A Little Fiction – Love Amongst the Ellipses…

Following on from the runaway success* of my first attempt at geriatric erotic fiction (‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ is here) I decided to try my hand at Mills & Boon style romantic fiction. I’m not entirely sure that it quite followed the path that I intended. It’s not altogether easy to get to grips with this world of masterful men and passive women. Especially when you’re a fairly passive man…

“…”

The space between them crackled. The air was alive. Atom by atom the ether became electricity. His skin bristled with energy. He felt as though his whole body might be glowing, alive with a vigour that was not his own. The weight of all that surrounded him crowded in on him, until he feared he would no longer be able to breathe; as though he might drown in the nothingness that enveloped him.

From the moment he had first encountered her, rinsing her underwear in the village stream, she had fascinated him. Not least for the fact that she had a perfectly good washing machine at home. Her hair flowed down her back in luxurious blonde waves. Unfortunately, despite having an extraordinarily hirsute back, she had a totally bald head. She wore the kind of clothes that all serving girls wore when you’re looking to sell the film rights: riding britches and a blouse that appeared to be made from tracing paper. Her eyes betrayed a total innocence – or at least they lied about it very well. Her lips were full and red, the colour of blood. It was the third time that week that she had walked into the stable door. She refused to wear her spectacles because they hid the limpid nature of her eyes – and also because they were the kind that you get from the joke shop, with a plastic moustache fixed underneath them.

She looked at him now, stripped to his braces, and she couldn’t help but wonder why he was so keen to get his teeth straightened. They’d be alright if he didn’t keep taking them out and putting them in his back pocket every time somebody gave him a balloon to inflate. Her heart burned every time she heard his voice – especially if she had been eating onions. When they first met, he had swept her off her feet. He apologised at once; it was his first day driving the road sweeper. Mind you, it wasn’t his fault that she was lying in the gutter under the remnants of a whole flock of Kentucky pullets. He was everything she had ever wanted from a man. Well, he was a man. Rich, handsome, charming – he was none of those things, but he did have his own transport, even if it did have the council’s name stencilled on the side of it. He had the air of a Lord about him, although the nearest he actually came was drinking at The Nelson on a Saturday night. His yearning body told the tale of several hundred too many fried poultry dinners and his skin had the pallor and sheen of a pound of lard. He glistened with perspiration at the thought of having to blink. It was unlikely that he would ever make the Earth move for her – unless he sat down very sharply. He could not have ripped her bodice without becoming seriously short of breath. If he had thrown himself at her feet, it would have taken a crane to lift him. He was what her mother would have described as ‘wet’ – less Colin Firth, more Moray Firth – and his small-talk had the habit of bordering on the microscopic, which was fitting, as his breath resembled some kind of fungal growth and his brain was reminiscent of a single-celled organism.

They lay side by side on dew-fresh grass, dappled in the sunlight that filtered down through the woodland canopy, surrounded by the scent of dog-rose, bluebell and fox shit. She had seldom felt such a gathering storm within her since the day of her sexual awakening – watching the bare-chested farmhand scrub down the Hereford bull to prepare him for the market. The smell of Dettol, the memory of his muscular body made her glow even today. If only the stupid farmhand hadn’t kept getting in the way. Absent-mindedly he toyed with her nipple (She had only one? Ed.) which bloomed, like a rose, beneath its sheath of silk. She did the same with a boil in the middle of his chest. Only one of them burst.

He half opened his mouth to speak, uncertain of what he was to ask her; uncertain if to ask her. In his life, nothing was certain – except for the odd horse that his father swore must have been got at. “What did you say?” he sighed at last.
“When?” she asked, distracted momentarily from the search for her other nipple. (Hah!)
“At the top of the page.”
“Oh, I said ‘…’” she replied.
“No,” he whispered. “I meant before the ellipsis.”
“Before the what?”
“Before the three dots that you left at the end of the sentence, indicating that it… Oh, it doesn’t matter.”
“Three dots… Are you sure?”
“You just did it again!”
“I did? I don’t know. I…”
“You seem to finish most of your sentences that way.”
“Well, it’s that kind of book isn’t it? What’s left to the imagination is so much more important than what is said.”
“Oh, I see,” he said. “I suppose that explains the plot then…”
“Plot? I shouldn’t think so,” she said. “Anyway, it’s getting late. Shall we…?” she breathed – she had to, she would have died otherwise.
“Be a shame not to,” he said.
“…” she sighed…

*If ten people had read it (which I don’t think they did) nine out of that ten of them would happily have fed it to their cat.

