Somebody said ‘A bandicoot,’ I had to look it up. Another odd marsupial – Antipodean pup.
A cross between a wombat A kanga and a rat, It looks as though God made it From bits of this and that.
Distinct from almost everything – Genetically a scrawl – But compare it to a platypus And it’s not that odd at all.
There’s a whole raft (Ark?) of Australian animals that are completely alien to the rest of the world. The bandicoot has the very best name and it looks like three different animals have been crudely assembled in the dark. However, when you live in a country that boasts a water dwelling mammal that has a duck’s bill, that lays eggs and has venom like a snake, well, sadly, you’re not really that exciting are you?
Unless I am living, unsheltered, beneath the silent, star-lit canopy of the ever-expanding universe (I have never done this) and beyond the reach of all civilization (indoor toilets) I shower at least twice a day. I never take a bath. When I was very young I remember my father saying something about sitting in your own dirty water. Of the very many truly strange words of wisdom that my dad shared with me over the years, this one, for some reason, has imprinted on my brain like a hot fork on a marshmallow. It is always with me, like a phantom dog: I never know it’s there until I tread in something it has left behind. If ever I am forced to take a bath, I feel the need to shower both before and after. (I have just read that through and I can confirm that what you are thinking is correct. It is odd. I am currently waiting for the knock on the door from Her Majesty’s Weirdo Protection Squad – I will go quietly. They have my number.) Today I took a bath.
Baths, according to my wife, are just the ticket for bad backs. I have a bad back. I was reminded of this whilst moving the furniture in the midst of my wife’s current post-Lockdown redecorating fervour, when someone shot me in the lumbar region. I think. It felt that way. I crumpled to the floor and waited for the second, fatal slug that would put me out of my misery, but it never arrived. There was no blood. What there was, was a large fluffy blanket of Pins & Needles that covered the entire lower half of my body and something (I know not what) twisting, corkscrew-like, through my spine. Everything functioned as it should, although accompanied with the kind of bright flashes of crippling pain that remind you that, back in the day when you were fit, strong and a bleedin’ know-all, you really should have listened to those who told you to be careful. Oh, come on, who actually bends at the knee when picking up a box?
Now, regular readers of this blog (if you are one such, you might wish to take a long, hard look at yourself) may remember that this is not the first time I have suffered such back spasms (see ‘Back to the Future’ from July 2019 here) but, somehow, they do not happen often enough for me to be ready for them when they arrive. They always take me by surprise – grab me when I’m not looking and flick me with a spoon before I can prepare myself. Today they hit me whilst I was in the process of moving boxes of photographs which are stored in a cupboard in the corner of a soon-to-be repainted guest room. You, like me, may have visited this cupboard before (‘A Cupboard Full of Memories’ in June 2019) the last time I trawled through this Kodacolour past. Today, the pain struck me before I had the opportunity to wallow in the nostalgia of the 6×4 snippets of my yesterdays, although my melodramatic slump to the floor was accompanied by the silent flutter of an old school photo. It was lodged at the back of a recently excised drawer where my grandson had left it some time ago after asking me what the world was like in black and white. I tried to explain that the world of my youth was in colour, it was only the photographs that were monochrome, but he wasn’t falling for a tom-fool story like that one! Who did I think I was kidding? I must admit, my seven year-old self and my class of contemporaries do have the general demeanour of something that belongs in a museum. We do appear to come from a different world to the one we now inhabit, and there is a hint of desperado about us all. I look at the photo and I remember most of the faces; I remember some of the names – although I’m not at all certain of how they fit together. (I tried to recollect as much as I could in ‘The People We All Went to School With’ this time last year.) Clothes and haircuts are all vaguely reminiscent of ‘The World at War’. I think Woolworth’s must have had a run on plastic sandals in the preceding week. My own ensemble of sandals, long socks, shorts, checked shirt and sleeveless ‘V’ neck pullover would appear to have been chosen on the strength of being all that was clean. Most of the boys have hair, so I presume the nit-nurse had not been around for a while. The teacher, whom I do not recall, looks like a broken woman.
