Art for Art’s Sake

When I first decided to retire I told anyone that would listen that it was my intention to take ‘take up art again’ as a hobby to fill my time. Unfortunately this single naïve statement has proven to have more inaccuracies attached to it than any other thought that has ever before flitted across my poor benighted brain. Not even Donald Trump in the midst of a fever dream could come up with such an easily disproven statement of fact. For a start I have yet to find the time required to submerge myself in existing hobbies, let alone begin a new one. I remember as a far younger man listening to silly old codgers bemoaning the fact that since they had retired they could not imagine how they previously found the time to go to work and now I am one of the daft old buggers myself. I seem to spend more time ‘working’ than I ever did at work: I don’t get to lay in bed, to drink tea whilst watching daytime TV, or to wander around town driving scurrying workers up the wall by walking very slowly before stopping vacantly comatose just inside shop doorways. If I don’t have something to do at my own house, then my services have generally been made available to someone else who needs something doing at their place of residence. I feel like some kind of peripatetic caretaker: not to be trusted with plumbing or electrics, but handy with a hammer.

Then comes the problem of ‘returning’ to artistic endeavours when, in truth, it is something I have barely considered since my ‘A’ level days of fifty years ago. Art has not really been ‘a hobby’ since the 1970’s. As soon as it became ‘a subject’ at school it lost some of its appeal and if the art studio had not become such a refuge for me after I had been thrown out of other classes by tutors who had far more sense than to waste their time on a feckless wastrel, I very much doubt that I would have pursued any artistic endeavours beyond ‘O’ levels, cider and daydreaming. I had an art teacher who tolerated my presence, my appreciation of colour and a plethora of grand ideas that I was not within a million miles of realising. Thanks to him I scraped an ‘A’ level pass before packing my paints away into a box where they remain, hard and faded, today. He was one of the first people to visit me in hospital after a teenage motorcycle accident and I regret having to disappoint him with my assurance that I was unlikely to die and that I would almost certainly return to his art classes. It is greatly to his credit that he did not hand in his easel at that point.

Finally I have the issue of ineptitude: I have high artistic intentions, but a general inability to draw anything that is in any way recognisable unless I have labelled it. My ‘still-life’ compositions have a tendency towards the torpid; landscapes appear to have been crudely coloured-in by a three year old chimp and all attempts at portraiture are accompanied by the implicit peril of litigation.

Yet I remain convinced that I will soon find the time to pursue my creative dreams. I have purchased a small department store’s-worth of variously hued paints, pastels and pencil crayons; I have a drawer full of brushes, palette knives, sketch books and pencils; I have more charcoal than a pizza oven. What I do not possess is the wherewithal to make a start. I think about it constantly, I make plans and occasionally rudimentary sketches, I arrange my ‘stores’ by colour, by media, by sell-by date, but seldom open a box or unscrew a lid. Most of my artistic dreams remain encased in cellophane. I will unwrap them as soon as time allows…

N.B. for reasons that are too numerous and far too boring to go into, this post is a full day late. I know it makes absolutely no difference to anybody at all, but I apologise nonetheless…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Better still; install a government that is you.
Game of the Page – Spot The Oxymoron.

APATHY

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

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

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

Blue Sky Thinking (or Why Don’t You?)

A beautiful, cloudless, blue-skied morning and my mind turns to walks on the beach, picnics in the park and a Mr Whippy ‘99’ whilst contemplating my navel. For my wife the sunshine leads her down a quite different path; to jobs that can be better done while the sun shines, gardening and making the most of the fine weather so that, when the rain comes, we are in a position to resume the indoors DIY chores that it feels inappropriate to pursue during the better weather. Our viewpoint could not be more widely divergent and although the path we follow is invariably that dictated by my wife, I do generally get a little ‘nod’ with the inclusion of a twenty minute mid-dusk ramble around the village at the end of the day, providing I can find my gloves.

The unwelcome intrusion of onerous tasks should, in my opinion, be reserved solely for rainy days. Faced with the prospect of unwelcome toils all day I would almost certainly rather do it within the confines of being wet and miserable anyway. At least I know where I stand and no-one will expect me to feign contentment. There is little point in being thoroughly unhappy unless you are in a position to fully enjoy it.

