The Beginner’s A-Z of D.I.Y Subversion (Blackmail)

BLACKMAIL Money extorted by threat; hush money. A simple and relatively inexpensive method of subversion, requiring the minimum of equipment:

A smart phone with camera and voice recorder or, at a push, a camera and a voice recorder.
An insight into the daily routines and habits of a notable public figure who is likely to do something disgusting enough to make him vulnerable.
A large thermos flask and a Tupperware box for your sandwiches.

Blackmail is definitely not the kind of thing that you can go rushing into willy-nilly. Planning must be thorough, meticulous and written down in really big capital letters to avoid any confusion:

Take great care when identifying your victim:

He/she must be financially viable – there is little point in blackmailing someone who cannot pay.
Ensure that they are doing something that they shouldn’t be doing – paragons of virtue are notoriously difficult to blackmail.
Ensure that they care – you’ll get nowhere if your victim doesn’t give a toss what other people think about them.

In gathering the evidence you will require in order to execute your plot, you will almost certainly have to conceal yourself at some stage. Take great care when selecting your hiding place: there are some wonderful places in which to secrete yourself, but they are of very little use to you if they are on the other side of town to the naughtiness. Try and find somewhere to hide in the room where the action is expected to take place. Having decided on the wardrobe, ensure that the door can be opened from the inside – there is nothing worse than being trapped inside the closet whilst the action is taking place on the bed outside, particularly if the flash goes off.

Having leapt out of the wardrobe and captured an image of your victim(s) in flagrante, you must now face the biggest challenge of the whole operation – escape. Plan, plan and triple plan your escape. Have as many alternative escape routes arranged as possible and be aware that you will be attempting to negotiate them whilst lugging your out-of-shape frame along passages and alleyways at speeds far greater than furred-up arteries will appreciate, into a fire door that someone will, inevitably, have locked.

Should you manage to affect an escape, send a simple, straightforward blackmail note to your victim, informing him/her that you will turn the photographs over to husband/wife/police/avoid nausea, unless you receive £1,000 in used notes¹ before the end of the week. Don’t be dissuaded from proceeding if, in the excitement of catching them ‘at it’, you got the angle all wrong and cut their heads off in the finished photograph. There is often incriminating evidence to be found on photos of knees and ankles.

Arrange somewhere very unusual for the money to be left; get somebody else to collect it in case things go wrong and always count the cash before you post the evidence. Do not simply count bundles – remember they may be a ‘sandwich’ of real notes filled with carefully cut newspaper. Always be suspicious if they are carried in a suitcase and the carrier removes one bundle and flicks the corners in front of your face before closing the lid and handing it over. Also, beware of other people in the vicinity carrying identical cases, particularly if they sidle up to you whilst you are waiting for the bus.

A TYPICAL D.I.Y BLACKMAIL PLOT – You are probably the last person this side of Alpha Centauri to discover that your boss is having an affair with his secretary. Through astute investigation and by asking the cleaner, you discover the location of their weekend assignations, and fight your way into the wardrobe where you wait for the main event. You are woken by the 37 other subversives scattered around the room firing off their Yasichas in deafening unison. You leap to your feet, partially garrotting yourself on a pair of braces and take a brilliant flash photograph of the contents of your nose, which the local chemist over-develops. On leaving the hotel, you trip on the stairs and snap the shutter release from your Kodak.

Personally I always prefer crisp, new ones, but the secondhand appears to be the preferred subversive note of choice.

The Beginners A-Z of D.I.Y Subversion Index is here.

The Beginner’s A-Z of D.I.Y Subversion (Bacterium to Bilbo)

(Author’s Note: a slightly different Monday, Wednesday, Friday vibe to this week as letter B proved to be particularly fruitful and, let’s be honest, nobody wanted it to leach into a second week…)

BACTERIUM Microscopic single-cell organism; a disease or germ. The subversive’s brain. Not to be confused with Bactrian, which is a camel with two humps on his back – similar to the shoulder/chip ratio of most subversives.

BALLISTA An ancient military engine for throwing stones or other missiles. Now known as a child¹. A ballista comprised a long wooden arm, tied back and weighted at one end before being released, hurling the missile from the other end over a considerable distance, causing a significant amount of discomfort to anyone unfortunate enough to be under it. Considerable physical effort was required in pulling back and tying the wooden arm prior to its release.

A child is a soft, warm frenzy of snot and noise, generally smelling faintly of chocolate, which will happily throw anything you give it – as long as you ask it not to.

Whilst most right-thinking people would deplore the deployment of children in the furtherment of subversive activity – it would have to be considered almost reckless to ignore the opportunity when it is there. Subversively speaking, little measures up to the explosive effect of a strategically placed baby in a full nappy.

BANG A loud, sudden, explosive noise. Result of a gunshot, an explosion or a teenager leaving the room.

BARBARITY Brutal or inhuman conduct; cruelty. ‘Brutality, Inhumanity and Cruelty’ appear to have taken over from ‘Liberté, Égalité et Fraternité’ as the basic principles of revolution in the twenty-first century. Unfortunately, nothing has taken over from the principle of slaughtering those who oppose the ‘revolution¹’.

In this instance, ‘revolution’ means ‘more of the same – and none of it good’.

BASTARD A person born of unmarried parents; an illegitimate child; a vicious, despicable, or thoroughly disliked person. Oh, come on, this is the twenty first century. There is no place in our society for blind, ignorant prejudice of this kind. Ok, he’s vicious and despicable – it doesn’t necessarily make him a bad person does it? Goodness knows, if most of us disowned everyone we know who fits this description, we would have no friends left.

