to grass.
Talking of which, that brings us round to the old fella himself doesn’t it? Do we really need him anymore? I mean, fat man with white hair and a long beard, does that really fit the profile of a modern, forward-looking business? A giant red hoodie? Really? White fur trimmings? Got to face facts: you just don’t get away with that kind of meme these days. ‘Free gifts for all’? I think that Advertising Standards would be down on us like a ton of bricks. ‘The season of joy, love and peace’? Give over. The season of family rows, dyspepsia and disappointment more like. Throw in an open invitation for children to come and sit on the old soak’s knee and we could wind up looking at the biggest law suit in history. The knock-on reputational damage to all of Elfdom could be catastrophic.
I’ve tried to explain it all to the Big Man, time after time I’ve tried, but you know what it’s like, nobody ever listens to an Elf…
I put myself through this every year and I have no idea why. It is normally sometime in the middle of November when I start to consider what to do for Christmas and, more troubling, whether I’ve actually done it all before. Now, I enjoyed writing last week’s post, but one week out from Christmas Eve I must admit that it didn’t seem to be altogether seasonal, so I decided that something altogether more uplifting would be necessary to rebalance the scales this week and consequently – as I tend to write this kind of nonsense well in advance of publication – here I am, over six weeks out from the big day fretting over what I have to say and attempting to jot down some kind of list of reasons to be cheerful. It is currently wet, windy, unseasonably warm and just the right side of gloomy to be unconducive to such enterprise. It might say ‘Cheerful’ on the front of the bus, but I have no idea what route I have to follow to get there.
Cheery is my default disposition, but if I’m honest, maintaining an equilibrium is often easier said than done. As human beings we begin life as a relatively blank slate: contented = asleep; uncomfortable, hungry, or fearful = crying – and life slowly rounds-off our corners, chips off our edges and gives us definition until, eventually, it reaches a stage where the cracks begin to show, erosion sets in and bits start to drop off. Remedial care and general repairs become a way of life. Common sense tells me that there can be very few people of my age without any ongoing health issues to contend with. It is a common maxim that laughter is the best medicine, but when you get to my age, paracetemol certainly runs it a close second.
For me, frustration is the heaviest burden: that I am not as fast, not as proficient, not as amusing as I once was. I know that I have started to repeat jokes – a real grandad thing to do – I do not always realise that I do not necessarily share common experience with people who are half my age. I am not, by today’s standards, terribly PC. Oh, and I repeat jokes…
I feel as though I have always been a little behind the curve: I remember the other boys at school sniggering about Master Bates in ‘Oliver Twist’ and not knowing why. I remember similar tittering at the mention of Hymen in ‘As You Like It’ and the embarrassment of having the reason for it explained to me by one of the more worldly wise boys in the class who, incidentally, claimed to have actually seen one. It is the main reason I have never been into bandwagon jumping: I know I would miss it and fall flat on my arse.
Naivety is, I think, my Super Power. I am often completely oblivious to the contempt in which I am being held by the wiser heads who can chuckle at double entendres in Classical Greek whilst I am left agonising over whether Rich Tea is funnier than custard cream. Give me a short-sighted character and a banana skin and I am happy. I really don’t have much time for the kind of jokes that require an explanation: man falls down open manhole = funny; man goes on to explain that the open grate is a metaphor for sexual dysfunction, less so. I do though, have a high tolerance level. I do not necessarily dislike those with whom I fundamentally disagree, as long as we can share chocolate and laugh about it afterwards. Harry Secombe once said that he always suffered fools gladly because he was one of them.
I am foolish enough to love Christmas – not the lights and the glitter, the crap jokes and the over-eating, not the unwanted gifts, the mistletoe, the alcohol, the chocolate… ok, all of the above if I’m honest – and while people are very eager to inform me that Father Christmas is not real I would argue that he certainly is – in spirit. I love the spirit of Christmas. Not the Christmas Gift Top Trumps of ‘see how much thought/money/physical queuing endeavour I put into your gift’ but the ‘Wow! A Freddo Bar, thank you,’ spirit. It is the ‘I love a mandarin,’ spirit. It is the scattering fragments of walnut shell over an area roughly equivalent to half a football pitch spirit. It is the ‘Fetch a hammer. Nobody could open an almond with these crackers,’ spirit. I love the Salvation Army at Christmas (although I deplore the fact that they are still needed.) How emotive is the sound of a brass band? I always equate the sublime film ‘Brassed Off’ with Christmas, simply because of the music, in much the same way as I now equate The Beach Boys ‘God Only Knows’ with the season because of its use in ‘Love Actually’. I cannot imagine any of it without ‘Miracle on 34th Street’ – The Richard Attenborough version obviously – because some things are non-negotiable.