Of course, back then, a shower would not have been an option. I do not recall encountering a shower until I went up to grammar school at eleven when, with all the other boys, I was thrust under a cold one after ‘games’ as it was ‘good for our development’. It was ‘character-building’ apparently, although quite frankly, I would have given almost anything not to build such a character. It was like a freezing, tiled tunnel of hell from which you tried to exit with all haste*, especially as there was generally some psycho waiting at the end with a wet towel and, if you didn’t get out quickly, your clothes were liable to join you in there. Schoolboy showers were somewhat like I imagine prison showers to be (although a little lighter on the sodomy, perhaps); something to be survived and forgotten. You did, occasionally, encounter warm showers at the public swimming baths but nobody ever went in those because… well, you know.
Anyway, life moves on. A class full of tough, resilient little bodies becomes thirty five disparate adults with bodies that become daily less tough, less resilient. Backs become somehow more brittle. More prone to saying ‘enough is enough’ every now and then; more prone to taking you out at the knees.
So, I lay in my bath until it started to get cold. I read my book. Nobody brought me whisky to ease my pain, but it was ok generally: I didn’t hate it. And then it was time to get out. And then I remembered why I’d gotten in… How do you get out of a bath with a bad back? Well, you don’t, for a while anyway. You lie there considering the possibilities. You run some more hot water. You regret only bringing the one book. You regret not getting yourself a whisky before you got in. And then finally, when your skin begins to crinkle like an ironed plastic carrier bag, you haul yourself up and out with a groan that, whatever Ridley Scott would have you believe, may well have been heard in space.
And then you have a shower…
*School in a nutshell. My Grammar School recollections – such as they are – appeared in ‘The Never Diminishing Bond parts one and two’ in May of this year.
I’m cutting branches from the trees Shaped by years of memories To exorcise their ghosts from inside of me – David Sylvian ‘Nostalgia’
“‘Course,” said the man in Cavalry Tweed, “this wossname, situation is not exactly conducive to philosophical discussion is it? Too bleedin’ cold for the synapses to function fully if you ask me, and,” he muttered darkly, staring at the man who wore a Meerkat T-shirt under his thick, brown duffel coat, “it is not even possible for some of us to stand their round on account of forgetting to bring their smart phone.” “I bought the last round,” said Meerkat. “With cash. They still take it – although I don’t suppose you’ve brought any.” “Anyway,” added the man in the moleskin waistcoat, “you haven’t even got a smart phone.” “Altogether different,” said Cavalry Twill. “I have taken a principled stand against overbearing data intrusion.” “Too bloody tight to buy one,” said Moleskin as he gathered up the empty glasses in anticipation of the Landlord’s tray-bearing appearance. “Are you aware,” continued CT, ignoring Moleskin’s aside, “that the government know exactly where you are at any given moment if you carry one of those things?” “So?” “So, if an ordinary working man…” started CT before stopping short, suddenly aware that Moleskin was staring pointedly at him. “Doctor says it’s a miracle I can walk, let alone work – what, with my back… Anyway, as I was saying, if an ordinary man was doing a bit of off-the-books tiling, for instance, he ought to be very careful about having his phone with him, if you catch my drift.” “It was my sister-in-law’s bathroom. It wasn’t ‘off-the-books’, it was gratis, a favour. It’s not been easy for her to get stuff done since our Dennis… you know.” “Ran off with the barmaid from the Dog and Duck, yes we know,” CT smirked. “Besides,” he ploughed on, “not just interested in monetary remuneration, your Johnny Inland Revenue. Payment in kind is also taxable you know.” “Hang on,” coughed Moleskin. “What do you mean ‘payment in kind’?” “Never shy of finding ‘alternative payment methods’, your Barbara, from what I hear.” “Well you hear wrong,” snapped Moleskin, half rising to his feet. “Three pints of Best,” said the Landlord, lifting the pint glasses from his tray. “Two packets of peanuts and a packet of pork scratching for his lordship here.” “Full of your aflotoxin, peanuts,” said CT, opening the packet of fried pig skin and loading his mouth. “Not at all good for you. Especially old ones.” “What are you insinuating about my nuts?” asked the Landlord. “Once! Once in twenty years I give you a slightly out of date packet of peanuts. Once! And anyway, they’re like pickled eggs: what can actually go wrong with a salted peanut. I’ve had them on the bar in a little bowl for months. Nobody’s ever died.” “I thought,” chipped in Meerkat, seizing the opportunity allowed by a brief lull in conversation to change the subject, “that fresh