Sunshine, for me, invites the avoidance of ‘must be dones’. Life is very much overburdened with the mundane and any opportunity to break out of it must be embraced. Sunshine is nature’s way of saying ‘Stop doing what you have to do, and do something you want to do instead.’ When I was much younger there was a TV series entitled ‘Why Don’t You?’ which was aimed, ironically, at getting the teenage viewer away from the TV and out into the real world. It was originally called ‘Why Don’t You Just Switch Off Your Television Set and Do Something Less Boring Instead?’ – but retitled in the decade’s endless pursuit of ‘the snappy’ – and would in my opinion have been far better left alone: the original title told you everything you needed to know, even if you often discovered after tuning in that what they proposed was actually far more tedious than watching ‘Hector’s House’ on TV. It is a sad fact of life that hardly anything is anywhere near as interesting as other people tell you it is.

Anyway, the memory of it led me to check the program out on Wiki and I discovered that it was presented by, amongst others, the ubiquitous Ant McPartlin* and Pauline Quirke who grew up alongside my entire generation through Pauline’s Quirkes, Shine on Harvey Moon and most famously the godawful Birds of a Feather. ‘Why Don’t You?’ ran for 42 series in a number of quite different formats and, to the best of my knowledge, persuaded not a single youth to give up television watching in favour of cataloguing rare beetles or tie-dying their aged parent’s underwear. What sticks in the brain is the fact that the presenters were pretty much our own age: kids they called us back then, pre-teens, teens, or young adults we would be today, but whatever we were called the big idea was that we were not being talked down to by an adult (or big kid as we would be called today). It does, though, make me think that the various formats might be revisited in a way that might be more suited to today’s world: ‘Why Don’t You Just Put Down Your Smart Phone and Do Something Less Boring Instead?’ The obvious implication of course being that the alternative would, indeed be less boring and, I suppose, not something that could just be found on YouTube anyway and I think that perhaps I might have discovered the flaw in my own argument: there is virtually nothing that you can’t find on YouTube and anyway, as any millennial will tell you, watching somebody else doing stuff is actually exactly the same as doing it yourself: what’s the point of painting when you can (virtually) walk around a gallery? What’s the point of allowing your bedroom to become a shit-hole when Tracey Emin has done it? Maybe we would need to consider a complete rethink, something like ‘Why Don’t You Stop Pratting About Trying To Live A Life and Watch Somebody Else Doing Something Incredibly Boring Instead?’ I think back to the TV of my youth and how other programs would have to be re-imagined for the 21^st century audience: perhaps ‘How?’ (which you can read about in this previous post from 2019) would now become ‘Why Bother?’; ‘Watch With Mother’ would be ‘Obey the Childminder.’ The modern demand for titles that ensure understanding of what is to follow would see ‘Here Comes the Double Deckers’ relabelled as ‘A Bunch of Kids Spend Their Days with A Middle Aged Man in a Double Decker Bus in the Corner of a Scrapyard’ – oh come on, somebody call the police! ‘Blue Peter’ would be ‘Two Men, One Dog and a Woman Who Somehow Stops You from Ever Seeing Up Her Mini Skirt’; ‘Magpie’ would be ‘Blue Peter for Council Estate Kids; ‘The Kids from 47A’ would be ‘Look Out, Here Come the Teenage Hormones!’ and ‘Follyfoot’ as above. ‘The Magic Roundabout’, ‘The Herbs’, ‘Mr Benn’, ‘Bagpuss’ and ‘Captain Pugwash’ would all be gathered together and re-titled ‘A Thinly Disguised, Nonsensical, Trippy Fantasy’ and none of them would be improved by it.

None of the above on a sunny day though. Sunny days are not for TV, but definitely for 99’s – and wondering what they would have to be called today…

*Half of the Ant and Dec TV presenting team: think Gordon Ramsay without the cooking, the language, or the massively inflated ego. I am aware that this post is packed with references that may well be familiar only to people born in this country (amongst whom I count myself) so I’ll try to clear a few things up: a Mr Whippy ‘99’ is a cone filled with whipped ice cream pierced with a single finger of Cadbury’s ‘Flake’ chocolate. I don’t think anybody knows why it got the name. I can do so little to describe to you any of the mentioned television series other than to say, if you can get ‘The Magic Roundabout’ – the English, Eric Thompson version – on YouTube, you will see exactly what I mean. Once you’ve started, you will find something like 500 five minute episodes that you will not be able to resist. You have been warned!