Writing Christmas posts troubles me. For weeks before they trouble me, yet nobody actually reads the posts I make over the Christmas period, they – quite rightly – have far better things to do, like finding a thousand disparate ways of wrapping a Lottery Scratchcard; calculating the defrosted weight of a turkey sufficient to feed twenty (including three vegetarians, one vegan, two meat-eaters who just don’t like turkey and would much prefer chicken, a Scandinavian in-law who would rather have herring and the kids who will only eat it if it is minced and covered in baked beans) and getting the sprouts on. It is not December if your house does not smell of brussel sprouts and red cabbage.
Anyway, here we are, for me it is actually November 12th and for you it is probably December 21st; I am looking forward to it all while you are probably already up to your neck in it. I always presume that most of my readers are of a similar age to myself and anticipating a nap in front of Strictly rather than a seasonal tumble from a new skateboard, so all I can advise is that you try to enjoy it as much as you possibly can. It might not be quite everything that we want, but Lord knows, we may not have too many of them left in us and, let’s face it, nothing quite compares with the thrill of watching the grandkids start to learn about dealing with disappointment when they open the monogrammed handkerchiefs you’ve bought them…
Montague Jones was many things to many people. To his mother he was always Montague Barrington Pilkington Carrington Jones because that was the name she had given him. Montague because it was Romeo’s surname. His mother had never read Shakespeare – in truth she had read little beyond the menu at McDonald’s – but she knew the story of Romeo’s all encompassing love and she hoped that by giving her son that name he would be spiritually bound to reserve the same kind of devotion for her. In truth he hated the name and despised his mother for giving it to him. Worse still the supernumary names that she had insisted upon attaching to it, which she used in full whenever the occasion allowed, preventing Montague from pretending, even to himself, that they did not belong to him: Barrington, after a village she once saw on a jig-saw box, to which her romantic soul told her she would retire one day where she would drink Amontillado sherry from a tiny cut-crystal glass, rather than the mugs full of gin that routinely helped her make it through the day as a young mother; Pilkington because it reminded her of the double-glazing salesman who had brightened her day just nine months before her son was born and Carrington because the name allowed her a little nod towards the daughter she actually wanted by using the surname of Joan Collin’s character in Dynasty. Jones was the surname of the man who – before the days of DNA testing – appeared on his birth certificate as ‘Father’ and to whom Montague’s welfare was entrusted after the untimely death of his mother.
To his father he was always known as Monty, a name he particularly despised having seen the cover of a book “Monty – His Part in My Victory” by some bearded weirdo on which the Monty character was depicted as a wizened shrew-like man with a hook nose and a strange grey moustache that looked like it was trying to escape his face. Montague hated any association with this character and his father, sensing his son’s discomfort, was all too willing to heighten his unease by claiming to anyone who would listen that he had actually been named after the great man himself. Montague swore that he would take revenge one day when he was older, but fortunately his father passed away whilst he was still at school, the result, according to the coroner, of a diet that consisted almost exclusively of brown ale and chips and caused the kind of imbalance that almost certainly led to him toppling down the stairs early one Sunday morning whilst his son played ‘Cowboys and Indians’ in his bedroom with a cast made up entirely of household implements and cushions.
His outright refusal to respond to the name Montague at school led to him being known as Baz by of all his classmates and Barrington by all of the teachers. He suffered the ridicule routinely handed out to ‘care kids’ by the other children and only the humiliation of having ‘Free School Dinners’ saved him from the embarrassment of having his dinner money stolen on a regular basis. Unable to relieve Montague of cold, hard cash, his fellow students instead set upon a regime of piling ignominy upon ignominy upon him until he finally fully absented himself from further education, a step that was to be his salvation as he was subsequently not on board the school bus that ran off the road in the winter of young Jones’ thirteenth year, killing three of his contemporaries and maiming many more. Fortunately he was nowhere near the bus when tragedy struck, nor was he anything like the person who had been seen loitering around the bus station the night before – as far as anyone could tell…
To his workmates he was known as Pilkington when, in an effort to connect with his biological father, he began work as a window fitter. He was a popular member of staff to all but his fellow employees, employers and customers. Many co-workers refused to work alongside him which, ironically, ensured his own continued employment whilst those alongside him were routinely sacked for rejecting the instructions of their supervisors. Cheaper, less experienced workers were employed and, consequently, corners were cut. Workplace accidents became commonplace and the company eventually folded leaving Montague, the longest-serving member of staff, and the only one with all ten fingers, to face the pain of redundancy.