If the word has any power as a term of abuse, then its significance must surely have been seriously eroded with the news that more children are now born out of wedlock¹ than in it. Perhaps, in the long term, it may become an accepted term of approval – maybe ‘legitimate’ will become an abusive term. Think of it next time you whack your thumb with a hammer.

Very similar to ‘arm-lock’, but with longer-lasting consequences.

BASTINADO Beating with a stick, especially on the soles of the feet. A method of torture that is reputed to cause excruciating pain whilst leaving no mark – a little like a James Blunt concert.

BATTER (1) To beat persistently or hard. Violence and subversion are often assumed to walk hand in hand – it is not necessarily so. Many subversives are deep thinkers; much more inclined towards cerebral rather than physical methods of sedition – especially if facing an opponent with a small vocabulary and a large stick.

BATTER (2) A mixture of flour, milk or water, eggs, etc., beaten together for use in cookery; to coat with batter. This is what politicians are really for – although subsequent deep-frying may be a step too far.

BAYONET A dagger-like steel weapon that is attached to or at the muzzle of a gun and used for stabbing or slashing in hand-to-hand combat. If you’ve any sense at all, you will forget this weapon, it is messy and unpleasant and, most importantly, generally used in circumstances where there is a 50/50 chance of being on the receiving end. If you are invited somewhere and asked to take a bayonet, go with a light bulb.

BEARD Facial hair. Generally speaking, subversives wear false beards as an occasional form of disguise – unless, of course, they normally wear a real beard, in which case they shave them off as a disguise. Either course of action is legitimate – as long as you are not ginger.

BEAT Strike repeatedly. A sort of all-encompassing bastinado, generally giving extreme pleasure to at least one of those involved.

BEG What subversives do when they’ve been caught.

BICYCLE Two wheeled vehicle propelled by the rider. A cheap and efficient method of getaway, particularly downhill.

BILBO A long iron bar or bolt with sliding shackles and a lock, formerly attached to the ankles of prisoners. Be honest, it’s not what you thought it was, is it? A modern adaptation of the Bilbo is the Electronic tag, which, whilst not actually physically manacling the prisoner, does make it extraordinarily difficult for him to wear novelty socks.

The Beginners A-Z of D.I.Y Subversion Index is here.

Magnificent

I am aware that my regular meanderings on this platform have an unfortunate tendency to veer towards the maudlin and may well give the impression that I am perhaps myself a little dour, but it’s not true. I am happy to tell you now – largely because I fear that nobody else will – that I am, by and large, a happy man and fun to be around. If I have a fault at all – and God knows, it’s hard to imagine – it is that I am, if anything, too jolly; just too much fun to be around. You would be surprised to find out how many people laugh out loud every single time I open my mouth. I suppose that is the price you pay for NHS dentistry. If I sound pessimistic from time to time, it is almost certainly because my red nose is in the wash. I am the life and soul, ask anyone. (Alright, not exactly anyone: my wife thinks I’m deeply unfunny and the kids just think that I’m losing my marbles. The grandkids like me, but they’re not overly sophisticated joke-wise. As long as I can make ‘rude noises’ with my tongue, I’m onto a winner as far as they’re concerned.) I am the man that everybody wants to sit with at the pub – which is why I never go. If I was a chicken, I would probably qualify for my own crossing. If I was a bowtie, I would spin enough to generate the electricity required to power both a secret hand buzzer and the water-squirting flower in my lapel…

As I get older and life begins to bombard me with all manner of shit, it becomes increasingly important for me to root out enjoyment wherever I can find it. I’m not suggesting that it’s a good idea to deliberately go out in search of a bad haircut, but that you might as well laugh about it when you do get one, after all, everybody else will. You fall over in embarrassing circumstances – usually whilst showing off or forgetting that you are a good few years older than you used to be – and everybody laughs at you, and before you know it, despite the pain, you find you are laughing at yourself. Laughter is infectious and, like most infectious things, you tend to catch it when you least expect it. You cannot get vaccinated against it, but you can marry an Estate Agent.

There is so much joy to be found in the every day – not least of which is the fact that it is the every day. In my dad’s later years, when he became too ill to get out and about, my mum used to cut his hair, but she hated doing it because he moaned so much, so I said I would do it. When I first started to cut – and believe me, I am no hairdresser – he duly started to moan and I, for reasons I cannot comprehend, started to laugh. The more he moaned, the more I laughed until, magically, he saw the absurdity of it all and he began to laugh as well. We finished the haircut in tears of laughter, so I decided not to destroy the mood by showing him his shattered head in the mirror. We both grew to look forward to our father/son time – although dad never stopped moaning and I never showed him a mirror – but we definitely grew closer through shared laughter.

Most of us who ‘go to work’ to make a living know that we find ourselves annoyed by some things and amused by others every day, and, as long as the laughter outweighs the misery we are happy. I am exceedingly fortunate, I am currently in what will without doubt be the final paid employment of my life, and I enjoy the company of everybody with whom I spend my days. I cannot begin to imagine what they feel about me, but they haven’t thrown me out yet. (Unless the letter’s in the post.) And all of this despite the presence of an electronic till that clearly dislikes me almost as much as I dislike it. Anybody who believes that Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a thoroughly modern thing should meet this early century fiend. It is choc-full of all manner of AI and every single molecule of it is malign. I am by no means certain that ABMI (Artificial Bloody Minded Intelligence) is actually ‘a thing’ but this little bundle of demonic computer chips sits like a malignant deity on the shop counter and dares me to press a button, ready to lock me out at any moment, ready to force me to rummage through my own pockets to find the customer’s change. It behaves impeccably for everybody else and I know that it shares in their laughter as I stare, uncomprehendingly, at its smug LCD face. I don’t know who invented it – I picture a brow-beaten Japanese inventor wreaking vicarious revenge on a scornful spouse and indifferent children – but I am pretty certain that DAVROS stuck a couple of castors under one of its siblings and taught it to scream ‘EX-TER-MINATE!’ If I turn up for work one day and find a sink plunger attached to its mephistophelian little head, I will be straight round to Wilkinson’s to buy a new sonic screwdriver (and £2 worth of Pick ‘n’ Mix while I’m there – let’s face it, there’s no point in missing an opportunity. A pack of Love Hearts always cheers me up*, even if I have to buy my own). And there you have it, I think of that black-hearted till and all I get is the taste of Love Hearts – and life can’t get more magnificent than that.

