The Way It Is

So, you all know how this works: you get an idea and you start to write, just before pulling up short, a few hastily assembled sentences later, in order to consider the sky. Day or night, it always has something going on that is far more fascinating than whatever-it-is you are struggling to put down on paper. Sometimes I can be sitting here at the Unicorn hour; the sky black as ink, no stars, no moon, but still more interesting than anything I can squeeze from between my ears. Currently, I cannot pull my eyes away from a giant white tadpole slowly, slowly edging its way across my horizon, sucking in the furry minions that surround it, becoming a bloated black-bellied whale before my eyes. How long before it rains?

Now, where was I?

The sky is number one on my list of things that distract me from what I am supposed to be doing. Writing a list of things that distract me from what I am supposed to be doing is number two. I do not know why I am so easily distracted. My very first teacher, who remained my friend fifty-five years later, told me I had a ‘butterfly brain’, but she was being kind. It is much more like one of those little flies that won’t leave you alone when you’ve got a glass of wine. Or a moth: same principal as a butterfly, but less delicate, less beautiful and… ooh, look at the light!

My pre-writing ritual usually involves moving anything from around me that might distract me, but that in itself becomes a distraction. I have just spent fifteen minutes perusing a handful of fossils we managed to pick up when I went for a socially distanced stroll along the beach with my grandson; remembering the conspiratorial wink my three year old granddaughter gave me when she covertly held my hand. All my precious things are on shelves above my eye-level when I am seated. I try very hard to ensure that all that surrounds the laptop is stationery. (I have just had to check that I do mean ‘stationery’ and I do, although it is almost always stationary as well. Who can beat the hours lost in Dictionary and Thesaurus?) Anything that glitters diverts my attention. God help me if somebody leaves a marble in amongst the paperclips. Mind you, anything that doesn’t glitter also diverts my attention: why doesn’t it glitter? Did it offend some fundamental being at the dawn of time? ‘You can be delicately perfect in form; fragile as a pixie’s gossamer doily, but you will never shine?’ That kind of thing can scar the most stoic of souls. Is it not natural to feel sympathy for a pencil eraser when even a granite worktop can sparkle?

I have four rulers in the pot in front of me. Why? I have no idea. I cannot remember the last time I drew a straight line. There is so little of interest about a straight line. It is always the shortest route – unless you stumble into a wormhole – the most direct and the least interesting: like settling for a ‘99’ when you could have red sauce and sprinkles too. Oh, and I’ve just remembered the ice cream cones that you used to be able to buy with a sphere of bubble gum at the bottom. Brilliant – as long as you remembered what was coming. What were they called? Screwball. Who doesn’t love a Screwball? One of the rulers is black; one of them is red, and the third is clear. One of the rulers is wood. It has only inches, not centimetres. The clear ruler is half the length of the others. (Or are they twice its length? How would I know? What is the standard requirement for a ruler – apart from being straight I mean?) Point is, why do I have them and, more importantly, why does it bother me? I know where a centimetre comes from (It is a fraction of the distance to the moon, I think. I will check that shortly) but where does an inch come from – apart from being a twelfth of a foot. And is a foot the length of a foot? If so, whose foot? And how on earth did they measure feet before they had inches? Maybe in hands, like horses…

Anyway, I’ve slipped from the point. (I must just make a note of what I need to Google before I go to bed – also, why the inventor of Google didn’t use spellcheck when he invented it and, further, why my spellcheck does not recognise ‘spellcheck’) My point is, I need to find a way of stopping my brain from slipping away with a bagful of Revels just when I need it, and coming back with only the coffee creams remaining when the work is over and the words have been counted and – look at that! The black-bellied whale has been whipped by the wind into a thin mountain range with a bright orange sun slipping slowly behind it, bleeding colour across the sky, like a red sock in a white wash. I’ll just have to watch that for a little while. Remember, every time could be the last time…

…And now I recall. I bought the red ruler because it was flexible and I kept breaking the black ones in my bag…

My mind is like my internet browser: nineteen tabs open, three of them frozen, and I have no idea where the music is coming from – Anon

Who? – Me

Who, me? – Me

A Little Fiction – The Scam

The door pulled tight against its chain and a pair of dull, grey eyes peered out through the gap, squinting as they became accustomed to the bright sunlight. “Yes,” said the tiny voice from within – a reedy uncertainty evident in its tone. “Can I help you?”

Derek Fox smiled. His hair was tousled and his faced was smudged with dirt. He wore overalls bearing the name of a national house-building company. He was very polite; so unusual these days. “Sorry to bother you love,” he said, “But I’m working across the road at number seven and I couldn’t help but notice that you’ve got a couple of slates loose.”

“You’re not the first person to suggest that.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t realise that you already knew.”

“Joke,” she said. “It was a joke. Not a funny joke, but a joke.”

“Sorry?”

“You said that I had a couple of slates loose…”

The light of understanding dawned in his eyes. “Oh, of course,” he said. “A couple of slates loose. You had me going there.” He smiled. “Do you want to have a look?”

“Sorry?”

“Your loose tiles. Do you want to see them?”