To the staff at the Labour Exchange he was known simply as Carrington in reference to his single likeness to the characters of Dynasty: overbearing arrogance. Montague made it quite clear that he did not need to be offered jobs because, quite simply, he had no intention of ever working again. All he required was a signature on a piece of paper that allowed him to draw his regular remuneration from Her Majesty’s grateful government at the Post Office. One or two members of staff naively attempted to point him towards gainful employment, even, on occasions, hinting that he would not receive the necessary signature if he did not at least attempt to find work, but those responsible seldom lasted long. It was not unusual for them to suddenly fail to turn up for work themselves, usually resulting in the other overworked members of staff ‘signing Montague off’ for extended periods, during which time he did not need to report to the office at all. The remaining staff members – many of whom had suffered unexplained ‘near misses’ to all manner of catastrophe – finally clubbed together to buy him a Fax machine through which they would send him – anonymously – the necessary paperwork each week.
To himself he remained simply Montague Barrington Pilkington Carrington Jones, a friendless, jobless orphan: a man who was isolated from the rest of humankind by a total lack of all empathy or sympathy and a personal hygiene regime that bordered on reckless. His shuttered upbringing had equipped him instead with an array of personal traits: antipathy, sociopathy and psychopathy that had coalesced to make him the person he was – the most ruthlessly efficient, emotionless serial killer ever known in the British Isles.
Of course no other person (still) alive knew that Montague…
I enjoy a holiday as much as the next man – unless, of course, the next man is the man that enjoys holidays far more than anybody else, in which case I probably don’t enjoy them quite as much. Holidays are like jewelled rainbows in rain-darkened skies, but they do, similarly, come at a cost e.g. it’s always raining somewhere. My wife is a lover of the ‘sunshine’ holiday and as she a) is a travel agent and b) books the holidays, it is generally the sun we go in search of. We have, on occasions, gone in search of other things: we went for a brilliant and freezing few nights to Lapland in search of the Northern Lights (which we found – only to discover, like everyone else, that they are much more spectacular on film) and we went to Scotland in search of what would possibly become my favourite whisky, but I remember very little of that. We have been to many a sunshine destination only to find that the sun has packed its bag and headed off home and, in our younger days, we have stayed in hotels that must have had to bribe someone in order to obtain the single star they displayed over the door, but I cannot honestly recall a bad holiday. There have been bad bits – hotels that claimed never to have heard of us and rooms with more resident wildlife than the Serengeti – but always outweighed by the good bits.
Now I have to be honest; I was born in the (very) late fifties and holidays then consisted of either perma-damp caravans, prize bingo and fish & chips or holiday camp barracks, prize bingo and roast rabbit. Until I met my wife and we honeymooned in Majorca, ‘abroad’ was very much a foreign country to me. The caravans of my youth were inadequately heated and lit by calor gas, devoid of all electricity, running water and flushing toilets. When I close my eyes I can still smell them and it is entirely possible that only selective memory tells me that they were the location for the very best of days, but they certainly opened my eyes to the fact that holidays, like everything else worth having, are what you make them.
I have a disposition that allows me to find pleasure in almost all of what I do – and despite the fact that holidays are almost always these days framed by my two most hated places, the airport and the airplane, I continue to derive great pleasure from them. I am not going to pretend that I spend my entire vacation grinning like some fat, albino Cheshire Cat, but holidays are always filled with things that bring joy to my heart and, to a lesser extent, a wry smile to tightened lips. I will list them below, purely in the order they occurred to me. Some of them you will recognise, some you may not. I do tend to view life through a lens of ‘Is it just me?’ so I’m not sure if they are a common theme of everyone’s vacation. Perhaps you can tell me…
Airport ‘rows’ between people who, for whatever reason, are temporarily blind to the fact that there are several thousand other people surrounding them.
The ‘farter’ on the airplane.
People walking bare foot across a pebble beach to reach the sea.
Old people who think that they can be sexy whilst dancing to Tina Turner.
Cats that take your seat when you go to the bar and refuse to move when you return.
When I say ‘Yes’ to ‘Do you want ice in your whisky?’
Soup for breakfast.
‘The trouble with the Germans is…’
That the French insist on calling Flip-Flops, ‘Flop-Flips’*
Mid-morning cake with a beer.
Five thousand TV channels, but only the News from Azerbaijan in English.
The face made by people as they first submerge their lower portions into the swimming pool.
‘It’s OK when you get used to it.’
People attempting to put a parasol up in the wind.
Chips with everything.
Cloud watch.
‘A five minute walk to the beach.’
The rare occasions when I am not the palest body around the pool.
Ill-fitting shorts and ill-advised swimming costumes.
‘Where are you from?’ ‘England.’ ‘Ah, where in England?’ ‘Lincoln.’ ‘Where?’ ‘Lincoln. It’s in Lincolnshire.’ ‘Is it near London?’ ‘No.’ ‘Manchester?’ ‘No.’ ‘Ah, you’re Scottish…’
‘Does this contain meat?’ ‘No, just ham.’
Some people – and I include myself – should never wear a hat.