air was good for the brain.” “Well, that depends,” said CT as the Landlord loaded the three empty glasses onto his tray and went back into the bar to Google ‘aflotoxin’. “On what?” asked Meerkat. “On whether you’re wearing a hat. It is a well known fact that neurons need warmth. If your hair has started to thin, you will need a hat in order for your neurons to function properly in external environments.” “Is that why you grabbed the seat under the patio heater?” asked Moleskin. “Thin hair and no hat?” “Privilege of team captain,” said CT. “Sheltered spot in order that quiz sheets do not blow about in the wind, also do not get soaked by that nithering nor-easterly coming round the corner by the lav and pushing the drizzle through the gap in the tarpaulin. Doesn’t care for wet paper your rollerball.” “Who made you team captain?” asked Moleskin. “Tradition,” said CT. “Best quizzer gets to be captain.” “Can’t argue that he knows a lot,” said Meerkat. “Certainly a bleedin’ know-all,” said Moleskin. “How come we’re allowed to be a team anyhow,” asked Meerkat. “Isn’t there something about not mixing with other households?” “Nobody really knows,” answered Moleskin. “Depends,” said CT, “on whether you are classed as a ‘bubble’” “What’s a bubble?” asked Meekat, picking up spilled peanuts from the grass and laying them on the table. “I’ll gel my hands before I eat them.” “A bubble,” answered CT, “is what you form when you are not all from one household, but you still want to do the quiz.” “So like a team then,” said Meerkat. “Similar,” said CT. “Except that teams have to wear facemasks even under this ex-boy scout marquee. Being a bubble, we are exempt.” “It’s ok,” said Moleskin. “If anybody asks, I’ll say I’m his carer.” Cavalry Twill snapped his fingers at the young female barmaid as she passed the table having dispensed drinks nearby. “Three pints of Best,” he said. “Please,” added Moleskin. “And Moley’s paying,” continued CT. “On his mobile phone, no doubt, so he can explain to the tax man where all his money’s going.” “I don’t think that’s strictly true,” said Meerkat. “I think they’d need some special permission or something… to look at your phone, I mean. I think they’d have to get permission from a court, or the Queen, or something…” “Not so,” assented CT. “It’s all out there, on the cloud. Anyone can access the cloud. It’s a free resource. A constitutional right I believe.” “We don’t have a constitution,” said Meerkat. “At least, I don’t think we do…” “Yes,” snapped CT. “Well, we all know what thought did.” “I don’t,” Moleskin winked at Meerkat. CT saw it, but chose to ignore this particular challenge. “We have a constitution, it is just not written down. It is what is known as,” he continued, “an unwritten constitution. It is also why the Queen can drive her sheep across London Bridge.” “I didn’t know she had sheep.” “She owns all the sheep in the country,” said CT smugly. “Are you sure you don’t mean Swans?” asked Moleskin. “Ah,” said CT. “A very common mistake to make. Nobody would be foolish enough to try and herd swans across London Bridge. The monarch can, of course,” he continued, “also sequestrate anybody’s roast lamb dinner of a Sunday and,” he paused for emphasis, “all associated accoutrements, including mint sauce and redcurrant jelly It is known as Sheep Upping…” Moleskin, who was about to raise the fiercest of objections, half stood, with the air of a man who was certain he was right, when the ancient speaker above his head crackled loudly. “Alright,” boomed the Landlord. “If you’re all ready, we’ll begin this week’s quiz. Question One: what toxic substance can be found in peanuts?” Moleskin sat down heavily as, with a smug grin, CT began to write the answer, and Meerkat cleaned his peanuts with sanitising gel…
I love these three. They are a joy to write. They have the kind of conversations in which I have found myself participating a thousand times. Should you wish to, you can also find their first apprearance here…
NB As I write this, England’s pubs are closed and I am anticipating what will happen when they eventually re-open: who will be able to meet and under what circumstances. What will actually be allowed, to quote Moleskin, ‘Nobody knows’ and fewer yet understand…
Some weeks ago I wrote about the odd shoes that, of late, I have begun to encounter all along the edges of our nation’s otherwise pristine highways. (You can read it here) I don’t recall being conscious of them before, but it would now seem that many others were. I have come very late to the party. The internet is full of all manner of discussions, blogs and photo-journals, about this abandoned footwear. I was blithely unaware of all of this until it was pointed out to me, and quite suddenly I began to wonder how come I had never noticed it before. Lord knows, I am no stranger to the ‘vacant trawl’ through the internet. It occurred to me that I could have been equally remiss with absolutely every other subject I have ever covered in a manner I hitherto considered my own.