“Oh, yes. Just a minute.” She closed the door while he stood uneasily on the step. He shuffled his feet and glanced uncertainly over his shoulder. He decided to give it to the count of five and then run. You couldn’t be too careful these days…

He was just about to bail when the door opened and the old lady appeared, pulling on her coat. Derek turned to walk back towards the gate when he felt her hand on his arm. “A little bit unsteady on my feet,” she said. “You don’t mind do you.”

He smiled. “Here, let me show you these tiles, Mrs?…” he said, patting her hand as they walked.

“Alice,” she said. “My name is Alice.” Together they walked along the path, through the gate and onto the street.

“There, look.” He pointed up to some uneven tiles on the roof. This was one of Derek’s favourite scams, and it was always so easy, particularly when there really were a couple of dodgy tiles to point out.

“Oh dear, whatever should I do?” she asked.

“It’s cold out here,” he said. “I’ll tell you what. Let’s go inside where it’s warm, you make me a cup of tea and we’ll see what we can do.” She nodded agreement and turned to walk back towards the house with Derek by her side. “So easy,” he thought.

Inside the house Alice led him into a dark room. The curtains were partly drawn and the ceiling pendant had no bulb in it. As his eyes became accustomed to the gloom, Derek began to discern the nature of the furniture that surrounded him. It was all of dark wood. The dresser was tatty: one door hung from its hinges and a drawer front was missing. The settee and armchair did not match, other than they were both equally threadbare. There was no television, no radio and no coal in the fireplace. It was cold.

Alice indicated the armchair. “Sit down,” she said. “I’ll make some tea.” She left the room and Derek could hear the tap running as she filled the kettle. Keeping one ear on her incessant conversation and the other on the bang and clatter of tea-making, Derek began to rifle through the dresser drawers, finding nothing but rubbish: cheap mementoes, old photographs and contorted cutlery. No money, but that wasn’t unusual; old ladies often employed much more singular hiding places for their cash. He would have to use his usual methods of extracting it.

He was seated, hands on knees, when Alice entered with the tea. She placed the tray at his feet. The metal teapot was badly stained, the two cups were chipped and did not match. The sugar was in a dog-eared bag. “I’m sorry,” she said. “But the milk’s gone off. I hope you don’t mind.” She poured the tea and handed a cup to Derek. “Sugar?” she asked.

“No thanks love,” he said. “Got to watch my weight you know. Doesn’t do to be too heavy when you’re crawling about on roofs.” She smiled and he pressed home his advantage. “So, what are we going to do about your roof?”

“Thing is,” she said. “I don’t have any money.” He almost stood to leave then, before she continued. “At least, not in the house. I’ve got a few bob in the Post Office, but I’ll have to go and get it out. How much is it going to cost?”

“Well, I’ll fit it in with my other work, so I can do it a lot cheaper than usual. Let’s say five hundred quid shall we?”

“Five hundred pounds! That sounds an awful lot for a couple of slates. Perhaps I ought to get another quote…”

“Tell you what. I’m already doing a job over the road, I’ll fit you in on their time. What about if I say four hundred pounds? It’d normally be a grand.” Alice breathed deeply and nodded. “O.K.”

Derek smiled smugly. It always worked. Now for the final coup de grace. “Thing is, because I’m doing the job so cheaply, what I need to do is buy the materials for cash. I can’t afford to pay the interest if I put it on my account, see. So, I’m afraid I’ll need you to pay up front. If you like, I can save you a bit of trouble. Just give me your Post Office book and I’ll go and get the money while you put your feet up. Then I can go straight round to the builder’s merchants and get things moving. What do you say?”

Alice looked doubtful. “Well,” said Derek, skilfully feigning hurt. “If you don’t trust me…” He put his cup down and rose to leave.

“No wait…” said Alice. She lifted a small vase and retrieved the bank book from beneath it. “There,” she said.

He took it and headed for the door. “I’ll bring the book straight back,” he said. “As soon as I’ve ordered the stuff.”

She took his arm. “You’re a good lad,” she said and, for a moment, he almost felt guilty. But only for a moment, and it soon passed. They walked to the door. Alice, somewhat unsteady, held on to Derek. He put his arm around her shoulder. “Lock the door when I’ve gone,” he said. “Go and have a nap. And don’t forget to put the chain on.”

She closed the door behind him and he turned to leave, carefully placing the bank book into his inside pocket. This would be the last time he could pull this one around here, she was the sixth today and he didn’t want to outstay his welcome. He drove his van away from the redbrick cul-de-sac and across the dual carriageway before stopping to open the savings book and check out what she had. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. The account had been closed for years. The stupid old trout! He put the book back in his pocket. He’d give her what for… It was then that he realised that his wallet was missing. At first he thought she must have… No, that just wasn’t possible. It must have fallen from his pocket while he was helping her to the door. She’d be keeping it safe until he went back with her bank book. Of course.

He knocked on the door until his knuckles ached. He looked through the letterbox and the windows. Not a sign. She must have gone out. He hoped the silly old bat hadn’t dropped down dead.

The woman next-door opened her door just an inch. Derek used his best smile. “I’m sorry to bother you,” he said. “But I’m a bit worried about the lady next door at number five.”