*It goes without saying that two packs make me twice as happy.

I called this post ‘Magnificent’ purely because I knew I was going to end it with the first verse and chorus from the song of the same name, by Elbow, simply because, other than me, it is the most joyous and optimistic thing I can think of.

“This is where the bottle lands
Where all the biggest questions meet
With little feet stood in the sand
This is where
The echoes slow to nothing on the tide
And where a tiny pair of hands
Find a sea worn piece of glass
And sets it as a sapphire in her mind
And there she stands
Throwing both her arms around the world
A world that doesn’t even know
How much it needs this little girl

It’s all gonna be magnificent
She says
It’s all gonna be magnificent.” – Guy Garvey

Truly magnificent, isn’t it?

After the Flood

I arrived home from work yesterday to be informed by our houseguest that our next door neighbour had knocked on our door some hours earlier because a water pipe had burst in her home and, in the panic and confusion of cascading water and plasterboard, she was unable to locate the stop tap. I rushed around there – painfully aware that rushing no longer provided any sort of solution to her problems – to find the house locked and in darkness. She had clearly fled the scene some hours earlier, before her rescuing hero had crested the hill, wrench in hand, some eight hours too late. (Although, as I was unable to see water bubbling out of the chimney, I presumed she had found some way of turning it off herself before she left.) Her house has changed quite a lot over the years, as has ours, but I was fairly confident that, save for one of her previous plumbers being some kind of ‘escape room’ fanatic, I would have – had I been present when required – been able to locate the stopcock fairly readily and thus ensure that her kitchen ceiling had not, in the company of several thousand litres of water, become her kitchen floor. I was not.

Our own stopcock is exactly where I remembered it to be and I’m fairly certain that, in extremis, I would be able to turn it off somehow. (Although I did not attempt to verify this as the kitchen cupboard in which it resides is full of so many chemicals that I would have felt safe to reach in there only if wearing a full hazmat suit and the kind of mask that is issued to frontline NATO infantry in combat.) However, it turns out that in my neighbours extremis I was actually in absentia and she had had to call somebody from the neighbouring village who arrived to find that the bathroom floor had found its way through the kitchen ceiling and that the goldfish that had been so carefully nurtured in a bowl on the kitchen table, had enjoyed the most fleeting of moments of liberty before ascending to fishy-heaven on the receiving end of the 240 volts of electricity that had suddenly found itself at a loose end when the tide came in.

The fact is that when needed, I was at work and therefore in no position to whack my pants on over my trousers, don my cape and fly to the rescue of my helpless neighbour*. In retrospect, I was more helpless than she: at least she knew what was going on. I was in my usual state of cluelessness, made even worse by the knowledge that even if I had known what was going on, I would have remained clueless. My dad always taught me that knowledge did not automatically equate to competence, and I’m pretty certain that he didn’t consider himself to be acquainted with anybody less competent than me. (In his later years I would often push him round to the pub in his wheelchair and I have never witnessed anybody grip the armrests so tightly. By the time he had finished his allotted two pints, he was ready for home and eager for almost anybody else to push him there**.) I am seldom called upon to rescue people. I am what is known in rescuing circles as the very last resort, however, whatever my proficiency on the wheelchair pushing front, I’m pretty certain that my neighbour would have been perfectly happy to accept my basic level of tap-turning competency in the midst of the prevailing torrent, if only I had been available to demonstrate it. It is like riding a bike – tap turning – you never forget.

The relevant point, however, is nothing to do with my tap-turning acumen, but with the fact that I was both unavailable and unaware when I was, finally, called upon. Not my fault of course – things so seldom are – I was doing what all normal wage-earners do: drinking tea and gossiping about everybody else that I work with. My willingness to help, unlike my capacity to do so, was never in question: merely my availability.

I am left with mixed emotions: disappointment that I was unable to help, but relief that my ability to do so was not put to the test. I am not at all certain that I would want to feature on the insurance claim forms as the man who couldn’t turn the tap off. I would not like to give the assessor the opportunity to say ‘You called who? Well, you can’t possibly expect us to cover that!’ I enjoy a genial relationship with both of my neighbours, the thought of being held responsible for exacerbating the kind of domestic deluge that could have been halted by anybody other than Mr Bean with a monkey wrench, is not one that I wish to contemplate. Happily, I have been able to apologise for not being there when my neighbour needed me, and I’m pleased to report that it was much easier than having to apologise for wrecking her house…

*I think that I should probably point out here that an inability to find a stopcock in the midst of a crisis does not, in any way, constitute ‘helplessness’, any more than a pre-knowledge of said location equates to being a master-plumber.

**To be fair, I don’t think he ever told me that he had no faith in my wheelchair piloting skills, but, if I’m honest, I put that down to sheer terror.