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

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

Before deciding on your victim, carry out some basic research: is anyone likely to want them back and, if they do, can they afford to pay the ransom? There can be little worse than being stuck with someone whom you can’t return, who eats like a horse and insists upon attempting to ‘discern the rationale of your didactic approach’ every evening over the cocoa.
When operating solo, always kidnap someone smaller than yourself. If that is not possible, try to snatch his dog – as long as it is neither big and vicious nor small and yappy.
Do not get over-ambitious. Kidnapping the mayor might seem like a wonderful idea after thirteen glasses of your sister’s homemade rhubarb wine, but it is unlikely to prove practical, and it is doubtful that you will be able to carry out your scheme without eventual exposure, capture and humiliation.
Do not attempt to kidnap someone of above average IQ¹. There can be little more embarrassing than losing so many games of chess that you are forced to pay the ransom yourself before releasing the brainbox with money for train fare and a sandwich on the way home.

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

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

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

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

As a subversive, you may decide to view all organised political parties as ‘the enemy’ – this is perfectly normal and, frankly, not terribly subversive.
In truth, what they want you to believe they intend to do next. What they actually intend to do next is exactly the same as every other party in power over the entire history of the world e.g. feather their own nests.

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

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

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

Politics

What follows is an attempt to shake things up a little: abstract words thrown into a hat and chosen, at random, as both title and subject of a single post. I seriously don’t remember putting this one in…

In his seminal novel ‘Nineteen Eighty Four’, George Orwell foresaw a world controlled by three global superpowers (Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia) who subjugated and controlled their populations through the ever-present threat of constant war perpetuated by constantly shifting political alliances. Silly man. How could he have got the future so wrong?

We currently have three Big Brothers presiding over global pandemonium in Trump, Putin and Xi. All three of them find themselves ‘attached’ – by accident or design – to puppet protagonists (Netanyahu, Khamenei and Jong Un) although it is not always possible to be sure who has whose hand up whose arse.

Throughout the world, politics is dominated by the thoroughly untrustworthy attempting to persuade we proles that we should trust them. Honest politicians do not exist – or, if they do, they most certainly do not get elected. All politicians have the ambition to be the leader: all politicians believe they are far more important than those who elect them. Most politicians do not follow the example of Idi Amin by eating their opponents, but that may well be because they haven’t yet been given the opportunity. Most politicians are not bonkers when they start out, but they are power-hungry. They become mad when they attain power. Trump was rich, stupid and powerless but he found a way to obtain power by over-promising, obfuscating and – when facts were piled against him – lying. He is a playground bully who detests being told that he is wrong. His grip on reality – like that of his hair to his head – is getting more tenuous by the day. Putin became rich and powerful when the Communist State that he embraced so fiercely descended into chaos and he was able to ride a wave of capitalism and extortion to supreme power in the course of which he came close to bankrupting his fragmenting country before realising that, by bullying all of those around him – which he justified by claiming to be the bullied – he could unite the country behind him providing he could prevent them from finding out the truth of what was really going on. Putin is a small man with a very big chip on his shoulder and a shit-load of novichok at his disposal. If you wish to criticise him, I recommend you do so from a lead-lined room. He is as trustworthy as a bad prawn in a Vindaloo. Xi Jinping appears positively benign when compared with these two, but he came to power through the exercise of extreme corruption accompanied by a massive anti-corruption campaign e.g. by killing or imprisoning all opponents.

If the recent war in Iran has taught us anything it is that normal, everyday people have no power whatsoever. Once we are lumbered with these regimes, they exist merely to perpetuate their own existence. All governments are unpopular, but thankfully, in a few countries we do retain the right to say so. Providing we don’t get caught. These countries – like the UK, most of Europe, very little of South America and even less of Africa – are generally regarded as lapdog states as, generally, they do not possess the big sticks and, if they do, they do not control the ability to swing them without permission.

Democracy is, of course, the political paradigm: a system through which the entire population has the opportunity to exercise influence over those who would govern them except… well, a poor choice is no choice at all, is it? In England we have the choice of five major parties led by Sir Keir Starmer*, Kemi Badenoch, Ed Davey, Nigel Farage and Zack Polanski, all of them numties. The whole process could only be given more gravitas with the addition of Kermit the Frog to the list of options. ‘Truth in advertising’ would dictate that a UK voting slip should simply give a choice between ‘Dumb’ and ‘Dumber’.