She looked him over. “Me too,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, the house has been empty for six months now, no sign of anybody even slightly interested in it, and then this morning the old lady came along and asked if she could have the keys for half an hour, said she used to live there as a child. Well I saw no harm, there’s nothing in there anyway. But, well to tell the truth, I saw you going in a little bit later and I thought, you know, that’s a bit funny. Then you left and she followed just a few seconds behind you and made no effort to bring the keys back, jumped straight into her car and shot off, so that’s when I called the police. Have you met detective constable Hargreaves?”

To Dream of Couscous – Couch to 5k week 4

I have friends who claim to love running. They are clearly deranged.

I take so long in ‘getting ready’ to undertake my thirty minutes of torture that often, with a little foresight, I could have been back before I started. My overriding pre-run emotion is dread of what is to come. During the run I am smugly satisfied that my dread has been justly vindicated. Only during the post-run shower, in anticipation of the well-earned chocolate and red wine (it doesn’t do to lose weight too quickly at my age) do I feel any sense of achievement. There is certainly never any sense of enjoyment about it. At times I would sooner be water-boarded.

I have re-started work this week after furlough and consequently, after eight hours of miserable monotony (which encompasses ten thousand steps apparently) I return home to run before settling down for the much-truncated evening. What kind of a life is that? It is like being told that you are having quinoa for dinner, but not to worry, you won’t have time for seconds as you have to worm the cat. What kind of person dreams of couscous?

And why do I desperately feel the need to wee within minutes of leaving the house to run? It passes, but only because it cannot compete with the necessity to find oxygen from somewhere, nor the desire to separate my tongue from the roof of my mouth. I have no idea whether men have a pelvic floor, but if they do, I fear that mine must be subterranean.

Despite all of this, my main concern is not of collapse, but of encountering somebody I know. My route is an amorphous, constantly changing beast; adapting at a moment’s notice in order to avoid any kind of social interaction whilst gasping. When forced into a salutary smile, I am aware that it emerges like rigor. I can feel the whispered, ‘Should he really be doing that at his age?’ I would like to yell back, ‘No, he bloody well shouldn’t!’ but I don’t have the breath. Anybody who claims to glean any kind of enjoyment from this torment should be certified. It is not normal.

You may, by now, have begun to share my own amazement that I am still doing this. I am doing it simply because nobody (including me) thought that I would and until I have proved everybody wrong, I cannot possibly stop. Like a character in Eastenders I have weeks of misery in me yet – and I take absolutely no joy from saying so.

The previous Couch to 5k instalment, ‘Return of the Mummy’ is here.
The next Couch to 5k instalment, ‘The Power of Two’ is here.
Couch to 5k begins here.

…Rebuild at Leisure

My family came from an area of Manchester called Hulme. My father moved away from Manchester before I was born but the regular visits via the early morning ‘Milk Train’ were a highlight of my young life in the early 1960’s. To my memory (notoriously dodgy) the ‘Milk Train’ went straight through to Manchester, whilst later trains involved a fevered dash between the two train stations in Sheffield that separated the diesel trained Lincoln to Sheffield line from the Electric locomotive that wheezed itself over the Pennines to Manchester. On rare occasions having arrived in Manchester, we would then board the steam train that still ploughed the line between there and Morecambe – but that’s for another day.

Hulme was a warren of redbrick ‘back to backs’: two up – two down terrace houses, no bathroom, a tiny back yard in which to hang the washing, and an outside privy up against the back wall. My aunty’s house had a ‘communal’ – one privy, two seats – for shared moments of unrivalled intimacy – more often than not with a rat. As a small child I loved it. It had small squares of newspaper hanging from string on the back of the door – my uncle worked at the Manchester Guardian and so, occasionally, some of it was not even printed on – but no electric light, so we children were not allowed to venture there after dark. Once the gloom of urban twilight began to hang over the belch of cheap coal smoke from the amassed chimneys, the privy became an adult-only environment. My aunty had a bike lamp by the back door to light the way to and from, but insisted it was turned off whilst seated, so as not to flatten the batteries. These were properties of Orwellian despair and poverty, but my memories are of a bright, cheerful place – toastie-hot in front of the fire in winter; cool with every available door and window thrown open in the summer – always smelling of cabbage and sweat, but filled with love and laughter. At least, that’s what my six-year’s old memory tells me. I recall quarry tiled floors, worn and shaped by years of use, and the zinc bath on the scullery wall. We played football in the back alley and endless games of Hare and Hounds which generally resulted in me becoming helplessly lost in the maze of unfamiliar streets, but strangely serene: every woman was an ‘Aunty’, every man at work or asleep in front of the fire. I was always delivered back to the correct household in time for tea.

In the late sixties the whole estate was bulldozed. I remember visiting and seeing what can only be described as armageddon: a post-apocalyptic flat-land of shattered brick and blackened mortar in which only the church and the pub had been allowed to remain standing. Somehow I felt desperately sad about it, but I am told that, at the time, nobody that lived there mourned its passing. Everybody (rightly) looked forward to the promised land of bathrooms with hot running water and toilets in which it was possible to linger without suffering frostbite: downstairs neighbours who didn’t row too loudly and upstairs neighbours who didn’t wear stilettos in the bathroom. Members of my family were spread around the city in preparation for the arrival of the demolition men, in high-rise plasterboard boxes with indoor facilities and central heating, and very happy they were with the situation. They all vowed to return to Hulme as soon as they were allowed, but few of them ever did. The community was broken and my family with it.