“When the flood calls, you have no home, you have no walls.
In the thunder crash, you’re a thousand minds, within a flash.
Don’t be afraid to cry at what you see…” Here Comes the Flood – Peter Gabriel

Trainspotting

I did it when I was a child, for the shortest of times – trainspotting. I had a book I recall, given to me by my parents who thought that ‘getting out there’ might ‘do me good’, printed with rows of numbers which, to the best of my knowledge, I was just meant to tick off every now and then. You could go on the stations back then – a platform ticket was a penny I think – as long as you didn’t get on the trains. You could put your tanner in the chocolate machine for excitement. It never gave you what you wanted. Mostly it gave you nothing at all. And you never got your money back – no matter how hard you kicked, you never got your money back. Better to spend it in the buffet really. You could get a terminally watered-down orange squash and a penguin biscuit for your sixpence, but not a Fudge bar. They were only in the chocolate machine and it wasn’t letting them go.

More often than not I spent my money on the ‘I speak your weight’ machine because I was fascinated by it, but I was so thin that it never knew that I was on. I imagined it tutting at me – but it never gave me my money back.

Whenever a train chugged into the station I marked the number off in my little book, but I felt no excitement: just the slight rancour of a wasted life everytime I realised that it was a train I had already seen. Sometimes I just marked a different number anyway, and I felt like a real maverick. I began to mark numbers off at random every time a train pulled up to the platforms. It got so that I could do a whole days spotting in the bus on the way into town.

I was aware that for most of my fellow social outcasts, Saturday morning trainspotting was a real collective deal. They gathered in little groups and chatted about what to expect from the day. “567431 is coming in about ten,” somebody would say and there would be a general murmur of appreciation. I was never invited into the groups. I stood on the edge and marked off 567431 as soon as the number was mentioned. It was as good as. No point in wasting the whole morning waiting to actually see it. If it was a diesel train, then I knew what it would look like. Instead of becoming closer to my fellow hobbyists I was aware that I was growing ever-more distant to them. There was them and there was me and we had absolutely nothing in common but for our little books of numbers. They had bright hooded anoraks and nylon over-trosers whilst I had faded loons and a Gratton’s catalogue tank-top. They had waterproof rucksacks and I had a Tesco carrier bag. They had tea and cake from the buffet whilst all I had was a sense of loathing for the solid state that wouldn’t give me my money back. They were interested. I was not.

I did like it when the occasional steam train thundered through though. I lived through the very tail of the steam age and it was always a thrill to see them. They were not the gleaming red and green leviathans of today’s tourist lines, but decaying, smoke-blackened hulks chugging their way to the knacker’s yard. The best thing in the world was to stand on the bridge as they passed below belching lung-crippling blasts of steam and smoke into the air. The power was palpable. It went up through your feet, along your legs and reverberated around your chest like a firework in a can. The steam trains were always the highlight of any day – they had names rather than numbers – but they became fewer and further between. Mostly it was just diesels. Powerful, but clean and bland, and to me, the trainee trainspotter, very boring.

So I began to find other things to do with my time. I wandered from the station – no point in wasting a perfectly good penny on a platform ticket – to the town, to the castle, to the cathedral… You could wander on your own then, and mostly I was on my own. I loved the cold silence of old buildings and I would meander around them endlessly. There was a little hexagonal stone building in the Cathedral grounds – which I now know is nothing more than an ornamental well-head – where it was rumoured that with the right number of circumnavigations, you could summon up the devil. I tried every weekend, but he never came. Shame, I could have done with the company. Then one last wander back to the sweet shop, or best of all the joke shop, where I spent my precious accumulated 7d before crossing a few random numbers off my book and heading home for dinner. (In my world, ‘dinner’ was always taken about mid-day. Anything after 1pm was ‘tea’ and seldom involved potatoes unless chipped.)

Dinner over and Saturday afternoons throughout autumn, winter and spring were spent in our own little corner of the Sincil Bank stadium watching the Mighty Imps get trounced by whomever it was that was lucky enough to be playing them that day. It didn’t really matter that they lost so habitually back then, I was part of the crowd and we all wanted the same thing. The fact that we so seldom got it was of little consequence. Two hours on the freezing terraces in the company of the same group of people every other week was what weekends were made for: stewed tea out of a steel urn, a slightly faded Garibaldi biscuit out of a crumpled paper bag and a nip from my grandad’s hipflask if I was lucky. People around me that always seemed happy to see me and all I had to do was sing, cheer and groan as appropriate: one of the gang. There have been ups and downs for the team in the half century and more since, but I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed my football more than I did back then. From the ground at full time, the whole world it seemed traipsed as one over the two railway bridges back to the steaming buses home, and I would often spot a determined little gaggle of weather-proof anoraks on the distant station, waiting still for the 4.45 from Peterborough. I had no desire to be with them then – even their little tartan vacuum flasks of now lukewarm Bovril were unable to ward off the clawing cold by that time, their fold-away kagoules no match for the stalking wind and biting sleet – but never-the-less, when I got home, I always crossed another number off my little book, just so that I still felt at least a little bit a part of it…

Squirrels

I am fully aware as I start to write today’s little potage de vie, that I will lose about 50% of my readership by the mid-way point. I remember my dad telling me a similar tale and I had to beg him to stop. (He didn’t, of course, but that’s just the way it is with dads.) Although I know that the way I tell my little ‘stories’ often has a tendency to make things sound as if I have just made them up on the back of a particularly lurid acid trip, it is not the case – particularly so today. The story I am about to relate is not only completely true, but relates back to a very old thread within this blog and whilst I cannot honestly claim that I have not embellished the facts in my own style – there is no point in putting profiteroles on the table if you can’t cover them in cream and sprinkles – they do, none-the-less remain ‘the truth’: buffed up perhaps, but not made up.