I realise that no-one, most particularly me, is capable of completely original thought and that, anyway, people only really find things funny if it strikes some chord of recognition within them, but I couldn’t help but wonder if I wasn’t actually looking in all the wrong places for my ‘inspiration’. Each week I blithely remove and transcribe a tiny piece of my head onto WordPress. It isn’t pretty (nor, it now appears, dreadfully original) but it is all that I’ve got. If I need to find something else, I need to know where to look. There is no point in scanning the news; everybody does that. What are my chances of finding a different way through that lot? There are big topics: Brexit, Covid, The Human Condition, which I can steer a bit of a course through, but most of the time it is the minutiae that sets me off. I sort of bounce off the edge of things, chipping bits away, before I’m bounced off elsewhere, to find something else that is linked only by the gentle crunch of my cranium. I see my blog as the scalp that holds all of the bruises together.
Anyway, I thought, for a little while at least, that it might be a good idea to try and find if some of the other things I have ‘discovered’ and written about have, themselves, already been discovered and written about by others, possibly much more adept at doing it than I. I say, For a little while, because I realised quite quickly that this, almost certainly, would be the case in a whole lot more instances than I would actually care to consider. I write this thing to keep myself sane. To find out that I am little more than a hollow echo of everybody else is not going to be the greatest of crutches for my self-esteem. The last thing a delicately plastered limb needs to see coming towards it is a circular saw. To discover that what I have just seen for the first time has been on the cerebral iPlayer for years is probably not going to help me when I am clawing about in here for somewhere new to go. Ignorance is probably my best recourse: my most adjacent route to bliss. I think that I am, possibly, very good at ignorance. And if I don’t know that somebody else has got there before me – if I haven’t seen solid proof of it – well then, it simply doesn’t exist, does it? If I cannot see it, then it doesn’t exist, and if I can see it, then everybody else must have seen it, but never thought about it in quite that same way before. Does that work?
A chimp is not a monkey; A monkey is not an ape, But all that stands between them Is biologist’s red tape.
This is a recurring theme for me. We are discovering so many new species all the time, all of them one molecule different to the last. If we find seven thousand different sub-species of the common fruit fly, that will compensate for the death of the last white rhino, right? We are creating with a microscope whilst destroying with an ignorance the size of a planet. No laughing matter? I don’t know what else to do…
There are parts of myself that I simply cannot trust. (I probably should point out here that, as an elderly male, I am able only to comment upon parts with which I am, as it were, physiologically familiar: with which I am anatomically intimate. That is, if I’m honest, this is all about me. If you are searching for a detailed examination of the human condition, I can only suggest that you consider reading the blog of someone who doesn’t struggle with the instructions on a revolving door. I am aware that females carry about with them bits and pieces that I do not, and that the presence of these appendages can prove to be less than ideal in certain circumstances. I do not feel qualified to comment on such encumbrances. I feel that it would be disingenuous – not to mention a little weird – of me to mention anything of which, like success, I have no personal experience. Hence, this piece is a personalised roster of biological failings, rather than a generalised tract on human failings, which I do not understand. Except the failure. I understand failure.) So, let me begin at my very top. I am extremely fortunate that, at my age, I am yet to start losing my hair. It is not receding. It is not turning grey. It is not falling out. It is becoming alarmingly unruly. It goes where it pleases. I have tried wearing a hat, but my hair looks frighteningly wig-like when it emerges from such confinement, and I am much too vain to cut it all off – so unkempt is how it remains. Scientists searching for perpetual motion should take a look at my parting. It changes location twenty times a day. During Lockdown it becomes totally overwhelmed by the undergrowth. When I take off the hat, it looks like I have another one underneath.
My eyebrows have a life of their own. Together with my nose and my ears, they produce more extraneous growth than the Conservative Party. I trim my eyebrows with beard trimmers – which is ok, as they often manage to crawl half the way across my face. They are, in the main, very fair (in colour, that is, not magnanimity) but home to the odd pitch-black trunk-like cilia that I have to remove with a hedge trimmer. If I yank them out, I bleed. My eyes do not stop watering for a week, by which time they have grown back again. I will not trouble you with the problems associated with ears and nose, other than to say that if I pluck either, the screams can often be heard a bus ride away.
The corner of the nose is also home to the recurring little white spot which, regardless of what you do to it, always reappears at the very moment you do not want it to. It is generally tiny, but when you look in the mirror post-interview, the only thing you can see. If you attempt to squeeze it, it will not burst until well after the rest of your face is the colour of a beetroot.