Unfortunately, in place of the dark, cramped and demonic demolished slum, Manchester council built a shiny new multi-storey slum with concrete in place of its soul. The Hulme Crescents were built quickly (much too quickly it later transpired) and were a model of the coming decade’s great urban dream of truly social housing: city life as an ant’s nest, with a drug dealer as queen. Institutionalised corruption and poor supervision meant that corners were cut during building so radically that most of them fell off; there was no ventilation in the flats and no insulation – allowing residents to suffocate and freeze at the same time; condensation left a layer of black mould across everything; rats flourished in the ducting system and large open spaces between blocks became desolate wastelands of half-bricks and dog shit. I have no idea of where it came from. Four-legged pets were not allowed in the flats. Budgies however, were and virtually everybody I knew had one. I’m sure that people went door to door selling sandpaper sheets and knocked-off Trill. The more affluent households provided their birds with their very own plastic bathrooms, which attached to the bars of the cage and scared the budgie witless before slowly turning green and smelling like a blocked sump at an abattoir. Everybody had a ‘budgie voice’ with which they spoke to the feathered little prisoners. Many of the birds replied: all of them unaware of what they were saying; all of them thinking they were screaming ‘Let me out of here!’ The estate was unpopular before it was finished. Nobody wanted to move there and by 1975 a survey of the Hulme Crescents residents showed that 96% of them wanted to leave – although I have no idea how many of them would have chosen to leave for a Hulme as it was before.

In 1992 Hulme was demolished and rebuilt once again.

At the start of this lockdown, one of my first ‘little tasks’ was to ‘redo’ the downstairs cloakroom: a job that I hated, with eventual results that I do not like. Yesterday my wife asked me to fit a new toilet roll dispenser, which led to a ‘conversation’ during which I mentioned the ‘communal’ and she asked me to explain what I was talking about, which I did to the accompaniment of her wrinkled nose and barely suppressed retching. I felt that the saying ‘Modernise in haste, rebuild at leisure’, which I am pretty certain I had just invented, was oddly apposite. I’m not suggesting that living without amenities is acceptable – God Knows, even a holiday Yurt has them – but that unwittingly making things worse is always an option if we’re not careful. Living with a problem you know in the short term can sometimes be preferable to the realities imposed by a rushed and ill-thought out solution (especially when profit is the main driver) – even if it means sharing a loo. My wife (correctly) pointed out that I was an idiot, asked me if I would like to take a bucket and the newspaper into the shed and suggested I took a few minutes to think it through. I put the dispenser up.

It fell down this morning…

The Power of Sixty

‘So why,’ I hear you ask, ‘as the country is just beginning to stagger uncertainly out of lockdown, blinking into the unaccustomed glare of The New Normal with all the untold possibilities it presents, have you decided to write a blog about a number – and a pretty unprepossessing one at that?’ Well the truth is, having recently reorganised a life’s work in my office I found, in amongst a forest-full of failed books, sketches and unheard pitches, a stack of carefully preserved cards from my sixtieth birthday, and it set me thinking. It is, in fact, the third week in which I have attempted to write this blog, but each time I have settled down to do it, self-isolation effects have rolled over me and I have written about those instead. It has become something of a Millwall around my neck*. I return to work on Monday, so I thought that the time was probably right to try and bash my head into some kind of shape and this seems as good a way as any of doing so. If it is disjointed, it is because it needs to be. It is where my head is – and it’s so far up there, quite honestly, that I can’t quite see back out at this minute.

I know little of numerology. In fact, until I Googled ‘60’a few moments ago, I was unaware of its very existence but, never-the-less I was directed to its webpage where I discovered that, ‘the number 60 is a number of family, home, and nurturing. It is also a number of harmony and idealism, the ideal generally related to a harmonious family relationship. 60 has maternal and paternal instincts.’ Well, that’s ok isn’t it? So far, so good, but then, curiosity piqued, I searched a little further on and slipped a little way off piste where I discovered that 60 is the direct dialling phone code for Malaysia and the atomic number for Neodymium. (A strongly magnetic metallic element. So strong, indeed, that a stray limb, dangled recklessly between two such magnets, could find its bones shattered. I am working on my episode of Midsomer Murders as I type, and also the kind of seal that does not allow me to leave the freezer door open after a 2am ice-cream raid.) 60 is also the highest obtainable level in the World of Warcraft – I do not know if that is a good thing or a bad thing, but I estimate that I am probably about 61 years too old to ever find out.

I then slipped a little further into Google, where I discovered that, mathematically, the number 60 is ‘a composite number, with divisors 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, 30, and 60, making it a highly composite number. Because it is the sum of its unitary divisors (excluding itself), it is a unitary perfect number and it is an abundant number with an abundance of 48. Being ten times a perfect number, it is a semiperfect number’ and decided to stick with numerology because, even though it is obviously utter tripe, I can, at least, understand the words. I estimate that I understand about one in sixty of the words in the mathematical definition, and then only by removing them and inserting them into a sentence about chocolate.