It is the time of year when the squirrels in the local park will take food from your hands and, should you not be quite quick enough in offering it to them, will think nothing of running up your leg and nipping your fingers by way of a reminder. Food is at a premium and when it is available, they will do all that they can to get it and to hang on to it. The sun was shining, the grandkids were happy and we were all enjoying our commune with sciurus nature when my phone rang. Following on from my recent ultrasound scan (see ‘Mortal’ here) I had an appointment later that very afternoon to see a specialist at the hospital which had been rescheduled from a later date just the previous day, bringing it forward by forty-eight hours, and so, knowing the difficulties under which the health service is currently operating, I presumed they were calling me to postpone and reschedule out little chat in favour of a more convenient time – say sometime in 2025. I was consequently happily surprised when the voice said “We have a cancellation. Can you make it to the hospital for 2pm?” It was noon. I said “yes”, happy that I would be seen early and anticipating that my treatment, whatever it might be, would be thus expedited, e.g. pushed to the front of the queue.

At 2pm sharp I rocked up at the relevant department and was immediately ushered through to a small side room by a very pleasant uniformed nurse who sat me down and started to write down my details. All I remember thinking at this stage was that she didn’t look like a consultant. However, she put me at ease whilst cheerfully jotting down my answers, even laughing when she had to start again because of my inability to answer a simple question with anything approaching the right answer, and then quite out of the blue she asked me, “Have you ever had this procedure before?” A little bell tinkled somewhere in the depths of my poor brain but, if cogs had begun to whirr at all, they were connected to nothing that in anyway helped me to process what she had just asked.
“Procedure?” I queried.
“Yes, procedure.”
“I didn’t know that I was having a procedure.”
“Oh yes,” she said, “you’re having a procedure.”
“What kind of procedure?” I was aware that my voice had now lost all of its affected carefree tone. There was a definite hint of strangled cat.
She sighed quietly and returned to her note-making. “We’ll talk about it when I’ve finished the paperwork,” she said…

Now, I am not the kind of person who carries a medical dictionary between the ears, but the words ‘flexible cystoscopy’ managed to paint the kind of picture that it is hard to ignore. I tried to explain that I had not come prepared for a ‘procedure’; that my wife was waiting for me outside and that I hadn’t discussed with anyone the need for it, but she smiled reassuringly and said, “We need to check for cancer. And anyway, you’re next. It will only take twenty minutes.” All reasoned argument had departed: she had me at ‘cancer’. She led me through to a little room occupied by two female nurses and a male doctor*. I was instructed to “remove everything below the waist. Put the gown on, but do not fasten it, and then put your shoes and socks back on.” I saw how absurd I appeared. How much did I really want to look like a complete berk whilst walking into what I now realised was to come? “We don’t want you getting cold feet,” said the nurse.
“Believe me, I’ve already got ‘em.”

Of the actual ‘mechanics’ of what followed I can say little except that both of my ‘below stairs’ exits were used as entries – and I am not a fan. The two nurses – who were exactly everything that a nurse should be – kept up a barrage of pleasant smalltalk, obviously designed to distract me from the awfulness of what was occurring, and it very nearly worked, but let’s be honest, you know that when a doctor says “This is going to sting,” it is never actually going to be better than expected. Watching a high resolution television picture of your own interior probably has the edge on Eastenders, but little else. I can only tell you that when, having finished what he was doing, the doctor said “Turn onto your side and pull your knees up to your chest,” it actually came as a relief.

I am immensely relieved to be able to report that whatever it was they hoped not to find, they duly did not find it and so discharged me from their care with the knowledge that there was no cancer, but that I would experience ‘some discomfort’ when urinating for a couple of days. In fact the knowledge of the former just about made peeing nitric acid for the next forty-eight hours tolerable.

When I got home I read and re-read my letter but could find no pre-warning of the ‘procedure’ they had scheduled and I am left thinking that the whole thing – including the shifting timescale of the appointment – was just a very clever subterfuge to prevent me, the patient, from getting too nervous about what was to come because, if I’m honest, had I known what lay ahead, I might well have found myself at one with the squirrels: grasping everything in the vicinity of my nuts in both little paws and steadfastly refusing to let go.

*I am uncertain of the etiquette involved here. He may have been a ‘Mr’ rather than ‘Dr’, but whichever he was, in view of what he then did, I certainly hope that he held some form of medical qualification.

N.B. This post is merely a short record of my own naivety and is in no way intended as any criticism of the care I received, nor the people who delivered it. Both were absolutely exemplary. Thank you N.H.S!

Mortal

I have written before about my on-going battle with a prostate that the specialist described as ‘a beast’. (It was actually the subject of a very early post – here – and part of the reason I started this whole little miscellanea.) For the vast majority of the time it does not impact negatively on my life at all: it just sits there, quietly biding its time until it decides that the moment is right to sit up and shout ‘Don’t forget me. I’m here!’ It is the reason, however, that when I’m out and about I seldom walk past a public toilet without paying a ‘just in case’ visit, as I am acutely aware that if I don’t it might just bang its drum before I get to the next one. It’s ok. I take medication that appears to have no effect at all, until I forget to take it. I’m completely fine almost all of the time, but I cannot support a full bladder. If ever I am faced with a full bladder – can I actually ever claim to be faced with a full bladder, particularly my own? – I would be forced to accept one of the two options available to me in such a circumstance: a) be unable to find a public lavatory and widdle down the first available tree or b) find a public lavatory and find that I no longer seem to need it. I’m not overly keen on either alternative, so maintaining some vacant capacity in the system is by far the most sensible option available to me.

As I now have a new associated ‘issue’, linked to ‘the beast’, I have been summoned to the hospital for tests. These tests rely upon me having a really full bladder and – most pertinently – ‘May be subject to considerable delay’, which means that I, once again, am faced with two options: a) attend with a full bladder that will have to be emptied with undue haste if I am over thirty seconds late in being called¹ or b) attend with a bottle of water and an empty bladder that will still have to be emptied seconds after I have emptied the bottle. I cannot do what they need me to do in order to test me, as that is why they have to test me in the first place.