Dads and daughters, barriers down, actually enjoying each other’s company.
Children in a swimming pool are never cold – even when they’re blue.
Elderly men with holiday pony tails.
Every palm tree sunset looks like the cover of Hotel California.
The sheer impossibility of climbing aboard a lilo on the water.
Clouds – not because they block the sun, but because clouds are bloody brilliant.
Tasselled ponchos and tie-dye T shirts.
The words to English songs when sung by non-English speaking singers.
Remaining on the sunbed ‘just in case’ until driven indoors by hypothermia.
People who preface everything they say by ‘When we were in [insert very glamorous holiday resort] last year…’
Cocktails that contain none of the traditional ingredients.
Foods that do the same.
The series of ‘original works’ distributed throughout the hotel and obviously daubed by an over-Calpol’d three year old with the attention span of a juvenile gnat.
People who decided they didn’t need the mozzie spray.
Local musicians who are clearly much better suited to ‘the day job’.
Couples on their first holiday together.
Men who clearly do not usually wear shorts.
Men who don’t usually ‘dress up for tea’.
The dining room confusion of new arrivals.
Being there.
Mis-spelled tattoos.
Exaggerated sad faces on the return transfer bus.
The drinks trolley slalom to the aircraft toilet
The glum determination of those who are dying for a drink on the plane, but know that they have to drive at the other end.
Planning the next holiday on the way home
*Whilst the Aussies call them ‘thongs’ which we all know are skimpy knickers.
It is called Black Boxing and this is just an example of how I understand it to work – although I wouldn’t be at all surprised if you were able to prove me completely wrong: 1. I have a bag full of things I no longer need. 2. I give it to charity. 3. The world is a better place. The Black Box is sandwiched between steps two and three and contains all of the things that need to occur in order for step three to be achieved: things that I neither understand nor know about. I know that there is a whole cart load of cogs in there, but I just don’t want to even think about how to turn them. I (in my utter saintliness) give, and someone who needs the help benefits from it. It is all I need to know.
Except that I am suddenly beginning to become aware of how liberally my life is littered with the little consciousness vacuums that lay between my actions and the ultimate consequences of them. I have no idea what happens between putting an empty beer bottle into the recycle bin and drinking another beer a few weeks later, ensconced in the self-same silica, because I don’t need to know. It is of no consequence to me. Conscience tells me I have done a good thing by recycling my bottle and the Black Box confirms it, by hiding anything that might, like Putin’s line on ‘defence’, point in another direction. Black Boxes contain all of life’s messy stuff: you meet a girl and fifty years later, when you celebrate your Golden Wedding Anniversary, nobody cares at all about all of the stuff that happened in between times – good days, bad days, laughter, tears, shouting, coo-ing, pendulous haemorrhoids and a veruca the size of a Pacific Island (before the Chinese built an airbase on it). As we get older it is increasingly life itself that gets Black Boxed.
Obviously, it is not always a good idea to delve too deeply into what comes in between. How many meat eaters actually want to know what goes on with the sheep and the cows and the pigs between farm and plate? They have a happy, carefree life, they die a stress-free painless death and that’s that. The Black Box contains a carnivore’s conscience.
The Black Box is the very essence of Psychology and Sociology: the core of all dilemmas and the essence of all solutions. Take a known situation and a wholly predictable outcome, stick a whopping great Black Box between them and bingo! nobody even has to consider the mechanics of what happens in between. The world becomes a much simpler place. Psychopaths are, for instance, famously the responsibility of absentee fathers, but as long as we do not need to understand the mechanics of it, we can find a solution by merely providing a father for each and every budding Norman Bates. Any man who does not have a son must adopt a proto-psycho and, simply in the act of doing so, eradicate the infant’s antisocial tendencies. Nobody needs to know how. The Black Box contains the hows and whys. Drop any number of fatherless children together with an equal number of childless fathers (I know, I know, but stick with me) into the Black Box and the world instantly becomes a better place. Perhaps someone could create a Black Box capable of taking in a self-seeking, sexist, entitled, ego-maniac before spitting out a normal, well-adjusted human being. Let’s think about who we would like to put in it. I bet we’re all thinking about the same former prince.