I thought that perhaps, as the most interesting occurrences of my own life are firmly behind me, I might find a little more interest in the historical facts associated with the number 60. There are, of course, two years 60 in the Gregorian Calendar, so I started with the first of them. Well, the most notable thing I could find about the year 60BC is that it appears to be the birth date of Ptolemy XIV of Egypt who was murdered by his own sister, Cleopatra, in order to ensure the accession of her illegitimate son (by Julius Caesar) Caesarion – who might just have entered the world via the sunroof. This kind of behaviour was, apparently, all the rage at the time, especially for Royalty and rulers who did not have to worry about public opinion or an appearance on the Andrew Marr Show. Although I do seem to recall that Cleo actually died having clasped an asp to her bosom (or vice versa) so, presumably, at least some sense of accountability there – ‘Infamy, infamy; they’ve all got it infamy…’** In truth, the most interesting thing about 60BC, for me, is that nobody living then could possibly have had the faintest idea that that is what it was. Imagine not knowing what year it is! (Ok, ok, time to own up to the fact that I once spent an entire year mistakenly telling anyone who asked me that I was fifty-eight, only to realise on my subsequent birthday, that I was actually fifty-seven, just about to become fifty-eight.)

Jumping on 120 years (I think that’s correct – do I add, subtract, or both?) to AD60 and the most notable thing, to me, is still that nobody would have known what year it was. There were any number of ways of denominating the year and even two common ways of deciding what day it was (I know, I know – neither have I for the last few months) and, believe it or not, nobody even thought about checking their mobile. The world was dominated by the Roman Empire which was challenged, in some parts of England, by Boudica, Queen of the Iceni, who proved, like Luke Skywalker, to be a complete thorn in the Empire’s side. Her crusade led to the slaughter of thousands (although not, to the best of my knowledge, the destruction of any planets) and eventually her own death which, ironically, facilitated our eventual access to tarmac roads and flushing toilets.

I do find a pleasing synchronicity in the knowledge that those born in 1960 will, themselves, be 60 this year and the most notable thing about them is that they will not have the faintest idea what year it is. There was so much free love and LSD in the air back then that anybody who has survived the Sixties will be completely addled. Do not worry: at 60 it is perfectly normal to know what day it is only after you have read your pill packets. People born in 1960 include Jeremy Clarkson, Diego Maradona, Bono, and RuPaul – which just goes to show….

*With thanks to the spirit of the great Hilda Baker.

**Second best in-dialogue one-liner of all time. We all know the best…

Return of the Mummy – Couch to 5k Week 3

Being yet another Couch to 5k update.

I am swaddled, if not exactly from head to toe, then certainly from thigh to ankle. In addition to the knee supports which I have worn since week one, I now have strappings on one thigh and one ankle. I am currently running in full length ‘joggers’ owing to my resemblance to Nora Batty if I wear shorts. It can only be a matter of time before my other ankle, which does have a record of giving up the ghost in a fairly dramatic manner, will decide to join in the fun and I will become a running lycra tube.

It’s ironic (I think – I’ll check) that my legs are not my biggest problem when I run. (I use the word ‘run’ in its loosest possible sense. ‘Lurch’ is probably more apposite.) My problem has always been my breathing. My post-jog ‘pant’ would rival a forty-a-day bloodhound. That, currently, is not improving – although I have developed methods of dredging oxygen into my lungs in a slightly more dignified manner that does not involve propping myself up on a lamppost and retching. My legs (shattered joints aside) seem to be relatively happy with the situation.

I have bought myself an arm strap for my phone and a pair of Bluetooth earbuds – one of which is currently working – which has helped. As soon as I have resolved the earbud situation I will be happy – it will stop me running in circles.

My runs are getting longer, my mid-run walks less desperate, and I’ve begun to refine my musical selection a little so that the beat is not quite so erratic and I do not appear to be having a seizure every time the tracks change.

I have one more run this week before the next regime ‘step up’ and I hope that I can approach that without having to brace any further joints. I have to, they’re running out.

The previous instalment of the Couch to 5k diary, ‘An Off-Peak Update’ is here.
The next instalment of the Couch to 5k diary, ‘To Dream of Couscous’ is here.
The Couch to 5k diary starts here.

Money for Nothing

One person that I suspect we in the UK have all become more familiar with during these long weeks of shutdown is Jay Blades. In addition to his role in The Repair Shop, where broken, damaged or just plain worn out items of sentimental value are restored beautifully by a team of very skilled craftsmen, he has become the ‘go to’ presenter for any show that features old and damaged goods being ‘up-cycled’ to create new ‘stylish’ items of ‘utility and beauty’ – or tat as it is more commonly known. In Money for Nothing goods are uplifted as they are about to be disposed of at the refuse disposal site and recycled by expert craftsmen and designers at horrendous cost, into pieces that are the visual equivalent of sandpaper on the teeth. Beautiful old sideboards are up-cycled into asymmetrical, hand-painted book stands that retain nothing from the original but two pieces of veneer, a box-wood frame and a single rusted screw that was just possibly forged by hand (or sold by Woolworths in 1963); a single old bicycle wheel has a cheap quartz clock movement blue-tacked to it to create ‘an elegant and functional wall ornament‘. Or, as we like to call it, a bike wheel with a clock on. The items seem to be always bought by modish metropolitan ‘galleries’, where they will doubtless languish for many years having already earned their keep by having got the premises on the telly in the first place. I am always reminded of Harry Enfield’s I Saw You Coming sketches. I imagine that they will eventually wind up in some Edina Monsoon wannabe’s lounge, pushed up against the wall to disguise the fact that the luminous paint is peeling off and one of the legs is propped up on a brick.