I should state, here and now, that in reality I am fine. 99.9% of the time I have no problems of any kind other than those that would have to be described as ‘age related’: I ache; I moan; I spend half of my life lamenting that ‘fings ain’t wot they used to be’; my arches could not fall any further without somebody being there to raise the rest of my foot; my gums could not receded further without coming out of my nose; my nasal hair could not get longer without requiring a fringe. My jowls have jowls, my chins have chins. My teeth have developed a disturbing tendency to look like teak in certain lights. I must use my own weight in tooth-whitening gunk if I am not to look like a betel-chewing heroin addict who drinks wood dye for kicks. And I know, I realise, that all of the above (and many, many more) are the natural consequences of growing old which, as the tag-line for this little blog of mine suggests, is far preferable to the possibility of not doing so. None-the-less, it doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t prefer a life without them. I understand when people say that growing old is a privilege. For other people it probably is. For most of us it is shit. The realisation that everything you are is not quite what once it was, is not a comforting one. The knowledge that it can only get worse, even less so. Half deaf, half blind, half incontinent and half-witted… Oh, hang on.

So, I ask myself, ‘What is there left to look forward to?’ and the answer is ‘Everything’, because whatever it is, it is all that there is and that is the point at which I begin to find joy in almost everything I do. OK, there’s not much joy to be had in ramming my hand down the ‘U-bend’, but there is satisfaction to be found in the gurgling sound that announces the dispersal of the whatever-it-was – don’t even dare to think about it – that was blocking it in the first place. There is no fun to be found in D.I.Y – some people claim that there is, but they are clinically insane – but there is pride to be found in a shelf that can bear weight without falling from the wall and decapitating the cat. There is little satisfaction in tidying up the house after the grandkids have gone home, but there is delight in making the mess with them in the first place. I am fortunate, I don’t need to work these days, and consequently I find that I enjoy almost every minute of it. I have deliberately eschewed as much pressure as I am able and I am – even for myself – better company for it. Even with a full bladder…

I probably ought to point out here that I do not, in reality, have incontinence issues. My problem arises only if I make the stupid mistake of thinking about it – e.g. the simple query ‘Where’s the nearest public lavatory’ accompanied with the certain knowledge that it is a decent car journey away – when the threat of it hangs over me like an unfortunately apposite wet blanket.

¹This, by the way, is most definitely a mental thing. If my mind is otherwise occupied, I can go for days. If, however, I deliberately try to occupy my mind, it merely serves to remind me of why I am trying to distract myself and the panic kicks in. If you have any suggestions that do not involve ‘growing up’, I would be very happy to hear them.

I probably will not use this post as my profile for on-line dating sites.

Stream

When you’re growing up and you’re small and you’re ginger, then you try to cope by being funny and you can always gauge the moment when you actually succeed for some, because someone else – normally much bigger than yourself – will be screaming in your face, tight and red and angry, “Yeh, you think you’re so fucking funny, don’t you?” and you have to try really hard to stop yourself from saying, “Well, now you come to mention it…” and that’s when you begin to associate laughter with pain. As you get older, it stops to be such a problem: you stop trying so hard because nobody ever finds you even remotely funny anyway – at least not fully clothed – and all in all, you are slightly less likely to find yourself grappling around in the mud with somebody twice your size whilst a crowd has gathered around you chanting’ “Scrap, scrap, scrap…” hoping to see blood, hoping to see snot and tears, hoping not to get collared by the dinnerlady. You may still, occasionally, seek to deliberately amuse, but mostly you just trip over your own feet…

Now, I thought about this whilst I was having a shower and I was adopting the pose that we must all assume, regardless of gender, while rinsing the soap from the undercarriage. In the shower, there is no other way of achieving this short of standing on your head, and as there is no worse feeling than that of soap lingering around the nethers as the day drags on, it has to be properly rinsed away in the morning. So, it occurred to me that we must all present this same twisted aspect to the falling water – the intended target being pretty well shaded from downward droplets by head, shoulder, belly and, for some (amongst whom I fear I must now include myself – muscled flesh having long-since morphed into pendulous manboob) – fleshy chest adornments. It’s a ridiculous, hip thrusty kind of stance, that ensures the descending rivulets have an appropriate route that allows them to wash over the necessary areas, whilst you endeavour not to put your back out and – should you have an un-steamed-up mirror within view – not find yourself laughing at your own reflection. It is an absurd stance in which, I envisage, we all find ourselves from time to time. A truly egalitarian posture. All life should be like it.

I don’t know what it is about a few minutes under the warming spray that brings this habit of maudlin reflection upon me: it’s like feeling sorry for myself, except that, of course, is something that only other people do. Today I have been reading the latest bestseller by A. Veryfamousperson, thinking to myself “I could write that” and in that moment of indignation I believed that I really could, failing to realise that even if I did, it would make not the slightest difference because, frankly, I am not A. Veryfamousperson and nobody gives a twopenny fig what I have to say. I could write the Bible and still not find a publisher…

So, this is the point – wherever I find myself in the day’s downward arc – whether still striking the pose in the shower, sitting on the loo, or attempting to explain to a 6-year old why a laptop keyboard and honey are not compatible, when I realise that it is probably time for me to get a grip and review the current situation:

What’s so wrong with a sticky keyboard? (Well, if you reaaaaaaaaaaally waaaaaaaaaaant to know, eaaaaaaaaaach time you press the letter AAAAAAAAAAA it just keeps on going on aaaaaaaaaaaaand the only thing you caaaaaaaaaaan do is to go through aaaaaaaaaaaaall you haaaaaaaaaave written aaaaaaaaaaaaat aaaaaaaaaaaa laaaaaaaaaaaater time aaaaaaaaaaaaaand baaaaaaaaackspaaaaaaaaaaaace it aaaaaaaaaaaall out. Aaaaaaaaaaaaargh!)
I am alive and, to all intents and purposes, fit and well.
I actually quite like playing the clown.
Fame and money would only spoil me.
I have grown up relatively well-adjusted. I am blessed with a loving family and far more friends than I actually deserve.