I mention all of this because I think that I may well have just isolated a Black Box that could save the world! Let me talk you through it. The planet is suffocating in a blanket of greenhouse gases, heading towards temperatures that could lead to financial calamity for tanning parlour owners and a mass-extinction event capable of engulfing the rest of humankind – although not necessarily the ones you’d want. Carbon is the problem. We can either stop releasing carbon into the atmosphere – which we seem to be incapable of doing – or find a way of removing it retrospectively. This we can do, although it is in itself a complex process which, I think, involves giant filters, melamine, broccoli and a whole lot of other stuff which is probably contained within an even bigger Black Box. I know that diamonds are made from carbon. They are dense, they are famously ‘forever’, they are stable, virtually indestructible and very manufacturable, much like government lies, so here is my solution: 1. Capture the carbon from the atmosphere 2. Black Box 3. Use it to make diamonds on a massive scale 4. Black Box 5. Bury the diamonds where no-one will attempt to dig them up (Chernobyl, Gruinard Island or Wolverhampton) and Bob’s your Mother’s Brother. The planet is saved and all you need to do, dear human race, is simply fill in the Black Box…
P.S. Believe it or not, I am actually by qualification a sociologist and I do understand how Black Boxes really work, but wouldn’t it be lovely to live in a world saved by poetic licence?
P.P.S For a couple of weeks I had, thanks I am told to a bot, a readership in the thousands. On the third week my figures returned to normal but last week my weekly blog had a readership that could be counted without taking off the second glove. I don’t think it was a bad post, but even if it was, that would not explain the absence of readers: nobody would know it was bad until they had read it. If anyone can explain I would love to hear.
“…Yes well, you say that,” said the man in the cavalry twill overcoat, thrusting his newly emptied glass under the nose of the man in the moleskin waistcoat, “but you have a house and a job.” “So do you. We all do.” “No thanks to you and your type.” “What do you mean my type?” asked Moleskin, gathering up the three empty glasses as the man in the meerkat T shirt attempted to loosen the last shard of cheese and onion crisp from the packet’s seam with his tongue. “Communists,” said the man in the coat. “Communists?” asked the man in the waistcoat. “I vote Labour, the same as you. The same as everyone around here. I could vote for Orville the Duck for all the difference it would make, so how am I to blame for people not being able to get jobs and houses?” “You and your army of do-gooders letting all-comers into the country without a single thought for our own unemployed. No-one looks for a job anymore: they can’t get ‘em. Not a decent job to be had these days. All taken by the illegal immigrants. You can’t even get a decent hotel room on account of the asylum seekers having them all, gorging themselves on caviar and free drinks from the mini bar I shouldn’t wonder. Stocking up on free toiletries to send back home…” “Well, it won’t bother you, will it?” said Meerkat as Moleskin departed for the bar. “You always said that you’d close all the hotels anyway. ‘Capitalist playgrounds’, isn’t that what you call them every time Moley goes on holiday? It’s why you always choose to spend your two weeks in your sister’s caravan instead isn’t it?” “Yes, well, times change don’t they? We were forced to re-evaluate our position re caravan holidays on account of the unreasonable demands of the site commandant re not drying my underwear on the veranda last year.” “Yes, well, they’re getting very particular on caravan sites now aren’t they? I suppose that people don’t want to find themselves sitting in the hot tub of an evening, drinking Prosecco and nibbling on their little bits of cod’s roe on toast whilst staring at the holes in your dripping underpants.” “There are no holes in my underwear! I am very particular about them, hence my need to wash them once a week, and I’ve got to dry them somewhere. Can’t expect me to put ‘em back on wet can they… Is he brewing that bloody beer?” Together they looked over to the bar where the barman was just passing the third pint to Moleskin. “And what about him behind the bar?” continued the man in the Cavalry Twill overcoat. “You’re not telling me he’s here legally.” “He’s from Wolverhampton,” answered Meerkat. He’s a trainee solicitor.” “Why’s he working in a pub then?” “Earning extra money I think. Saving up for a house.” “Hah! My point exactly!” said CT, raising his voice just sufficiently for it to be heard in the very corners of the Empire. “He’ll have to pay a fortune to get one, but if he’d come here on a bloody dinghy he’d get one for free.” “I don’t think they are just given houses are they?” asked Meerkat. “I think they’re held aren’t they, in some kind of prison camp or something until they’re allowed to stay?” “Or a five star hotel room that subsequently becomes unavailable to the honest working man seeking a break from the petit bourgeois snobbery of the caravan-owning elite,” ranted the man in the coat. “No expense spared there. Hot and cold running state benefits, NHS dentistry and colour TV. Don’t even have to pay for the licence I shouldn’t wonder.” “Most of them end up living in some squalid HMO* with a dozen other men sharing a single bathroom and doing all the shitty jobs that ‘our own’ unemployed wouldn’t touch with a bargepole,” said the man in the Moleskin waistcoat as he placed the glasses on the table. “And you, if you don’t mind me saying so, haven’t to the best of my knowledge, paid for a TV licence since they scrapped the detector