The head is also the home of the teeth – although not quite so much so as you get older. I currently appear to be shedding bits of tooth at regular intervals. It is like some form of dental sloughing. I have so much mercury in my fillings that I am actually taller in the summer. I dare not chew anything more challenging than marshmallow.
I have what is described as a bull-neck. That is, my head appears to rest upon my shoulders via something that, at best, is too thick for any collar that is not attached to a shirt in which you could garage a bus. Yet it still looks like saggy wattle: like Donald Trump’s face, but not quite so luridly hued. It obviously needs to be of such a size in order to support a very big head. I cannot buy hats unless they are stamped ‘Army Surplus’. I believe they used them to keep the tea urn warm.
My skin colouring is such that sunshine and I are barely on nodding terms. Without clothes I have the pallor of skinned fish. I seldom take my shirt off in public for fear that the glare might bring down aircraft. If I sleep on the beach, I wake up covered in graffiti. Of one thing I have become painfully aware during my last six months of running and that is the need for a well-fitting man-bra. The chest that was once powerful now loiters around the top of my torso like an ill-set blancmange.
I have lost weight of late which seems to mean that my stomach appears emptied-out, but not reduced. It is incredibly frustrating that losing weight no longer makes me thin, just saggy. My once taut six-pack now resembles the gusset of an over-stretched pair of pants. I thought that I could trust my body to age gracefully, but it is determined to make a monkey out of me. I cannot take my eye off it lest something else slips inexorably south.
At least my legs are strong – they need to be because, ultimately, they support my big fat head – but my knees are about as trustworthy as a middle-aged male politician in a brothel. They collapse more often than England’s middle order when faced with spin*. Given that they have but one duty: to bend along a single plane, they are remarkably remiss. Stairs are simple enough, aren’t they? For some reason, my knees seem to find them so very difficult. They love letting me down mid-flight. The sight of me laying in a crumpled heap in the hallway barely causes any member of my family to bat an eyelid these days. I would not trust my knees as far as I can throw them. Which, of course, with my shoulder, is not very far at all…
*Cricket reference. Most of my readers will understand. Readers from the US may not. Do not worry, I do not understand baseball, which always reminds me of rounders** in armour.
**You haven’t heard of rounders either? Whatever next, no knowledge of French Cricket?
So here we are, approaching the end of Lockdown#2 with no real idea of what the short term future holds. 5 days of Christmas cheer (although for two of those, I personally will be at work) followed by many weeks of tightened restrictions until the vaccines, should they work, become widely available, after which we can all return to our pre-covid anti-social norm. I think. There seems to be plenty of doubt even on that score. If you’re protected, apparently, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you can’t spread the disease to those that have chosen not to be vaccinated. Well, as long as it is chosen not to, it will be hard to lose too much sleep over that. But how long will the protection last? It appears that nobody can say. Maybe Lockdown will become an annual affair – straight after Christmas. I hope not, I don’t think I can take any more DIY projects. My current list has been satisfactorily completed: nothing has yet fallen off or over. Corrective repairs on the previous Lockdown calamities have been completed (the author would like to extend his personal thanks to Messrs No-Nails and Hammered-In-Screw) and all areas of bodily damage taped. I’m not sure that I could do it all again.
I have enjoyed my running over the last few weeks; it has got me out of the house and away from the paint brush whilst the sky was still relatively light, whilst the weather was reasonably benign. When I return to work I will no longer have that opportunity. I will have to run in the evening, bedecked in something specifically designed to startle. My months of running to date have been characterised by my desire to not be seen. I set off with a dozen alternative routes in my head so that I can change at a second’s notice when I see somebody I might conceivably know ahead of me. I have worn black (although, from what I understand from the comments to my Zebra rhyme – here – I may have been better in stripes) in order to blend in; to be as inconspicuous as possible. Only the tell-tale rattle of almost terminal shortness of breath letting people know that I was stumbling by. That can no longer be the case. I must strive for visibility. I need people to see me coming.
I have to buy some new gear that will announce my presence to the evening world. I have to look like somebody who runs. Also, I have to focus my mind to the plod of my feet and not to the constantly evolving world of ‘For Sale’ boards that I will no longer be able to see. I will no longer be au fait with whose lawn is better than mine, who is extending at the back, who has just had the drive done. I’m not certain how effectively I will be able to martial the will to run without the distraction of inconsequentialities. Three quarters of an hour can be a very long time with only myself for company. I may not come out of it well.