Odds and Sods – One of My Socks is Missing

Many years ago, I wrote for a magazine for whom the TV personality and very funny writer Dr Rob Buckman was regular contributor and ‘star turn’. I cannot remember the whys and wherefores, but his copy did not turn up one week and the editor published an apology, (I think it was called ‘One of Our Doctors is Missing’) stating that he had lost him. I put pen to paper, for a ‘Dear Editor’ piece, in case the good doctor was unable to contribute the following week, but he returned and it was never used. Looking at it now, I’m not entirely certain it would have made the grade in any normal circumstances, and I was certainly not sufficiently enthused by it to rewrite it for another occasion (although I am almost certain to have paraphrased myself here and there thereafter) but reading it back it does have moments – although of what kind, I’m not entirely certain…

I have begun to understand your dismay at misplacing Dr Buckman. Fortunately, he is not the funniest writer in the world. (How could he be?) O.k, o.k., so I did once become so short of breath whilst reading Jogging from Memory that my wife had to pat me on the back with what felt like a severed leg – it means nothing. Personally I put it down to asthma, or hay fever, or something… He’d know.

Be honest, the absence of the good doctor’s one thousand words, well chosen though they might have been, will not bring down the magazine. (Will it?) Besides, he can’t be far away, it is my understanding that ‘media personalities’ such as he, seldom go anywhere that might leave them more than a couple of hours away from Fortnum and Mason’s or their personal hairdresser. No, what should concern us here is not the fact, but the manner of his disappearance.

It is strange, indeed, that he should vanish into thin air at the very moment that an apparently recent photograph of him appears in The Radio Times. More curious yet, that he is advertising a series of medical programmes in which he is to appear. If our Dr Buckman has suddenly vanished, then who is this? Is he, perhaps, an identical twin? Has he been drawn away from the world of the printed word by the lure of some strange demonic force? (Money?) These possibilities must be addressed.

Postulating on the paranormal is not something to which I devote much time these days – not since my little incident – but I feel that we must now consider such matters; particularly if there is any chance of reaching Dr Buckman’s column through a stiffly permed old lady called Doris. We have all seen these aged mediums on TV. They usually appear on the early morning magazine programmes explaining how, with the help of Ludwig Van Beethoven, they were able to sit down and knock out his 76^th symphony over a cup of Earl Grey and a Malted Milk. Presumably old Ludwig’s hearing has improved since his death; he seems to hear whenever these women call. ‘Is there anybody there? Hello Mr Beethoven, can you hear me? I wonder if you’d help me knock up a quick minuet for our Beryl’s fiftieth birthday next Thursday? She’s always been a big fan of yours: loves you in that tea advert. She loves the fact that you cut your ear off for the woman you love. That was you, wasn’t it? Anyhow, it would really make her day…’ and up he pops. Surely any half decent Doris would be able to reach an actual living doctor in this way.

I am always impressed with the number of well-known dearly departeds who are willing to act as spirit guides on these little enterprises. Chinuckchook, last of the Mohicans; any one of the Emperors Napoleon; Henry VIII… Can you really be certain that Atilla the Hun didn’t speak with a Birmingham accent? Perhaps in death, as in life, there is some kind of ethereal pecking order. Graham Norton holds a peak time séance and he gets Chopin, no sweat. A new Fugue possibly. Me, I’ve only been to a séance once and I got an apprentice medium and Des O’Connor as my spirit guide. I tried to tell my Doris that he wasn’t dead yet, but she wasn’t to be persuaded. She had made contact with him on several occasions apparently and during that time he had never made any mention of still being sentient. The nearest we got to a symphony was ‘Dick-A-Dum-Dum. She did have an ectoplasmic manifestation, but I think that might have been the gin. She told me I had a blue aura. She was wrong, I have a red Vauxhall. Perhaps Doris is not the answer after all.

There are other puzzling things going on; things which simple deception cannot easily explain: the blatantly impossible. Take, for instance, the strange cases of inanimate objects springing suddenly to life, e.g. John Major, and objects that move without any visible means of support or propulsion (see Brexit). I remember many years ago, the old London Bridge disappeared and turned up in the middle of Arizona. Perhaps we should look for Dr Buckman there.

These things baffle me. There has to be a logical explanation, and yet… I remember Uri Geller. I still have a bent fork in my drawer – although there is some doubt as to whether it bent of its own accord or got stuck in the runner. I have tried to watch David Copperfield, but have never remained conscious through an entire show. I do seem to remember him making the Statue of Liberty disappear one time. A doctor would be a piece of cake.

No, those of you who know me, will know, also, that I am not normally given to such equivocation, preferring in most cases to blast away at the bush with a weapon of immense calibre rather than beat about it, as I now appear to be doing. I have to admit that I am worried. Strange things are occurring. I need advice. I have questions, all in need of answers. My mind is open, although I think it is probably only fair to point out that my wallet is firmly closed.