vans – it’s why all your TV’s are on wheels.” “You’re glamorising them,” said CT, choosing not to acknowledge an argument he could not counter.. “I just don’t think they’re all bad. I mean, what would you do?” “Oh, ‘They’re escaping war and starvation; protecting their wives and children…’ you’re trying to make them sound noble.” “I’m trying to make them sound human.” “Problem is,” said the man in the meerkat T shirt as he examined his pint through the misted side of the glass. “We’re just a small island aren’t we? We’ve got limited space… Do you think there’s a fly in there?” “I don’t think anyone would deny that,” agreed Moleskin. “We can’t cope with the numbers, but It’s about finding a way to deal with people who do need our help without turning them into ‘the enemy’. We’re just not making much of a job of it, are we?” “Why don’t we just ask the French to pop the boats before they set off?” asked Meerkat, rising to his feet. “I think I’m going to ask them to change it,” he said. “He makes a solid point,” said the man in the lovat tweed. “Nobody gets far in a leaking inflatable. I once got stranded on a sandbank off Southend and had to survive on nothing more than a plastic cupful of winkles while I was waiting for the lifeboat to come. Bloke at the end of our street, he came over in a boat. Got his own house and he’s retired on a full state pension now.” “He came across on The Windrush,” said the man in the waistcoat. “We asked him to come.” “I bloody didn’t!” “You weren’t born. It was 1948. He was a child and his dad came over here and worked in the steelworks all his life. He’s a flippin’ teacher. He taught your kids.” “My point exactly,” said CT. “Look at the bloody state of them.” “Not entirely all his fault is it? Your Shaun was hardly ever there.” “The standard of learning in the school didn’t challenge him.” “He walked out because they wouldn’t let him smoke in class. He set fire to the science lab.” “It was a fly,” said the man in the meerkat T shirt, returning to his seat. “The barman said it was dead, but he changed the pint anyway.” “What school did you go to?” asked CT. “The same one as your kids,” answered Meerkat. “Why?” The man in the Cavalry Tweed overcoat took a giant sip from his glass and grinned at the man in the waistcoat. “My point,” he said, “is made.” “What point?” asked Meerkat. “Nothing,” said Moley. “Ignore him. He’s just being fatuous.” “…I enjoyed school,” said Meerkat. “Except maths, I was never much good at maths and I didn’t like Shakespeare.” “You did Shakespeare?” “Did he write ‘The Famous Five’?” “No.” “No then… I didn’t care for books really. ‘Why bother with reading when you’ve got a perfectly good telly to watch,’ my dad used to say” “Another solid point,” said CT. “Books are the source of a million untruths.” “Whereas TV never lies?” asked Moleskin. “A picture is worth a thousand words, isn’t it?” “Depends on the words I suppose,” said the man in the moleskin waistcoat, draining his glass and offering it to the man in tweed, who continued as if unaware of it. “Can’t lie on telly,” he said, pulling his coat tighter around his shoulders. “The advertisers won’t allow it.” “I don’t know,” said Meerkat. “My mum bought some Shake ‘n’ Vac because she liked the song on the advert, but it didn’t put the freshness back into our carpet. Ended up smelling like a brothel my dad said.” The man in the Cavalry Twill overcoat opened his mouth to speak, but was silenced by a glare from the man in the waistcoat. “…I used to like those little robots who advertised powdered mashed potato,” continued Meerkat. “Smash!” said Moleskin. “‘For mash get Smash’.” “That’s it… Mind you, I don’t suppose they actually made the mash did they, the robots?” “I don’t suppose they did,” said Moley. “My round I think,” said the man in the Cavalry Twill suddenly hauling himself awkwardly to his feet and taking his companions completely by surprise. “I’ve just got to go to the lavvy. You get it will you and I’ll settle up with you when I get back.” “How?” “Do you take credit cards?” “Patently not,” said Moleskin. “Well you’ll just have to wait until I’ve got some cash then,” said CT chuckling loudly. “You never have cash,” muttered the man in the waistcoat bitterly. “Well, you’ll just have to wait until I get some then.” “Where from?” “Oh, I don’t know. Perhaps I’ll get myself a second job and start to save up for a holiday in a five star hotel… no, wait…” “I’m sure he’ll pay you,” said Meerkat. “Yes, when hell freezes over,” said Moleskin. “Can it do that?” asked Meerkat. “I never knew…”
I would imagine that most of us have at some time flown in commercial airliners, but how many of us have actually taken a critical look at them? They cannot fly. Everybody knows that they cannot possibly fly. They are massive and very heavy. They cannot stay up in the air. Something happens when we get on one – I don’t know what – and we appear to be in a different time and place when we get off. It is not possible, we all know that it is not possible. Have we been brainwashed or socially engineered? Are we the victims of some kind of mass hypnosis: ‘…and when I click my fingers you will go back to being an ineffectual fool in impractical shoes and eye-crippling knitwear.’ We will never know because, honestly, we don’t care. We get into the giant metal tube in one reality and we get out of it sometime later in a totally different one. The sunsets are glorious and the drinks are cool, so why enquire too deeply. Why make waves? Life is a snowglobe* in many respects: cheap and tacky, filled with water and tiny plastic chippings but give it a shake and the magic happens. Who doesn’t love a snowglobe? Things are always so much better when you don’t understand them and remain so as long as you make no attempt whatsoever to do so.