Anyway, as I return to work post lockdown (again) you will be spared these semiweekly updates, at least until the post-Christmas Lockdown#3 kicks in. I will, in the meantime, plod on, looming out of the dark, pretending to be somebody else entirely; somebody who almost certainly never runs in a bright yellow jacket and a pair of leggings that have sufficient room in the crotch to hold the Strictly Come Dancing finals. If anything changes, I’ll let you know. Meantime, I will return to my old schedule of posting, and we’ll all be the better for it.
Today’s new plodding playlist:
The Seer – Big Country
Angela’s Eyes – Guy Garvey
Pulling Punches – David Sylvian
Bridges Burning – The Mission
Far Cry – Rush
Sowelu – Willy Porter
Scumbag Blues – Them Crooked Vultures
Cornflake Girl – Tori Amos
Big Love – Fleetwood Mac (abruptly halted by an inadvertent prod on the side of the earbud – with absolutely no idea whatsoever of how to get it going again).
‘…Thing is,’ muttered Shaw, ‘I assumed that you had agreed to take this case on.’ ‘Me?’ spluttered Dinah, indignation firing from every pore. ‘Have you any idea… When have you ever… What, exactly, are you doing with your foot?’ ‘I’m trying to stretch it. It was wedged under my leg.’ ‘Yes, well now it’s wedged under mine and I would be awfully grateful if you could just unwedge it.’ Painfully aware of the six-inch layer of pins and needles that played about his sole, Shaw squirmed his foot around as far as he was able, losing his shoe in the process. Searching for it, he realised, was definitely not on the agenda at that moment. ‘And anyway,’ continued Dinah, relieved that Shaw’s foot was no longer under her leg, but somewhat dismayed to find his shoe by her ear. ‘Why would you possibly think that I had taken the case on?’ ‘Well,’ Shaw had a tendency to sound like an affronted schoolboy when under pressure, ‘I don’t remember doing it. I saw it in the diary. It was in your writing.’ ‘Right,’ sighed Dinah, her voice taking on, Shaw sensed, a definite edge. ‘Let’s see, it was written on the back of a pizza delivery receipt. In green ink. And the spelling was atrocious…’ ‘Ah…’ ‘And,’ Dinah was on a roll and had no intention of stopping, ‘I repeat my earlier question: when have you ever let me… What is that?’ ‘What?’ ‘On my leg. There’s something on my leg. If that’s you, I’ll break your fingers.’ ‘Yes,’ thought Shaw. ‘A definite edge.’ ‘On the other hand, if it’s not you, what in God’s name is it?’ ‘It’s not me.’ ‘Ok then,’ Dinah fought to control her breathing. In for five, out for ten. She spoke with an exaggerated calm. ‘There is something moving on my leg. If it’s not you, then I’m out of here.’ ‘Ok, it’s me.’ ‘Is it?’ ‘No.’ ‘Right, I’m out of here!’ Dinah struggled to move her legs, to push towards the black rectangle of the door, the thin halo of light that surrounded it the only illumination in the bottomless darkness of the tiny cupboard. She reached out a hand to push and Shaw, sensing rather than seeing her movement, reached out to stop her, brushing a breast as he did so. ‘Shit!’ ‘I take it that was you,’ hissed a very tetchy Dinah, all school teacher once again. ‘Yes, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean… Look, just wait a minute. Let’s just see if I can find out what’s on your leg. Can I?’ ‘Ok, but just be careful.’ Shaw tried to marshal The Force, attempting to follow the profile of Dinah’s body without touching anything until he reached the leg. He felt flesh, definitely a leg that was not his own, and he sighed with relief. ‘Wrong leg,’ said Dinah. ‘And wrong end.’ Shaw withdrew his had so quickly that he struck his elbow forcibly on something extremely hard and angular. ‘Bollocks!’ he squawked, as far under his breath as the pain allowed, bringing an unseen warm smile to Dinah’s lips. ‘Ok, I’m with you,’ he said. ‘Sod it, let’s get out.’ ‘Hang on.’ It was Dinah’s turn to be cautious. ‘There are a few things you need to explain to me first. One, why are we hiding in a supermarket cupboard? Two, if you really thought that I’d taken this case on, how come it’s only you who has the faintest notion of what’s going on? And three, when have I ever…’ ‘It’s a department store.’ ‘Sorry?’ ‘It’s a department store, not a supermarket. We’re in a department store cupboard and we’re waiting for the store to close.’ ‘I know that much. I allowed you to bundle me in here. What I don’t know is why?’ ‘Well, the client wants us to look for something that…’ ‘Hah! So you do know what it’s all about! You did take the case on!’ Bloody hell, three exclamation marks. Shaw was forced back onto the defensive. ‘Are you quite certain it wasn’t you? You could have told me and then forgotten.’ ‘Look Shaw; one, I didn’t take the case on; two, I didn’t take the case on, and three, since when have you ever let me take a case on? You’re only happy when I have no idea of what’s going on.’ ‘Yes, well, since we’re partners…’ ‘We’re partners?’ ‘Aren’t we?’ Shaw managed to use just two words to plait shock and hurt together into a blanket of perceived injustice. ‘I don’t know. Are we?’ ‘As long as you want to be. Do you want to be? There’s still no money mind…’ Dinah allowed herself another quiet smile. ‘We’ll talk about it later… You do admit that you took the case on though?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Fine.’ Dinah was pleased that Shaw could not see the grin that threatened to tear her face in two. ‘So why don’t you tell me what we’re doing here?’ ‘We’re waiting for the store to close.’ ‘You told me that. Why? What are we looking for?’ ‘Erhm…’ Shaw inhaled deeply. ‘I’m not exactly sure.’ ‘Not exactly sure?’ ‘At all.’ It was Dinah’s turn to take a deep breath. ‘Ok’, she sighed at length, ‘we don’t know what we are looking for, so why are we looking for it here?’ ‘Well, why not here?’ Shaw was intuitively aware, even in the all-encroaching darkness, that Dinah was gaping, fish-like, trying to find the words to say. And then he heard the bolt slip. Outside the cupboard the light snapped off and Shaw tensed as the thin corona of light surrounding the door turned to black. He tried to push the door, but it was firmly locked. ‘Ah…’ he said. ‘I heard it,’ said Dinah. ‘Mm,’ said Shaw. ‘You expected that, right? You have a plan…’ ‘Plan?’ Shaw was clearly confused. ‘You didn’t just cram us both in here on a whim?’ ‘Well, no. I certainly wouldn’t call it a whim, exactly.’ ‘So, what would you call it exactly?’ ‘It was more of a hunch. I thought that we might have a better chance of finding what we’re looking for after everybody else had gone home.’ ‘Although we don’t know what it is, nor where it is, and now we’re locked in this cupboard until, hopefully, somebody opens it in the morning?’ ‘Yes…’ Dinah sighed the sigh of a doting mother. ‘Well, we’d better settle down then. I hope you haven’t had too much to drink…’ She rested her head against Shaw’s shoulder, taking his hand, instinctively conscious of the fact that he was afraid of the dark. ‘Just in case it should stray inadvertently onto my leg again,’ she said…
Part 6 of this whole shebazzle is here with links to all the other parts.
Part one is here if you wish to start at the beginning and you can follow links from there.
A single inadvertent chomp on a Curly Wurly and I was waving goodbye to my two week old filling. Just a little nibble, on the other side of my mouth; what could possibly go wrong? A second’s distraction. Should soft caramel make a crunching noise? No, clearly not. Obviously my own fault, but it saddens me to know that once my tooth has been repaired, Curly Wurlys must be removed from my diet forever and onward. Likewise the two mini Chomps I had hidden for future use. If I’m honest, I do recall that the tooth made a very strange noise two days previously whilst I was eating a roast potato – yes, a roast potato; surely not the greatest of challenges for a newly refurbed gnasher. Anyway, for now, here I am, running along with every intake of cool air twanging across my recently emasculated molar like a soft pick on a detuned ukulele. It’s depressing. Of the many things I expected old age to bring to me, I did not consider talcum powder teeth.