Perhaps it is the mystery surrounding our errant columnist that has forced me to question those things that I have never before considered. Try this for a start: why, when assembling my easi-bild ™ woodette ™ Welsh Dresser (not a product of Wales) do I never notice that the vital grockle-joint pin is absent until it is half constructed and I dare not breathe on it for fear of collapse and further injury to the cat, who has never been the same since the incident with the wardrobe. Why, when the instructions claim to be in English, do I find it easier to follow those in Urdu. Why are all the pieces upside down and back to front; drilled in all the wrong places? Why does my pen never run out until I am in the middle of an important form and then with a blot the size of South America? Why is the only other pen I can find a different colour? Why does my best friend’s laptop never develop its fatal flaw until I borrow it?

My wife says that I am becoming paranoid. Perhaps she is in on the plot. I never heard of Lenny Henry going off for an interview in a pair of black socks which turned into a pair of one black and one red socks, the moment he crossed his legs. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I do not recall hearing about Keanu Reeves buying a blue-ray player the very day before Netflix. Everything I have becomes useless at the very moment I want to use it. No, I have made my position clear: I am not ready to attribute these strange happenings to some weird, supernatural force. Well, I will certainly need a lot of persuading… I think…

I have my own theory. Not as illogical as blaming the interfering hand of the supernatural. Not as popular, perhaps, as blaming evil spirits. No, the truth is startling, but no less true for it: the Martians are after me.

I know. I know what you’re thinking. ‘Why him?’ Well, I have a theory about that too. Dr Buckman put them up to it…

NB – I dropped the Brexit reference in as I typed this up, because it fitted so neatly.

Amongst a great many other things, Dr Buckman wrote two books (‘Jogging from Memory’ and ‘Out of Practice’) both of which I still have, I still read and are timelessly, brilliantly funny. I very much doubt that they are still in print, but if you can find copies of either, I cannot recommend them highly enough…

Zoo #7 – Yak

Of social graces, does the Yak,
Have, at best, a dreadful lack.
He never waits his turn to speak,
He’ll rattle on and on for weeks,
And if you try to have your say,
He’ll just ignore you anyway.
He gives you not the slightest choice,
You have to listen to his voice
And even if you answer back,
He’ll never stop his yackety, yackety, yackety, yackety, yackety, yackety yak.

It wasn’t until I’d written this that I realised I had no real idea at all of what a Yak looked like.

I looked it up. It is a whopping big Tibetan cow. I’m pleased I didn’t know this at the time. It could quite easily be a very mannerly creature. If I’d known when I started, I would have had to start all over again…

Foot, Where?

I need your help.

I abandoned civilization and moved out into the countryside some forty years ago. I have always, though, worked ‘in town’ and so the journey from home to work, from ‘back of beyond’ to, I presume ‘beyond’, is a daily, and largely uneventful, trek. I take, not the fastest, nor the shortest, but the most picturesque route. Along the way, I have grown used to the sight of all manner of squashed fauna, together with the discarded detritus of something that was once-upon-a-time finger lickin’ good, until, presumably, it began to smell like old socks in the car, whence it was tossed from the speeding window into the hedgerow from where the quaint check-shirted country folk gather it up, pausing only to loosen their braces and doff their tweedy caps, before it chokes the livestock. This is my regular drive to the daily grind through a green and pleasant Drive-Thru rubbish dump and abattoir…

Perhaps it is what they mean by Urban Sprawl. I think it must be so, because an awful lot of people appear to be moving their beds out here – or at least their mattresses – which inhabit almost every gateway and length of single-track undergrowth past which I drive. Perhaps this is what those nice gangmasters mean when they offer full bed and board to their Eastern European vegetable pickers. The countryside does, after all, offer its own all-you-can-eat buffet – providing you don’t pick the wrong thing and find out, much too late, that you are ineligible for National Health Treatment.

Most things have some kind of logical explanation if you search hard enough (although the reasoning behind carefully clearing up your darling pooch’s odorous little package before dumping the plastic bag in which it is contained onto the path is a bit of a stretch) but the explanation I now seek may be even harder to find. You may recall (it seems a very long time ago now) at the top of this piece, that I mentioned needing your help, well, here we are, at last, approaching the very foothills of my mountainous quandary. Forgive me, I am getting there…

The other day I was running along a stretch of road between this village and the next, a stretch of country lane about 1km in length, when I stumbled across a flip-flop. (Not literally of course, that would be quite a different tale.) It was a single flip-flop (I checked – no wedding ring) blue, left foot and I couldn’t help but wonder how it got there. Who, mid-way between two villages, might have lost a flip-flop, presumably without noticing, and carried on hobbling towards the next conurbation? I cannot imagine a way in which it could have fallen inadvertently from a car – there is nowhere to stop. Nor can I imagine it could have been lost by a cyclist. Cycling is never easy in such footwear, but I believe that you would notice soon enough if you were not wearing one. The pedal is far from the comfiest of things to have pressed against the sole. How, and why, did the flip-flop get there?