Furthermore, I have, today, caught sight of a show called Home Fix in which Jay invites people to attempt to achieve the same kind of results by employing their own DIY up-cycling skills. The finished articles do appear quite similar, in an unfinished kind of a way, and they look as if they may well add interest to the home – chiefly, I suspect, in the way of waiting to see how long it takes them to fall to pieces and decapitate the cat. Most of what is made appears to involves pallets – which are often found on the side of the road and which provide free wood for anyone prepared to pay the several hundreds of pounds required to get their car fixed after they have attempted them to load them in. I imagine the joy of knowing that the wood used to make your new coffee table was completely free, more than compensates for the fact that the grandchildren wind up at A&E having six inch splinters removed from their tiny little paws every time they have been round to yours. Today, having created a key holder out of an unfinished old piece of Conti board and two hooks, Jay advised that anyone worried about using a drill could simply use glue instead. So, no worry about it falling to pieces and crashing down onto little Johnny’s foot like a melamine guillotine then? I can’t help feeling that if you can’t drill a piece of wood, then you really shouldn’t be hanging heavy stuff on the walls.

Now don’t get me wrong here; I am in no way opposed to the idea of ‘up-cycling’. I’ve been doing it for years. I have recovered, painted and repaired more junk than the dump can hold. It is undeniably a good thing. My problem comes along with the arrogance that says, we have taken this old chair, we have covered the old seat in an artisan dish cloth and painted the frame with bright yellow paint at a cost far in excess of buying a new one, but look, it is no longer a tarted up old seat, it is a ‘super-modern, designer centre-piece’. IT IS NOT! Painting an old piece of furniture can certainly make it look better, but it cannot fundamentally change what it is, any more than oiling my bike chain will turn it into a Ferrari or getting a decent haircut will turn me into Brad Pitt. A pig in a saddle does not become a racehorse – even if you put a screw through its wonky leg.

If, for instance, you have an old garden bench that has rotted over the winter then ‘doing it up’ can only be a good thing, but it will still remain a tarted-up garden bench. First, you remove all the old rotten wood. (If it is a wooden bench and it is all rotten, do not worry, with a little thought you could always create a truly stylish garden bonfire.) Then replace the rotten wood with new pieces either a) cut from your latest pallet find or b) if you want to avoid ripping your trousers every time you sit on it, the wood merchants, and fasten to the frame with suitable screws. If you have no suitable screws, use whatever is available: unsuitable screws, nails, Blue Tack or twine – It doesn’t matter, once taken apart, these things never go back together properly again and anyway, nobody will ever go anywhere near it after you have sprayed it with creosote. If you are ambitious enough, you may attempt to paint it instead. If you do, it pays to make certain that you prop the bench up on three sides to prevent it falling over and removing your toe-nail when you lean on it. When bench legs are of uneven length, always nail something to the shortest. Do not attempt to shorten the longest: after 37 attempts with the bread knife you will be left with a sledge. Although, that could, of course, be a truly stylish addition to your garden – if only you could find that tin of yellow paint…

Art is art, isn’t it? And water is water and east is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like apple-sauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does – Groucho Marx

A Little Fiction – Return to ‘Another Unfinished Novel’ (Dinah and Shaw part 2)

It had taken Dinah a little time to settle into the job and to adjust to Shaw’s more eccentric work practices, which he claimed were based upon the Chaos Theory, but were in fact, way more chaotic than that. He could be very grumpy at times, although he could also occasionally be very sweet. On balance, she preferred grumpy. When he was being sweet he brought her things that she could never possibly want – last time it was a four-legged star fish that he had just found on the beach (explanations were requested as he was supposed to be looking for a hamster in Birmingham, but none were forthcoming) together with a bowl of water, a sachet of salt from the café below and the instruction to ‘See if you can make it better.’ It didn’t get better. It got smelly. At least when he was grumpy, she wasn’t given decaying invertebrates to resurrect.

Shaw was generally grumpy when he had a case to solve. Although most of the time he was employed by people hoping to relocate missing pets, what he generally found were lost people, most of whom had no idea they had ever been misplaced in the first place.