Running does somehow attune your head to the body, meaning that you become ever more conscious of the corrosive effects that time has upon mortal flesh. I run in my contact lenses because glasses steam up, get rained on, fall off, and I dare not go ocularly commando because I cannot see beyond the end of my nose without something to enhance focus. I would not recognise a familiar face until I had fallen over the owner; would not see the bus until I had caused it to stop in the most inopportune of fashions. I am limited, even in lenses. I have to make myself stop before crossing roads as all traffic becomes invisible to me if I am moving. Joint-wise I am okey-dokey except for the hips, the knees and the ankles. Everything below the waist aches after a run but, crucially, everything aches even more if I do not exercise. Knees and ankles have long been a problem, but the hip, although late to the party, has now joined in with a vengeance. It is the only joint that keeps me awake at night these days, although calf muscles have started to ache in the wee hours in a manner that suggests that they have heretofore been somewhat left behind in the atrophy stakes, but they are making every effort to come up on the rails now.
Anyway, my dentist informs me that I cannot be fitted in for another two weeks because I need an extended appointment that is not available until that point. What a lovely, relaxing thought, that re-fixing my recently fixed tooth will require an even more extended period of horizontal panic. I would have liked to have got this all sorted whilst I was on furlough, but unfortunately I am neither bleeding to death nor unable to eat, so there is no rush in these Covid-ruled times. I am well down the pecking order and, if I’m honest, I’m not in great pain so that’s ok. Until I cannot successfully gum on a gently wilting banana, I will live. And until the body finally decides that the downward trend of bodily vigour reaches terminal velocity, I will run – and if that doesn’t prove that the brain is going, nothing does…
Today’s top plodders:
Silly Love – 10cc
It’s a Beautiful World – Noel Gallagher
Smells Like Teen Spirit – Nirvana
Supremacy – Muse
Avonmore – Bryan Ferry
All my Life – Foo Fighters
Steel Town – Big Country
Cocaine – Eric Clapton (again – time for a new playlist)
The previous instalment of the running diary ‘The Running Man and Birthdays’ is here. The next instalment of the running diary ‘The Running Man in the Dark’ is here. The first part of the running diary ‘Couch to 5k’ is here.
One thing that struck me as I stumbled out of my Odds & Sods computer file and into the boxes of tattered paperwork that litter my attic (in a physical, as well as a metaphorical sense) is how very long it took me to become me. What I have written has always been – as far as such a thing is possible – ‘original’, but I have not always been me whilst writing it. I was always wearing somebody else’s hat. I wrote as Spike Milligan, Woody Allen, Monty Python, Ronnie Barker, Alan Coren – it took me many years to find me. In many respects that has only fully happened over the last couple of years. For much of my writing life I resembled a man raking through a box of other people’s underwear – trying to find a pair that fit: whatever I put into them was my own, but surrounded by somebody else’s DNA. (Have you ever written an analogy that has made you feel queasy? I think I may need a whisky.) It was never a conscious thing. I am a sponge; I soak up whatever surrounds me – which proved particularly troublesome when I worked in my Father-in-Law’s pub: pissed by osmosis is no defence in law. Subconsciously, I seek to replicate, in style rather than substance, what I enjoy.
It was a trait that I sought to get a grip on (way back when it mattered) by not reading or watching any ‘comedy’ whilst I was working on something myself. The merest glimpse of ‘The Magic Roundabout’ or ‘Hector’s House’ in the five minutes before the early evening news and all of my characters became happily drug-dependent misfits: a commune of odd souls happily existing in a world just one degree south of our own. A mere thirty minutes in the company of Victoria Wood would leave me desperately hopeless – certain that I just was not cut out for this. Yet I plodded on, and I did ok within the limits of my capabilities (large limits, tiny capabilities) but I don’t think I ever truly spoke with my own voice until I started this little farrago a couple of years ago. If you do not like my blog, then you almost certainly will not like me – and, if I’m honest, having waved a fond farewell to my first six decades, it is something that I have learned to live with. Like everybody, I seek approbation, but I understand why I might not get it. It’s ok. I understand, also, that I will not be able to change the minds of those who do not like me – because they are idiots, obviously.
Anyway, until this morning I had in front of me several pieces of Odds & Sods arcania that I intended to revisit: things that I thought I might, somehow, breathe new life into, but it has occurred to me that in order to do so, I would once again have to become the person that wrote them originally – and I no longer have any real recollection of who that was. Was he Colin in Alan Coren’s jockeys, in the multifarious Pythonian undergarments, or even those of the erstwhile Mr Barker, which would, in all senses, make me feel like far less of a man than he? Frankly, as much as I continue to admire the work of these people, I have no desire to be re-assimilated by them, so the paperwork has gone back into the loft and the lid has gone back on the Odds & Sods. And we’re all stuck with me again…
Getting On 