I continued to mull this over when, a couple of days later, I went for my next run through the other end of the village and out onto a different country lane – although I’m not certain that you would know the difference if you were new to the area – where I found, mid-way between here and there, a single brown boot. Not a walking, nor a working boot, but a boot of the ‘Chelsea’ variety in, as far as I could see, excellent condition; not at all a ‘country hike’ kind of a boot. My flip-flop anxieties were revisited and magnified: this was not the kind of footwear that could simply fall off, regardless of what you were doing. This was footwear that had to be removed. My mind was once again filled with hows and whys. I cannot envisage a circumstance in which a vehicle could have stopped at this point without completely blocking the narrow lane. It, therefore, occurred to me that the boot must have been removed from its foot and ejected from a moving vehicle. How on earth had it offended its owner so profoundly? Kidnap did cross my mind, but this is a village, I would have heard. The possibility of it having been lost by a walker is even more remote. Why would they have taken it off? Why would they have considered it preferable to walk on without it – unless, of course, they had previously lost the other one elsewhere and wanted to persuade a suspicious partner that they had indeed left home without them? That one of them, at least, was not tucked under a distant bed.

I prepared to dispatch it to my mental ‘imponderable’ file – things that I cannot understand, but I have to let go before they tip me over the edge – when, on the very next day, on my journey to work along the afore-mentioned scenic route, I saw another shoe in the side of the road. Not, before you ask, a right-footed flip-flop, nor a dandy brown leather boot, but a black Nike trainer (lost by a runner who did not notice that he was suddenly and unaccountably limping perhaps?) I could not, I felt, have been more bemused.

I was (as I am in most circumstances) wrong. Yesterday we drove to the coast for a walk along the beach and, on the way, I spotted three single shoes, all different, in verge and in gutter along the route. What is going on? Do they constitute some kind of Hobo Code, like the strange runes that I once used to see chalked across paths and gate posts, informing those that might follow that a sucker lived here who was always good for a slice of cake, a cup of tea and a fiver to be on your way? If that is the case, why are they all out in the open countryside and why are they always single? Where is the other shoe and why has it not been considered as worthy as its twin of pointing the way to a free meal? I must admit, if I ever come across a pair, I will have to consider alien abduction…

If you have any ideas at all, please let me know. I need to put this mystery to bed before, God forbid, I start finding socks…

The previous instalment of the running diary ‘Man on the Run’ is here.
The next instalment of the running diary ‘The Running Man Plods On’ is here.
The whole sorry saga started here.

The Tiny Black Hole at My Shoulder

In addition to the super-massive Black Hole that lurks at the centre of our galaxy, biding its time (ok, let’s, for now, just presume that time does exist) waiting its chance to devour us all, there is, I have worked out, a very tiny Black Hole located somewhere near my left shoulder. It is the only logical explanation I can offer. You see, things disappear. I have them in my hand, I put them down and when I return to them, they have gone. I used to blame mischievous sprites, Imps, borrowers, but this is the age of rational science, I am a grown-up and I need to look for a more reasonable scenario.

Not, I have to admit, that this perceived schema is without its difficulties. Things that disappear do have a tendency to reappear at a different time, in a different place. I’m not entirely sure that happens with Black Holes, whatever the size. I believe that nothing actually ever emerges from a Black Hole – although they must get full eventually I’m sure. (I’m not!) I envision a Black Hole as something like an astral waste disposal unit, sucking up stars instead of leftovers, and we all know what happens when they get full…

Anyway, in the same way that the pull of a full-sized Black Hole is so great that it does not even release light, this tiny one on my shoulder hangs onto my thoughts: what I was just about to do, why I was about to do it. Like my possessions, my thoughts have a habit of reappearing where and when they are least expected. Maybe, as well as being astronomically vital to the equilibrium of the Universe, Black Holes are also major pillars of anarchy – essential to the fundamentals of The Chaos Theory (that is my life). I remember reading that everything that is consumed by a Black Hole is compressed by the gigantic forces of gravity, so that the Earth would be squashed down to the size of a golf ball, but would remain the same weight. Now, I’m uncertain of what, exactly, Black Holes are made of, nor, to that point, have I any idea of why they do not consume themselves, but my word, if they’re doing what the scientists tell us they should be doing, they must be very heavy by now. I can’t quite work out why they don’t all just sink to the bottom of space. Also, forgive my ignorance, why don’t they suck in all the zero-mass space that surrounds them and therefore expand like a balloon, getting less and less black with every inhalation of lighter-than-air?