Whenever they were out together, Dinah found herself tagging along at distance, either struggling to keep up or asking passer’s-by whether they’d seen where he’d gone. It didn’t help that he would never tell her where he was heading. It didn’t help that he never actually went there anyway. She grew tired of tramping the streets with the photograph of a misplaced ginger cat only to find that Shaw had spent most of the day in the pub chatting to a man from Builth Wells who had no idea his wife was looking for him – in fact, had no idea he had a wife. Often that did at least give him one thing in common with the woman to whom he was subsequently introduced, who either had no idea she had a husband or, if she did, mistakenly thought it was the man with whom she had been living for the past forty years. A grumpy Shaw would waft away any discussion – he knew that they belonged together and if they claimed never to have met before, well, they were obviously mistaken and, by the way, had either of them seen a ginger cat? By the time that Dinah found him, Shaw had normally mellowed in the face of the liquid hospitality of the happy couple and persuaded his cat-less employers to accept that they were not suited to cat ownership in the first place, which often left Dinah with a homeless moggy and blisters that made her extremely tetchy.

‘You really should relax more,’ he would say. ‘Take things as they come. Why don’t you go and buy yourself a drink.’ Shaw never had money. He never got paid and he never paid for anything. Dinah found that she spent most of her time trying to persuade clients who were searching for a precious pooch to accept that they should pay the bill for a service that far from reuniting them with a beloved pet, had merely introduced them to the son that they had never had. They were seldom persuaded by Shaw’s admonition that ‘You can get a dog anywhere’ and quite often unhappy to find someone they had never met before living in their spare bedroom. Dinah tried to remind herself not to get too obsessed by it all, it was just a job – except it wasn’t, was it? You get paid for a job. You have regular hours and days off. Your employer seldom, if ever, asks to borrow your shoes so that he can go down to the corner shop in the clothes he has slept in to get milk. Particularly since the shop’s owner had threatened to set the dogs on him if he didn’t pay his tab. A normal employer does not wander out to get milk on Monday and return on Friday with a packet of flatbreads and a chinchilla. Without your shoes…

…It was no use in asking him where he’d been, he never answered. He just handed over a matted clump of bills and muttered, ‘Pay these will you?’ before falling asleep in the chair. Dinah sighed, ‘With what, Shaw? With what?’ She unfolded the papers and laid them out on the desk, attempting to find some kind of chronology to them, except that they were not bills. They were merely scribbled notes in Shaw’s erratic hand, each detailing in one word or two the failings that she regularly attributed to him. On the last one he had written ‘I will repay you somehow. Would you like to adopt an elderly gerbil?’

Against every screaming instinct, Dinah allowed the faintest of smiles to flicker across her lips. She shook her head and flicked the switch on the kettle. ‘If you’re making tea,’ said Shaw without opening his eyes, ‘We’ll need milk…’

Dinah and Shaw first appeared in January and I liked them. I feel that I might return to them again, but first I have to decide what to do with them. If I think of anything, I’ll let you know…

Part three of Dinah and Shaw’s journey is now here.

Couch to 5k – an off-peak update.

For those few of you who were kind enough to feign interest in my original Couch to 5k post, an update.

Week two and the jog/walk ratio has been cranked up a little: the jogs are longer (although definitely slower) whilst the walks have become a breathless stumble. Definitely felt that I was moving backwards today: towards the end I was overtaken by a tortoise yelling ‘Up yours Aesop!’

My knees, which have loudly complained about mis-use since my late twenties, are shredded and steadfastly refuse to support my body without reinforcements of their own, but I plod on (although, for saying so, I fear that I probably leave myself open to being sued by The Plodder’s Union). Throughout every run the mellifluous tones of the iridescent Ms Whiley assure me that it should all be getting easier, whilst I actually feel that death might be a release. I believe that my lungs may have been harvested in my sleep and replaced with those of an asthmatic shrew.

I have never had a talent for running, but in my prime I had more than sufficient stamina to see me through three football matches per weekend. These days I fear that I would struggle through a Subbuteo tournament without a substitute flicking finger.

Anyoldwayup, what I’m hoping for is an improvement next week because on the 15^th I return to work and, whilst my job is not madly active, I am on my feet all day and I have a couple of miles walk to and from where I park my car, so an evening work-day run could become a whole new ballgame – or ignominious defeat, as it is known in this household…

The first part of the Couch to 5k odyssey is here.
The next instalment of the Couch to 5k diary, ‘Return of the Mummy’ is here.

Sucking the Colours from a Puffin’s Bill

I can’t lie to you; this is my fourth attempt at writing this post and my eyes are beginning to seize in much the same way as my legs do in the back of a Fiat Panda. It is an experiment that is working about as well as seabird social distancing at a seafront whelk stall. When I write, regardless of purpose, the title is almost always the very last thing I add. I’ve never quite got the hang of using the title to entice the reader in. Most of my early posts used a single word heading, which I was quite happy with, until, in February of last year, I got a little missive from WordPress, instructing me in the dark art of penning the kind of title that would have the cognoscenti hammering at my door, when, flushed with ‘headline envy’ I decided to jolly mine up a little bit. Certain words and word-combinations rated higher than others so I wrote a post about it, utilising the highest ranking title I could devise – How to Undertake a Futile Quest for the Ultimate Headline – and my readership rocketed by nil. My following post was called Spring, and the vacuous search for readers I did not deserve stalled before it began.