Try to understand a butterfly. Try to explain why evolution – the survival of the fittest – could possibly lead to that particular design. “Shall we make it fast and sleek so that it doesn’t get eaten all the time?” “Nah.” “Well let’s make it drab and colourless then, so that it doesn’t get noticed.” “Nah, we’ll make it beautiful and slow and impossibly fragile. In fact, I’ll tell you what, we’ll let it be a caterpillar first: they’re even easier to catch and eat. And in between times any that manage to survive can just exist as crunchy little pools of non-moving protein.” Charles Darwin could not explain this. It is no way to survive.
And here’s another thing. While humankind learned to stand upright, make fire, build cities, use computers, create music. art and Monty Python’s Flying Circus, why did everything else stand still? Why didn’t the other apes evolve around us? Why didn’t cows and sheep and pigs arm themselves? Why did whales continue to mooch around the oceans allowing themselves to be harpooned? Critters got bigger, got stronger, faster, more venomous, more difficult to spot in a sock drawer, but none of them got brainier. Why? They have had just as much time as ourselves and equal opportunity. Put an infinite number of chimpanzees in front of an infinite number of typewriters and, given an infinite amount of time, they will write Hamlet. Nothing to shout about is it? Shakespeare did it on his own and in a time only slightly longer than it takes to perform. That apes continue to be apes says it all. They have all the raw materials: large brains, the tendency towards violence, opposable thumbs, but when it comes to knowing which knife and fork to use they just don’t have a clue.
It has to mean that humans did not evolve smarter, they just started out that way. So how? What element of the primordial sludge gave us such an evolutionary advantage? It is as though we managed to jump the starting pistol by millions of years with nothing around to tell us that we couldn’t do it. Maybe we were created in somebody else’s image – if so, I’m pretty certain that whoever was involved is not going to own up to Nigel Farage. Maybe in a hundred million years Orangs will be like we are now, but what we will be like by then? Far from developing, our own brains appear to be atrophying. We are happy to have all of our thinking done for us by AI and, sooner or later, it will figure out how to neutralise the ‘off’ switch.
I am old enough to remember the original ‘Planet of the Apes’ film (Charlton Heston and Roddy McDowal I think – although I’m pretty certain that a Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson reboot must be imminent) in which the human race had gone into some kind of evolutionary reverse gear whilst the apes had learned how to ride horses and fire guns. Not massive progress, but enough it appears, to put us in our place. Ridiculous? Possibly, but it does open a window onto an unfortunate human trait: because we have, over history, always ‘worked it out’, we believe that we will always be able to do so; that we will somehow continue to thrive on an uninhabitable planet, that we will find ways to feed ourselves when we can no longer grow the food we need. As a species we have always had the ability to think our way through things, but what if this – where we are today – is as far as we actually go? What if Donald Trump is actually the apogee of human development? What if he is our entire race’s high-water mark? What if he represents the fullest extent of the human ability to think rationally? What if we become unable to cope with software that is actually much brainier than ourselves? What if we are not ready for the planet to fight back? What if we really have no answer to mounted chimpanzees with rifles? What if all of human history is just an illusion and we are waiting for someone to tell us?
I guess that they might just be up there on an airplane somewhere…
*Autocorrect would have me believe that snowglobes do not exist, but we all know that they do, so I will continue to ignore it.