Perhaps this is what is happening with the tiny Black Hole at my shoulder. Perhaps the sheer vacuity of my daytime thoughts is forcing it to release its grip on some of my actual plans and intentions at a different time (again, if you want to understand how that is even possible, you must talk to someone whose knowledge of the astrophysical extends beyond the mastery of child-proof lids) and a different place. Thus, when I go upstairs intent on doing who-knows-what (certainly not I) do I reach the top with no idea whatsoever of what set me on my way – although it returns to me three hours later when I am on the bus and can do nothing about it. Similarly, it would explain why, when I put down the TV remote after muting some politician or another, I find it three days later in the fridge, under a carton of yoghurt whose Best Before Date preceded the Moon landings. (Incidentally, how does a product that is essentially gone-off milk go off? Is there, perhaps, a fundamental scale of gone-offedness of which I am unaware? Maybe there is some kind of explanation available of how one knows when a Stilton has gone mouldy. Is there, in essence, good bad and bad bad?)

I am (despite what you might believe) an adult and I now realise that I cannot place these disappearances at the feet of The Borrowers. For a start, I have concrete floors – substantial excavations would be required, possibly involving heavy machinery, in order to provide them with a subterranean hide-away in my lounge – and, anyway, there are no mouse-holes in my skirting boards for access. Borrowers are not to blame. What, in any case, would they hope to make with giant keys, a mobile phone and a guitar-shaped bottle-opener? (The bottles do not need to be guitar-shaped, you understand. I think it possible my language skills may have been swallowed, together with my other slipper.)

In fact, it has just occurred to me that CERN spent some considerable time – and doubtless large, but ever-diminishing mountains of lolly – attempting to create a mini Black Hole some time ago. I do not know if they succeeded, but I have heard nothing of the Large Hadron Collider for some time now. Could it, perhaps, have gone the way of all of my astrophysical understanding? I can hear it now, saying (in French, of course) ‘Typical! Bloody typical! You work all your life. Tear your heart out for them. Give birth to them, and what do they do? Swallow you up, that’s what they do. Sacred blue, it’s dark in here. I’m sure I’ve put on weight…’ I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it doesn’t turn up in my sock drawer before the week is out.

Anyway, the point is, I sat down here some time ago, with something very important to relate to you. I am sure that I had it all carefully mapped out in my head, but somehow it has wandered off and is, by now, lost somewhere, staring at trees. I can no longer find it. I have nothing to guide me and, other than the fact that I have just discovered my mojo in an otherwise empty phone case, no clues with which to reconstruct. Sooner or later, I will be forced to go back down the stairs, into the room where I first thought of it and my thread will be waiting for me there. I’ve a bit of a feeling I might have left my Black Hole with it…

Odds and Sods – Tesco’s and the Devil

This is another poem that was written for reading out aloud. I’m not exactly certain why, but it always makes me think of Jake Thackray. It’s silly and pointless and just the way it should be…

I was in the checkout queue at Tesco’s – Friday last
When the Devil approached me and said,
“Before the die, for your future is cast,
Let me give you an option instead.”

“I will give you three wishes, with a full guarantee
Not to limit your statutary rights.
I’ll throw in a bottle of egg-nog for free,
If you order by Saturday night.”

“I just wanted a small tin of tuna,” said I.
“And a few custard creams for my tea,
But I can’t help myself and my trolley’s piled high
So I don’t think I’ll manage your fee.”

“I don’t want your money,” Beelzebub said.
“Your soul is the normal receipt.
Most people I speak to don’t need to be led,
So come on now, don’t drag your feet.”

Well, I have to admit, the temptation was great
‘Cos I never had much time for soul.
To tell you the truth I always preferred
Some reggae or plain rock & roll.

“Buffoon!” cried the horned one. “You great stupid prat!
We’re not talking Diana Ross.
It’s your spirit I’m after, so make up your mind –
Tell the truth, I just don’t give a toss.”

Well, the checkout girl had started to sigh
She was filing her nails with a will.
When the Devil ate up my pre-packed Birds-Eye extruded fish crumb and dehydrated potato meal in a pot for one with individual sachet of tomato ketchup,
She stretched for the bell on her till.

The security man made a big, big mistake
Well, you don’t push the Devil around.
He just tapped his trident on the mock parquet floor
And opened a hole in the ground.

The guard and his cap just plummeted down
And were braised in the fires of Hell.
Then the Devil turned round and he grinned when he said
“Those Hob-Nobs would go down quite well.”

He said, “It won’t take long to finish this pack
So please make your mind up by then.”
Three wishes were quite a temptation to me,
But really I needed about ten.

I wish that I knew all the lottery numbers
An hour or so in advance.
I wish I could dance without looking just like
A hedgehog has died in my pants.