A couple of weeks ago I used the above title in the body of my 200^th post. It was intended to express my belief that we should extract every last ounce of joy we can, from anywhere we can find it. Calmgrove suggested that it would make a good title, so I typed it at the top of the page and… nothing. I intended to write the post that would follow effortlessly on, but I had nothing to back it up. It was a mistake. Working this way will not become a preferred modus operandi for me. It is so hard to do, but I can’t stop now. My only plan ‘B’ is a short dissertation about grass (the lawn kind) and a quick glance at my back catalogue will tell you that I have already been there at least twice before and on neither occasion did I make any kind of an impression. I did not get approached by The Royal Horticultural Society to give the keynote speech at their next annual conference. Just as well really, Monty Don might well be there and I have a very heavy axe to grind with him. Having nothing more to fall back on in times of blight than an account of the blade by blade demise of my lawn does not fill me with hope for the future – besides, I get far too exercised by it to make jokes. Like the erstwhile Monty, I might slip into an earnestness that induces coma.

Generally, when I write, I begin with the idea. It does not need to be a great idea, it does not need to be ‘clever’, it just needs to be an idea. ‘Flimsy’ is often more than adequate, if I’m honest. Once I have the idea, I can begin to write and when I start to play with words they begin to find their own rhythm and that’s when I get interested. Plots are amorphous. Even within an eight hundred word dash they can evolve before the stagger towards the finishing line, but words, however mundane, can sparkle if they are given the chance – and you can be assured, my words may well not be worth reading, but they are always buffed up to the lustre of Donald’s brass neck. Only as I get ready to publish does the post get given a title.

When I first started paid work, some forty plus years ago, I had money, real money, disposable income for the first time in my life and music was how I chose to dispose of some of it. Vinyl albums, as they then were, were a very much larger slice of weekly income than today, with the average ‘chart album’ costing the equivalent of a three-bed semi at Woolworths to my recollection, but I still managed to buy one a week. This continued until I got married, at which time any disposable income I had suddenly became decidedly indisposable. Until then, every other week I bought an album that I knew I wanted, whilst on alternate weeks I bought an album about which I had no knowledge, simply to experience the thrill of the completely unknown: perversely something I find much easier to achieve these days with the realisation that I know so very little. Some of these records became lifetime loves, some became scratched and distorted placemats and some became extremely unwanted gifts for whomever I chose to give them to. I chose records I had heard about; records by bands I had heard about; records by bands with names that fascinated me, or simply records with titles that piqued my curiosity – a love that lingers still – and the memory made me realise that I really ought to start to think about my titles a little more.

Much of my old vinyl is in storage. My record deck and the vinyl I still manage to play – rarely now, because the speakers attached to the old hi-fi have the habit of undermining the house’s foundations – are downstairs and I have jogged today, so the stairs are one step too far, but looking along my office CD racks, I begin to feel that the art of the intriguing album title has, like my ability to get up after kneeling down, become a thing of the past.

I am currently playing a CD by Mostly Autumn called Dressed in Voices, so I’ll start there. It is a brilliant phrase which I am desperate to use for a title – as soon as I can figure what it means. It appears in the lyric: Dressed in voices, but my skin is on fire/And you’re not listening anymore (Josh) which, if I’m honest, doesn’t help me much at all. I don’t know exactly what the writer was wishing to say, but I do get the essence of it and, ironically, I’m happy in the knowledge that he was able to express such sorrow in three tiny words. But possibly – and here’s the intrigue – it does not speak of sadness to you. Possibly it is a phrase that means something quite different to you, and that is great. It’s deliberately left open, that’s how words work. Context is everything. Well, not everything, there is chocolate and wine as well, but it is crucial to interpretation. Ask any politician whose words have been taken out of it. Even the most carefully chosen words are capable of misinterpretation given half a chance – it is why we have become so reliant upon emojis. Who needs to fret – as I do – over the application of grammar and syntax, when a yellow smiley face will do just as well?

Words have power. They can create a feeling that transcends understanding. A great example of this is Achtung Baby by U2. I will not get drawn into a discussion here of either band nor music – that is a can of worms I have no desire to open – but what a great title. Two words, somehow at odds with one another, one jolting phrase, which completely sums up the ‘feel’ of the whole album. Genius – ask Bono.

Who wouldn’t want to hear Richard and Linda Thompson’s Hokey Pokey, Gong’s Camembert Electrique, It Bites’ The Big Lad in the Windmill? You don’t have to know who Francis Dunnery is, to want to know what’s going on within ‘Let’s Go Do What Happens’. It has to be a happy experience, doesn’t it? (It is.)

Mind you, there are also moments of false hope. Take for instance The Winkies, a band name so good that their first (and, coincidentally, last) album did not even need a title. I bought it because the name made me smile and despite the fact that the cover was a distinctly embarrassing one to hand over to the teenage girl behind the counter, who had the good grace to disguise her blush with a smile. There had to be some kind of genius within that cover. It was a lesson to me that hope can lie: that intrigue is not an infallible guide. The album is awful and although I have kept it as a salutary lesson and novelty beer-mat, frankly, I would have been better served by feeding the money it cost directly to a Chaplinesque little seabird. Any attempt to suck the colour from that one would leave you with a very sore throat indeed…