Most people look to their elected representatives to oversee a regime that will address inequality, tackle impropriety and repair pot-holes in the roads. They want everyone to contribute a fair amount towards the protection of the young, the old and the disadvantaged: to nurture and to educate, to protect and include. Also, if at all possible, to reduce the duty on alcohol and chocolate¹.

In reality, the successful politician is not the one who persuades you that they will do the good stuff, but is the one who persuades you that the other will do the bad. Most people would vote for a cumquat if it promised them what they wanted. Shape an unpalatable truth as a nubile and clothe it in a transparent pac-a-mac and the world is your lobster.

Winston Churchill once said ‘The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.’ The greatest of UK politicians, Churchill was famously voted out of office immediately after guiding the nation through The Second World War, which just goes to prove that, all in all, politicians are probably no worse than the people they represent.

*Currently in name only. Few doubt that Andy Burnham will follow him: our seventh leader in the last ten years. The process never varies: get elected, get found out, resign.

1. Or perhaps that’s just me.

The Beginner’s A-Z of D.I.Y. Subversion – Introduction (part two)

I urge you, now, before it is too late, to consider what it is that has drawn you to this subversive path. Perhaps you have always harboured an urge to behave subversively. Perhaps only now, after (comfortably) more than half a century of life’s travails, have you built up sufficient resentment to act. Remember: into every life a little rain must fall. There’s always sunshine after the rain etc. etc. Except that there’s not, is there? After rain, there’s normally even more rain, followed by fog on high ground and flooding in low-lying areas. Subversion comes in many guises: think Guy Fawkes attempting to blow up the house of commons; think ringing a call centre and leaving your phone off the hook; think taking an unfeasibly long time to read all of the myriad delights laid out before you on the Starbucks menu before asking the extensively over-qualified barista, ‘Do you do Nescafé?’.

Whatever subversive action you decide to take, even if it is just sticking your tongue out at someone when they’re not looking, somebody is almost bound to take exception to it. If they react badly, you will find yourself in ‘a situation’. At this point adrenalin will kick in. You are unlikely to experience the fight or flight dilemma as you will be too busy running away. Whatever you do, always make certain that you have a suitable means of escape. Bicycles are excellent, but only if you are heading downhill. If you plan to escape by public transport, always ensure that you know the location of the easy access stops.

Broadly speaking, subversives fall into two categories: a) those who consider themselves torchbearers for the right and good – enemies of injustice and inequality – warriors for a righteous cause and b) those who would really quite like to get their name into the newspaper. Many of those who fall into category a) will enter into politics, whilst many of those who fall into category b) will also enter into politics. The Houses of Parliament are the subversive equivalent of the elephant’s graveyard. Politics is the domain of those who have lost all conviction – or at least home to those who have sued the press for releasing details of their convictions. Subversion is simultaneously the enemy and the father of politics – whilst politicians are often simultaneously the father and employer of any number of tax-deductable children. Winston Churchill remained subversive throughout his political career but then, so did Tony Benn and Jeremy Corbyn and look where it got them. For most, subversion and political success are mutually exclusive – in much the same way as hand-knitted cardigans and sexual excess. Indeed, for the majority of subversives, subversion and normal social intercourse are also mutually exclusive. Show me a subversive with friends and I will show you a liar. Subversion, like golf, is a group activity in which no member trusts any other member; consequently, most D.I.Y subversives also become solo subversives. After all, what is the point of other opinions if they do not agree with your own?

Somebody once said that 99% of all subversive activity takes place between the ears. They obviously associated with different subversives to me. 99% of what goes on between the ears of the subversives I have met is… well, zilch, quite honestly …and the other 1% involves sexual exploits – 99% of which are fictitious.

Remember, subversion is not all glamour. Che Guevara was indeed glamorous, but not until after he was dead. If you want glamour, you are reading the wrong blog – look elsewhere – there must be one somewhere about existing purely on the calories extracted from cigarettes and cocaine.