I wish I could cook a soufflé
Or whip up a sex on the beach
I wish I could fly, I wish I could draw,
I wish that success was within reach

I wish I was taller, with much longer arms
So my hands reached the end of my sleeve.
I wish that I didn’t have the sneaking suspicion
That people cheer up when I leave.

I wish that I wasn’t the sad kind of person
Who finds falling over funny
But most of the time, I wish most of all
That I had an abundance of money.

So I turned to the Anti-Christ, prepared to say `Yes’,
But he’d gone with my Dairylea spread.
He’d decided he didn’t have use for my soul,
But the girl at the checkout instead.

By now there was no way to reach her conveyor
So I wandered on out through the aisle
And walked past another security guard
With what I hoped was a confident smile.

If the point of this story is hard to decipher
I’m sorry, you see I’m not sure,
But a sixteen stone, 6 foot 2 inch store detective
Arrested me outside the door.

So, if you meet the Devil in Tesco’s
And this offer to you should be made,
The only advice I can give you
Is to make sure the shopping’s been paid.

Zoo #6 – Spider

Though we tried so hard to hide her,
Tried our very best to guide her,
To a space that’s open wider,
Still she looked around and spied a
Teeny weeny little spider –
Sad to say it terrified her.

A true story. We were on holiday in Northern Cyprus. The apartments were new and recently opened. On the second night I was cleaning my teeth when my wife screamed. I ran through into the bedroom as she was running out. When I finally calmed her down with the application of gin and pretzels, she told me that there was a mouse in our bed, under the pillow. I went through and, sure enough, there was a little tail peeping out. I went into the kitchen to grab a pan and returned to catch it. I lifted the pillow and discovered that the ‘tail’ was, in fact, the leg of a tarantula! Panic set in as I did not want to try and catch it, only to let it escape under the bed, so I went for help. The man at the reception followed me back to the room, his eyes full of ‘Oh you English’ amusement when I tried to explain how big this spider was. I showed him into the bedroom, lifted the pillow and he flipped. When I eventually calmed him down – I had to buy more gin the next day – we carried the pillow outside together and shook the giant spider off. It wandered away un-phased and the man from the reception tried to climb the wall. The following day men in full protective suits arrived and sprayed the undergrowth all around our apartment. A week later, as we packed to go home, we found the spider’s spouse behind the curtain…

Like ourselves, I’m sure you will not believe that there are tarantula’s in Cyprus. Look it up, you’ll find that there are.

Now, you’d think, wouldn’t you, that such an experience would ensure that my wife was in no way scared of the tiny little fellas that we get scuttling around our house in the UK? Well, you’d be wrong…

The Immediate Problem

The immediate problem that presented itself to me upon waking was how to remove the spider from my nostril. That, in the cold light of consciousness, there was no such arachnid resident lodged in my proboscis was of little consequence, as my attempts to remove the phantom araneae – the trumpet-call of my nose blowing – did all that it could to attract the attention of every elephant in the neighbourhood. (How many? I live on the East coast of England: guess.) Until I found something else to worry about, my conviction remained completely undimmed by obvious fact. I could feel it moving. Possibly building a tiny nasal web for its many octopedal offspring. Anyway, having woken with the conviction that I had become some kind of creepy-crawly condominium overnight, nothing short of a tiny eight-legged corpse was going to convince me otherwise. Nor was I pacified by the almost certain knowledge that, in this particular scenario, I could more or less be assured that I would never be troubled by intra-nare bluebottles. It is a very dark cloud indeed, that has such a silver lining.

I seldom awake with a coherent overview of my dreams, but I do often carry little bits of them with me into the day: a sudden and irrational fear of aubergine; the conviction that Piers Morgan is a Cyborg*, the certain knowledge that I have woken up with somebody else’s legs. It is disconcerting: like the moment you try to analyze the way that you walk, and you realise that you can no longer do it. How can thinking about something make it unattainable? I’ve tried to recall what circumstance contrived to deposit the imaginary tiny tarantula up my somnambulant snitch, but to no avail.

I won’t lie to you. My nose is definitely big enough to house a spider. There’s quite a bit of room up there. A little bit damp for my taste, but it could, for all I know, equate to spider heaven. Anyway, although I seldom recall them in detail, I know what dreams are like. It could just as well have been an octopus I was trying to dislodge. Where nasal residences are concerned, size is not of the essence. Threading a camel through the eye of a needle is perfectly feasible, dependent on the size of the camel, the size of the needle and the nature of what you had to eat before you went to sleep.