It didn’t even occur to me until just now – too late as is so often the case with me – but throughout our recent holiday, we were constantly bombarded with Spike Milligan’s pet hate (the looped muzac tape) which was continually playing what could best be described as ‘soft jazz’ versions of long ago hits, one of which was Imagination’s 1982 song ‘Just an Illusion’, and it had obviously lodged in there somewhere as I started this piece. By the time I finished, David Bowie had stormed the Citadel…
“President Joe once had a dream The world held his hand, gave their pledge So he told them his scheme for a Saviour Machine
They called it the Prayer, its answer was law Its logic stopped war, gave them food How they adored till it cried in its boredom
Please don’t believe in me, please disagree with me Life is too easy, a plague seems quite feasible now Or maybe a war, or I may kill you all” Saviour Machine – David Bowie (1970) Frightening how clearly some people can see the future isn’t it – and how easily others ignore it…
“…The Sat-Nav said we should have gone right back there.” “I know. Unfortunately our GPS is so old it was unaware that there is no longer a road to turn onto. It’s all changed. I’m following the signs.” “Shame you can’t do that in bed!” “Oh, not that again. Look, I told you, I was distracted. I had something in my ear.” “You very nearly weren’t the only one!” “I apologised at the time.” “You know the kind of damage something the size of a cotton-bud being thrust into the ear can do don’t you… Remind me, why are we going to Hemel Hempstead?” “To see my aunty.” “Yes, you said that, so remind me again, why are we going to Hemel Hempstead?” “Look, I know she’s not your favourite relative, but we’re all she’s got.” “She calls you Kevin. She doesn’t even know who you are.” “She calls you Morticia, so she remembers you alright.” “She’s not even your real aunty.” “What do you mean?” “Well she’s not actually related to you at all is she? She doesn’t share your DNA.” “I think we all share some DNA, don’t we? Except maybe for you…” “How did you even meet her in the first place?” “She used to look after us when we were kids.” “Like babysitting?” “I suppose so, yes.” “So she’s your ‘aunty’ on account of babysitting you?” “She was a family friend.” “…And was she always warty?” “She’s not warty.” “She’s a witch: of course she’s warty.” “She’s my aunty, she’s old and it’s only for a couple of hours. Just try to be nice can’t you?” “I’m always nice. Ask anyone… except for your family, of course – they all hate me.” “They don’t hate you… well, ok they do, but you give them plenty of reasons don’t you.” “What do you mean?” “You put superglue in Derek’s hairpiece.” “Oh yes, I forgot about that. That was funny!” “Ok, it was quite amusing, yes, but I don’t think he’s ever forgiven you. He had to wear a woolly hat for weeks.” “He called me a trollop.” “He did not!” “Well, he thought it.” “We all think it.” “You think that I’m a floozy? Why? Do you think that makes you Richard Gere?” “I think it makes me nervous. I never know what you’re going to say.” “And that’s a bad thing?” “It would be fine if you weren’t quite so aggressive.” “I am not aggressive!” “The kids are all scared of you.” “I’m a teacher. The kids are meant to be scared of me.” “I meant Derek’s kids.” “Your brother’s kids are wimps. What kind of kids cry when you tell them a bed-time story?” “You told them the Bogeyman was real and living under their beds. You told them he had a chainsaw.” “And they believed me!” “Ellie is only four. She started wetting the bed again. Now she cries if they even mention your name.” “…I’ll take her some sweets next time we go.” “Derek’s kids are not allowed sweets, you know that.” “Oh yes, what is it now, something to do with refined sugars and pig’s knuckles isn’t it? Well, they’re better than the lemon your brother’s wife seems to be permanently sucking. Her face is so pinched that not even Botox can save it.” “She doesn’t have Botox… Does she?” “Have you ever seen her smile?” “Not when you’re around, no.” “She can’t smile. Her face would explode… Shouldn’t you have gone left there?” “Should I? Oh bugger. What does the Sat-Nav say?” “It says that you’re in the middle of a potato field and that it’s November 2015. We really need a new car.” “Can you get Google Maps on your phone?” “Ok. If you promise to listen to my instructions.” “As long as you don’t take us straight home like you did last time.” “Maybe I’ll just take us straight to the car showroom. Maybe we can buy a car with a Sat-Nav that doesn’t list Stonehenge under new buildings.” “I like this car.” “Of course you do. It’s old and tatty – like your underwear.” “It gets us from A to B.” I know, but it needs a rest before C. It’s prehistoric. It doesn’t have cameras. It doesn’t even park itself.” “It doesn’t need to: I do it.” “I bet you can program a new one to do it within walking distance of the supermarket.” “Where it will get bashed with doors and trolleys. Look at this car, the bodywork is immaculate. Not a bump or a chip anywhere. Cosmetically, it is as good as new.” “Internally it’s senile. It doesn’t know whether it’s coming or going.” “Only when you’re navigating.” “And it’s SO slow. I bet it’s never been over seventy miles an hour.” “I think you’ll find that that is as fast as it is allowed to go.” “What do you mean?” “The National Speed Limit is 70 MPH.” “And who sticks to that?” “People who don’t want to lose their licence… “If you’re talking about me, I’ve driven this car a million times and I’ve never once gone over 70MPH – although God knows I’ve tried – and I’ve never lost my licence.” “And how many Speed Awareness Courses have you done?” “Only one.” “Oh yes, I forgot, you get points on your licence after that, don’t you? How many have you got?” “Everybody speeds from time to time.” “I don’t.” “I know, it is so nerve-racking being a passenger when you’re driving.” “What do you mean? I’m really careful. I’ve never even had a single accident.” “I know. But when we’re on a long journey I have to keep checking that you’re still alive… I have to keep checking that I’m still alive.” “You really do need to be more patient.” “Patient?” “Yes, you don’t need to do everything in such a rush, you know?” “Really? Well thank you for that information Mr Cotton-Bud dick?” “Oh, here we go again.” “…And you’ve just missed your turning…”
Getting On 