Too many of my best friends have died over the years. I have lots now, but if I’m honest, few of my own age. I’m a little scared of making new ones in case I kill them, but I know that I should make the effort. The problem is, how? I don’t do many of the things that people of my age are apt to do: I rarely catch the bus; I don’t have an ancient terrier to walk around the block and I don’t even own a cap. I thought of taking up bowls, but I’m not to be trusted in white clothing. The problem with almost all suitable hobbies is that they are so much more age appropriate than I am. I would like to take up fishing, I think. I would like every single thing about it, except for the catching of fish. I would be perfectly happy sitting on a riverbank watching the world flow by: the birds, the bees, the fishermen – I often walk along the river banks and despite encountering fishermen all the time, I am not certain that I have ever seen a fisherwoman¹ – the bird-sized dragonflies, the occasional wary rodent, the ducks and the swans. I would be quite happy eating foil-wrapped sandwiches and drinking over-stewed tea from a flask. I can talk about the weather with the best of ‘em. I have a cloth bush-hat that makes me look like one of the Flowerpot Men (I have no idea which one. There is a link here – you must judge for yourselves). I am fully qualified in all respects except that of owning a fishing rod: except that of wanting to haul a hapless Piscean from its natural habitat on the end of a nylon line and metal hook…

I did go fishing quite a bit when I was small, but I never really took to it. I got bored too easily back then: partly by the inordinate amount of time I had to spend doing so little and partly by having to go home so often to tell my mum that I had fallen in the river again so that she never knew that I had been thrown in by somebody much bigger than me, who clearly didn’t think that I was at all funny. Fishing trips then, even those in which I managed to remain terrestrial, always seemed to end when the cold had seeped into my bones, and I went home to thaw myself in the few inches of lukewarm water I was allowed. No showers back then – I don’t ever remember going anywhere with a shower. Even the kind of hotels we visited on high days and holidays had only a single bath on each landing – so no fear of dislocating a hip whilst rinsing the soap off. Mind you, being a boy of that age, I didn’t have a particularly close relationship with the soap bar, truth be told. Infact, the more I think about it, the more I think that might be the real reason that people kept chucking me in the river…

I have developed a stupid habit of leaving things half finished and open on the laptop so that I can return to them when the mood takes me, and thus I have now managed to write and delete today’s post a total of three times. I have absolutely no idea how this current incarnation compares with its mistakenly expunged counterparts: I remember the first couple of sentences, but I have absolutely no recollection whatsoever of what I found to prattle on about thereafter. It was kind of the idea if I’m honest, but I could certainly have done without the repeats. If you feel unfulfilled by what you have read above, then I can only seek to assure you that my first three attempts were almost certainly much, much better…

¹I have absolutely no idea why that might be.

The Beginner’s A-Z of D.I.Y Subversion (Accused to Assassinate)

ACCUSED Person charged with crime or offence. Try not to get accused of too much. Being hounded by MI5 is all very well for a little while, but it soon becomes exceedingly tiresome. Far better to be an accuser and accuse MI5 of hounding you, even if it’s not true – which, of course, it is not.

ACQUIESCE To comply; to admit without interrogation. Acquiescence is not encouraged in subversive circles unless, of course, it saves a lot trouble. It can certainly spare you an enormous amount of pain during interrogation. Admit everything: be remorseful; weep uncontrollably; call everybody sir.

AD NAUSEUM Latin term to describe anything that has continued to the point of nausea. E.g. Noel Edmonds.

ADZE A type of axe. But a far more exclusive word. Why be the 357^th Mad Axe Murderer, when you can be the first Mad Adze Murderer? Exclusivity is the key¹. Make the spelling clear to the newspapers and make sure that the handle is fixed good and tight. There’s nothing worse than your adze-head flying off, mid-assassination and ruining the wallpaper.

^{1. Unless you’re trying to open a lock, in which case it’s probably a Yale.}

AMBUSCADE Ambush. Conceal yourself in some bushes, wait for your victim to appear, leap out from your hiding-place yelling ‘This is an ambush – you’re surrounded’ and try not to look too embarrassed about the fact that you are alone.

Surrounding a victim is not easy for the solo subversive. You could try using mirrors, but beware – the reflections are indiscriminate. A subversive friend of mine was reduced to a gibbering wreck when faced with the multifarious images of his victim staring out at him from the 17 strategically placed mirrors that he’d forgotten all about.

Be certain of your reasons for wanting to attempt an ambush. Is kidnap the motive, or perhaps gang-violence? Perhaps you are just not very good at making friends and this is the nearest you ever get to normal social interaction. If the latter is true, you could always try to ambush a psychiatrist¹. (You will find this impossible during the summer months, unless you live in the Caribbean.)

^{1. If you do decide to detain a psychiatrist in this fashion, ensure that you have enough cash to pay his bill. Psychiatrists seldom accept cheques – nobody trusts a loony.}

AMMUNITION The painful, nasty bit that fits inside the weapon: the bullet in the gun; the pebble in the catapult; the lie in the politician.

ANARCHY Lack of government within a state; lawlessness; confusion. Creating a state of anarchy is the penultimate aim of all subversion, because, only when this is achieved, can one move onto the ultimate aim of all subversion e.g. installing a government that represents all your own views¹.