Are dreams really just life with the brakes off: reality without reason, or are they simply the synapses enjoying playtime? Maybe reality is just a dream with a cold – all sensation wrapped in cotton wool, all possibilities snot-bound. Life in the waking hours is certainly more dull, more predictable than that which we experience during sleep. Definitely less precarious. How often is it possible to be chased by a masked pursuer, to fall off a cliff, to find oneself stark naked in a public place, without suffering serious harm or humiliation? The logic of progression is scattered in dreams, but never questioned. Nobody ever queries the fact that they are falling from a tall building again, when only a millisec earlier they were eluding capture by a long-extinct raptor in the humid, but definitely low-rise, setting of a Jurassic forest.

Yet, all of this could be endured so much more comfortably if the borders between these two conflicting states of consciousness were not quite so porous: if it was not so easy to carry pieces out from the twilight dreamworld and into this new normal nightmare world of non-contact and distanced communication that we now inhabit, where the fear of death is greater than the threat of loneliness, where the logic of action and reaction bears no level of scrutiny, where a paper mask worn to protect others becomes a threat to personal liberty, where wealth is counted in toilet rolls and gin is turned into sanitizer (although I still get told off for drinking it).

One day we will return to a world where wakefulness is not more confusing than dreams and a spider up the nose really is the worst of my problems – well, that and the elephant in the room, which is answering, presumably, my trumpet call…

*Actually, that is probably true.

‘…no longer afraid of the dark
or midday shadows
nothing so ridiculously teenage and desperate
nothing so childish
at a better pace
slower and more calculated
no chance of escape
now self-employed
concerned (but powerless)…’ ‘Fitter, happier, more productive.’ Radiohead.

Don’t always listen to the loudest voice. It probably just comes from the biggest mouth. Me.

A Little Fiction – Clown

There was a genuine smile on his lips as Kelly painted the ragged scar of lipstick across his mouth. No tears lurked behind the mask of white pan-stick that made his face a canvas. Beneath the unruly mop of ginger nylon ‘hair’ and ragged Tam O’Shanter, behind the illuminated bow tie, he was happy. All he had ever wanted to do was to make people smile; to hear them laugh at his antics – what more could he possibly want..?

He remembered the mocking tones of his teacher when he accidentally spilled his schoolbooks at the master’s feet, “Oh, you think you’re very funny, don’t you Mr Emmett? But don’t worry, because I will have the last laugh. I have a job, you may think it clever to make fun of me, but I… I have a job. You? What do you think you are going to do with your life, eh? Do you think you are going to put food on the table by being a clown? A funny man, eh Kelly? Well, when you’ve picked up your books, you can write out one hundred times, ‘I may think that I am funny, but I am not. I am an idiot.’ We’ll see how amusing you find life then…”

Kelly had tried to explain then, and again many more times, that he wasn’t trying to be clever. Of only one thing in this world was he certain – he would never be ‘clever’, and he most certainly did not want to make a fool of his teacher. Such a shame: he really liked Mr Newby. He was just accident prone. He couldn’t help it. He couldn’t stop the other kids from laughing at him. He liked them to laugh, but not like that. Their laughter was not of the joyous kind. It was sneering, taunting, cruel. He did not seek that laughter. But it wasn’t long before Kelly learned that the laughter of his peers was less cruel if he looked for it; that he felt included in it if he deliberately caused it.

Of course, it didn’t help that his family were poor, that his clothes came from a long line of hand-me-downs, and all from his three elder sisters – re-tailored by his mother in a way that did not always adequately disguise feminine origins. His footwear was even worse. He had to wear his father’s cast-offs. They were many sizes too big, the toes stuffed with paper, the loose soles having been glued and re-glued back in place a hundred times or more.

Mr Newby was a good man; he saw so much promise in young Emmett. He recognised his difficulties and he did all he could to help. He felt physical pain when he witnessed how this quiet and sensitive soul was beaten and jibed into the role of class clown. How the soft intelligence he saw behind his vulnerable eyes was slowly corrupted into something disruptive, almost malevolent. Even as he watched him succumb to the mob, Newby tried to intercede – to encourage and to punish: the carrot and the stick – a public humiliation, a hundred lines for a misdemeanour perhaps and then, much more quietly delivered, some apples to take home for a successfully completed task. He had desperately wanted to guide Kelly to a better future, but he had failed him, and he carried that failure in his heart until his dying breath…

The sun prickled the surface of the pond on the green as Kelly made his way to school. He alone, it would seem, was content with his life. He smiled happily, kicking stones even as his sole flapped loosely on his over-sized shoe. His bag was heavy, but it made a satisfying ‘thump’ against his back with every step. Mr Newby greeted him at the gate, and he smiled.
‘You’re early Kelly. Good to see you looking so happy.’
‘Thank you, Mr Newby. I just have to go to the washroom and I’ll be straight back to class…’