I do not seek to persuade anyone that committing subversive deeds could in any way be seen as a desirable course of action. Indeed, I consider it imperative to advise against any activity that may, in any way, be associated with terrorism or extremism and which might, ultimately, lead to the suspicion that it was me who placed the fake dog-dirt in the butcher’s doorway. Amateur subversion seldom involves killing your enemy – although it may necessitate tying his shoelaces together. If you are happy living your life as a friendless bozo, perpetrating small acts of subversion whenever and wherever the opportunity arises distil from this such succour as you are able – then, for God’s sake, go out and get yourself a life…

Letting Go

As I get older there is an ever-growing list of things I no longer do for myself, jobs that everyone advises me it is much wiser to get a man in for. I am still not used to it. With the exception of plumbing – at which I am particularly inept – I have spent a life stumbling through almost every facet of driving myself crazy by taking months to do a job that anyone half-proficient would complete in a weekend. I decided, as time wore on, that it made more sense to allow people who know what they are doing to do what has to be done. Quicker and, in the long run, cheaper. The problem is letting go.

Doing things myself ensures that, however inexpertly they are done, they are nonetheless done as I want them. Tradespeople do not necessarily follow my plan. The right way is not necessarily my way. Let me talk you through it. We currently have a paved area at the back of the house that is being relaid. If I was doing it the procedure would be more or less (allowing for the odd trip to Accident & Emergency) as follows:

Lift existing slabs, breaking a large number in the process and trapping my fingers enough times to ensure that my nails turn black and fall off into my tea.
Dig out the area and flatten – at least flatten out the first bit until my back starts to ache, at which time a slight roughing over with a garden fork becomes the norm. Any buried stones should be removed at this stage. Should, but in reality, if they prove to be anything other than mildly intransigent, they will probably be hammered into the ground with whatever comes to hand. Whatever refuses to hammer down will have its top chopped off with a spade at the beginning of an arc that concludes with my ankle, and another trip to Casualty holding another plastic box filled with my own body parts.
Mix sand and cement in the correct ratio – or as near as. As I never have enough cement and usually only the wrong kind of sand, this mix can vary from slab to slab, especially as I do not have a mixer and am forced to mix by hands with, I must admit, varying degrees of diligence, meaning that the last few slabs will be set on a bed of sand with a handful of cement chucked on top.
Check that the surface is level. Invariably it is not. Whack each slab with a wooden mallet. Look in dismay at the wooden implement which turns out to be a huge metal lump hammer erroneously left (by the pixies) where its wooden counterpart should be.
Pausing only to bandage head, pick up the fragmented slab and replace it with one of a slightly different thickness. Make note to check Public Liability Insurance and buy ‘Hazard Warning’ tape when next in DIY store.
Realise that I must now cross the newly laid slabs in order to get back inside the house. In the certain knowledge that all will be ok if I stand only in the centre of each slab, I discover – not for the first time – that I am completely wrong.

Tradespeople do not work that way. They have the right equipment; they level the ground with a digger; they flatten the hardcore with a whacker; they mix the concrete in a mixer; they know what they are doing and so I feel that it is incumbent on me to keep an eye on them. My input is seldom welcomed. My wife’s occasional demands for specific outcomes which, whilst not always appreciated by me, are even less generously embraced by those who know what they are doing and do not need instructions especially when transmitted through the media of sad old git. The desire to check on progress at the end of the day is overwhelming. “I’m not sure that I would have done it like that,” is a thought that is seldom far from my mind, as is the realisation that it is because they have done the job properly.

In the past I have flooded, electrocuted, pierced and generally turned myself into human carpaccio so often that the realisation that there are things I really should not attempt is no longer a painful one (certainly not when compared with the reality of actually doing it) but the recognition of the fact that I am no longer physically capable certainly smarts. The day-after pain of I really shouldn’t have done that at my age almost overwhelms the smug satisfaction of knowing that – despite all advice to the contrary – I did give it a go and so the knowledge that I will have to pay somebody to put it right is not nearly so distressing.

In our younger days we did not have the money to pay to have things done. If we didn’t do it ourselves, it didn’t get done and I think that is almost certainly a good thing. The various scars dotted across my body serve as a useful aide de memoire as I get older. If ever I was tempted to try to lay a new patio myself and needed a reminder of the correct way to do it, I could glance at my bent and battered fingers and recall exactly how it shouldn’t be done. Life is an education. Letting go of the lessons is not always easy…

The Beginner’s A-Z of D.I.Y. Subversion – Introduction (part one)

This is not a terrorist handbook. If you are scanning this post at random whilst pretending to peruse some far more worthy thread, you need not be concerned – it is highly unlikely that you will receive a knock on the door from a shady-looking character with a rolled-up umbrella and a GCHQ security pass hanging from a purple lanyard around his neck. You can read on in relative safety. You are unlikely to find yourself on the receiving end of a polonium enema just yet.