In going about your legitimate subversive activities, you may be able to take the opportunity to accuse the government (or, more likely, the Parish Council) of ‘allowing a state of anarchy to exist’, which is both a damning indictment and the ideal springboard for your efforts to create such a state. As in all matters, the wise subversive must be wary of public opinion. The general perception of anarchy is not terribly good; it invariably receives a very bad press. There is little that the solo subversive can do about this – good P.R. men² are very expensive. If you are caught out and accused of being an anarchist yourself, try this argument – ‘In a truly Utopian State there would be no laws, as there would be no law-breakers. Hence, the truly Ideal State would be an anarchistic one. Just imagine that. You may say that I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope some day you will join us and the world will live as one.’ If at all possible, attempt to end all public statements with a quote from John Lennon, but be prepared to paraphrase Salman Rushdie or Good Housekeeping in an emergency: it is unlikely to convince any but the terminally stupid, but might just work with a journalist.

^{1. Better still; install a government that is you.}

^{2. Game of the Page – Spot The Oxymoron.}

APATHY

ARSON Crime of intentionally setting fire to property or possessions. Although burning things can be politically prudent, one has to accept that setting fire to the seat of our government is perhaps a little ambitious for the solo beginner. Try burning unpaid bills. Utility bills are a nice size in general and suitable for warming your hands by after you have been cut off.

ASSASSINATE To kill by treacherous violence, especially for reward. Don’t get involved in this sort of practice; it does not help your image. If you feel that you really must rid yourself of a troublesome person, try sending them somewhere with a message and then changing all the locks before they return.

HOMEWORK

Carefully plan an ambush: prepare maps, timetables, escape routes etc, and then think of 101 reasons why you should not go ahead with it.

Subject to legal advice, ‘The Beginner’s A-Z of D.I.Y Subversion’ will return with the letter ‘B’ in 4 weeks time.

Beginner’s A-Z of D.I.Y Subversion – Index, is here.

The Beginner’s A-Z of D.I.Y Subversion (Abduction to Abuse)

This was supposed to appear on Tuesday, but life got in the way…

ABDUCTION The felonious carrying off a man’s daughter, wife, etc. More often referred to by the media as kidnapping (see below) this is an excellent method of raising cash, but it is wise to be cautious:

a) Before deciding on your victim, carry out some basic research: is anyone likely to want them back and, if they do, can they afford to pay the ransom? There can be little worse than being stuck with someone whom you can’t return, who eats like a horse and insists upon attempting to ‘discern the rationale of your didactic approach’ every evening over the cocoa.

b) When operating solo, always kidnap someone smaller than yourself. If that is not possible, try to snatch his dog – as long as it is neither big and vicious nor small and yappy.

c) Do not get over-ambitious. Kidnapping the mayor might seem like a wonderful idea after thirteen glasses of your sister’s homemade rhubarb wine, but it is unlikely to prove practical, and it is doubtful that you will be able to carry out your scheme without eventual exposure, capture and humiliation.

d) Do not attempt to kidnap someone of above average IQ¹. There can be little more embarrassing than losing so many games of chess that you are forced to pay the ransom yourself before releasing the brainbox with money for train fare and a sandwich on the way home.

PLANNING AN ABDUCTION – Honestly, it is probably better not to. The moment you start to get involved in meticulous planning, you will realise how fraught with problems the whole thing is and, like as not, will decide not to bother. My best advice is to go into it as one of those spur-of-the-moment things. Have a room set aside and fully prepared: buy a clean bucket, but other than that, take the whole thing as it comes and sooner or later, a suitable victim will walk into your life.

A TYPICAL D.I.Y ABDUCTION – Walking through Tesco’s car park one Friday afternoon, you spot a frail old man pushing a trolley piled high with luxury goods. You make a split-second decision to abduct him as he starts to load up his car. It is not until you get him home that he manages to convince you that neither the trolley nor the car was his own, and that he is himself an habitual thief. Worse, he is old, small and frail – he is also poor and lonely. You give him a hot meal and attempt to release him, but he refuses to go.

^{1. This is an immutable law of subversion – if it were not so, Stephen Fry would have been taken long, long ago.}

ABSCESS A gathering of purulent matter. All of the main political parties have an annual abscess, usually at the seaside. A subversive is expected to study this sort of thing carefully in order to understand what the enemy¹ is up to. If this doesn’t put you off, nothing will. Actually, it is not difficult to discover what the political parties are planning, as they are rarely off the television during the abscess season and go to great lengths to tell you, ad nauseum, what they intend to do next². If you belong to a subversive group, you will probably have an abscess of your very own – probably in the pub on a Friday night.

^{1. As a subversive, you may decide to view all organised political parties as ‘the enemy’ – this is perfectly normal and, frankly, not terribly subversive.}

^{2. In truth, what they want you to believe they intend to do next. What they actually intend to do next is exactly the same as every other party in power over the entire history of the world e.g. feather their own nests.}

ABSCOND To hide oneself; to fly from justice. Flying from justice will probably prove to be totally impractical for the do-it-yourselfer, but you can run away. Ignore all the rubbish about attack being the best form of defence; run away and, if at all possible, hide. Disguise has always offered additional scope for the prospective escapee and, in the case of a male disguising himself as a female, allows him to employ the supplementary safety net of tears if cornered.

ABUSE Bad language addressed to a person; insulting words. In order to be effective, abuse must be witty and incisive. Abuse is never effective. If you wish to employ abuse as a subversive tool, try to obey three simple rules:

Never waste wit on anyone you suspect may not be able to understand it.
Never abuse anybody you feel may be likely to beat you up as a result.
If you feel that you really must abuse somebody who may beat you up, do it very quietly and from a very great distance.

The Beginner’s A-Z of D.I.Y Subversion (Accused to Assassinate) will appear on Friday 28^th January 2022 providing I remember.

Beginner’s A-Z of D.I.Y Subversion – Index, is here.