And he was as good as his word. Fifteen minutes later, as the chattering hub-bub of his classmates settled for the day’s lessons, Kelly Emmett, the smile now firmly painted onto his face, strode into the classroom, confident, for once, in his actions and in his ability to perform them. The sunlight that filtered in slatted beams through the dusty window blinds glinted starkly on the long knives he held aloft in his hands. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Let’s see who’s laughing now…’

***

Oh, I really fretted about posting this. I found the first paragraph in my workaday notes, I liked it and I decided to give it its head. It took me on a little journey I did not expect. I have sat on it for a few weeks now, because I really didn’t know whether it could fit in here. I toyed with lengthening it, explaining a little more, but I think the sparseness actually works. I could be wrong. I thought of filling it with jokes, but I decided that it had to be posted as it was, or not at all. So I scheduled it as the only way I know of committing myself. It is very different, very dark for me, but it is only a story…

Odds and Sods – A Reflection

Well, it has been interesting (for me at least) this trawl through my archives. I have been made aware of many things. I feel certain that I will return to some of the themes I have discovered here, but most of what I wrote way back then, will remain where it is. It’s not that it is necessarily bad, nor even particularly dated – some of the very worst things have good moments whilst, unfortunately, most of the best are still not good enough – but the archive file is just where they belong. Reading through it now, a lot of what I wrote years ago appears new to me, like it was written by somebody else, and I find myself laughing at my own, long-forgotten jokes. This I find very disturbing. It puts me in mind of those who cannot stop admiring themselves in the mirror – of someone who considers them self to be so entertaining that there is little point in listening to anybody else. I do not want to be a politician. I do not want to be a social-media ‘influencer’ – what is a social-media ‘influencer’? My only excuse is that this was all written long, long ago and at least, in most part, is something of which I am not actually ashamed. As I read through the reams of pages I have written, I have discovered that whilst the ideas remain fresh and many of the jokes still work (as much as they ever did) the style – particularly obvious in some TV and radio scripts – is often wildly out-of-date: welded to the moment in which it was written. Humour, it seems, is not transient, but the rules under which it is delivered are.

Throughout my formative years, as the desire to write coalesced within me, ‘silly’ ruled the world. Inspiration was easy to find – Spike Milligan’s Q series’, The Goodies, Monty Python’s flying Circus… (For the most inspired piece of Monty Python silliness ever, just click here.) I love silly. Silly has no agenda, no axe to grind, no victim. I love all comedy, but I am particularly fond of it when it is not used as a weapon. Silly is funny simply because it is funny. If it makes you laugh then that is its complete justification. In the UK we had comedians who touched genius with silly – who were funny simply because they were: Tommy Cooper, Eric Morecambe and, latterly, Billy Connolly… I can think of no ‘modern’ equivalent. I’m sure that all countries have these ‘natural clowns’ – although the American comedians I recall from my youth were always much more polished, more slick, altogether more cerebral. In today’s world, in order to be funny, it is now a requirement that you have something clever to say. It puts those of us who are not brainy enough to be sharp at a distinct disadvantage. Nobody shouts ‘smart-arse’ quite as loudly as me trying to be clever. (Well, except, perhaps, for Russell Howard.)

Writing ‘with an agenda’ is all well and good. Causing people to think is always a good thing. Making them laugh and think at the same time is a difficult trick to perfect. The main problem with the ‘agenda’ is that it is fixed in time. It doesn’t matter how witty it felt when you wrote it, as soon as it stops being relevant, it stops being funny. In comedy terms, I guess you really did have to be there.

I vaguely remember the man who wrote these far-away pieces. He was brighter than me, better company without doubt. He embraced the silly, held hands with the nonsensical and kissed ridiculous flat on the lips. He worried some times, but not all the time. He wore better clothes, although he still looked like a bag of shit tied up with string*. He drank less and ate less and ached less. He did not fear for the future because he knew he was going to ‘make it’; it was just a matter of time. He was optimistic – pessimists should never have children. (Children are ‘hope’ in human form – even if it is loud and annoying and full of snot at times.) This was a man for whom introspection meant worrying about whether the second donut was wise. All in all, a bit of a prat – although he had many more friends than me.

I wonder whatever became of him?

*An observation of my dad, who sought to advise me against wasting too much money on clothes.

As this piece is somewhat inward looking, (and especially since I still have a couple of bits from the Odds & Sods file left to use) I will agonise over whether it is worth publishing. I will spend some time trying to find jokes to lighten it and, finally, in a panic for some reason or another, I will publish it anyway and then worry about it for hours – until I realise that it’s either this or the piece about my cousin’s stamp collection…

Anyway, just so that you know, I have scheduled it and, as I do not have the faintest of ideas of how to cancel a scheduled post, it will appear on Thursday at 7 pm. A decision I am already regretting. Come on, everyone loves a stamp…

Today’s embarrassing background tune: Silly Love – 10CC