Perhaps we should begin with a definition. My hastily Googled enquiry offered this – Subversion: the undermining of the power and authority of an established system or institution. I see it more as the art of being a bloody nuisance. Like stretching Clingfilm over the toilet bowl, it seldom ends well. I tend to think that the aim of undermining the entire established system might be a slightly ambitious one for a long-in-the-tooth loner. I am happy to discuss subversion in all of its forms, from hacking the Pentagon computers to leaving a drawing pin on the Bowl’s Club Secretary’s chair, but I urge you to consider – those on the receiving end of acts of subversion do not necessarily share your healthy regard for democratic rights and may just call the police if you continue to shout rude words through their letterbox – worse, they might just open the door and chase you.

Subversion is a gift for life. The desire to subvert is there from birth. Any parent will recognise the look on a baby’s face as it widdles on the changing mat or poos in a freshly changed nappy. The urge to subvert grows with the child. School brings unrivalled opportunities: bird whistles behind a raised desk lid; innocently made smart-arse remarks during class discussions; getting lost on the way to classes; falling to sleep during them… all of the things that teachers most love. In adulthood, the opportunities to act subversively occur daily. I am not talking about the kind of actions that could cause physical harm; I’m talking about the slight discomfort of a rubber band on the back of the neck, a dried pea in a brogue, an unpicked seam in the underwear… And I’m not necessarily thinking about actual physical irritation, I’m thinking mental too. I’m thinking about moving the most expensive suit you can find onto the Bargain Rail at Next; I’m thinking about casually pretending to pick up a loose bolt from the floor near the railings at the top of the Eiffel Tower or producing your own bottle of tomato ketchup at an oyster bar. It might sound like little more than a practical joke, but it will put a bat up the nightie of a) the multi-nationals, b) the French and c) people who insist on eating raw molluscs in public.

Subversion that results in violence is often linked with religion. Religion is, in my opinion, not something with which the subversive should become involved. Too often, the incorporation of subversion and religion can lead to shed-loads of anguish and not a little bloodshed – just think back to the Sunday school outings of your youth. If you are decided upon a career in religious subversion, there are other websites out there for you, although I would not necessarily recommend accessing them on your mother-in-law’s laptop.

I am no connoisseur of violence – I haven’t queued for a bus in years – but I am aware that some factions quite like it. I am a firm believer that blood is designed to remain within the body. As far as I am concerned, a pool of red liquid around a person’s feet can only spell trouble – unless it is being lapped up by the cat, in which case it probably spells strawberry sauce. I would certainly never encourage risky behaviour: life and limb are not designed to be exposed to danger. Extreme pain is nature’s way of telling you to stop whatever it is you are currently doing, even if it is just sitting cross-legged on a concrete floor. The only advice I can offer is that violence is seldom the answer (unless, ironically, the question is ‘what is seldom the answer?’).

Maisie and Margaret are Cooking

I don’t think I write enough women, so I decided to introduce you to these two…

“Hello, erh…”
“Maisie? It’s me, Margaret. Are you alright? You sound distracted.”
“Yes, sorry, I didn’t realise it was you ringing. I wasn’t looking at my phone. I’m in the middle of cooking my tea.”
“Ooh, what are you cooking?”
“Fish fingers and oven chips.”
“Very nice, although I’m not quite sure it actually qualifies as cooking does it love.”
“Doesn’t it? Why?”
“Well it’s all frozen isn’t it.”
“When I take it out of the freezer it is, but by the time I put it on the plate it’s cooked.”
“Not exactly Masterchef though, more warming up than cooking, isn’t it.”
“It’s only for me Margaret. Obviously if I had visitors I’d ditch the tin of mushy peas and have frozen instead. Bread and butter probably.”
“Scampi I imagine, if it was the Mayor.”
“Probably get the best plates out if it was the mayor, put the ketchup in one of those titchy bowls with a spoon.”
“I’m not sure the Mayor would care for your ketchup, Maisie. No point in being Mayor if you can’t demand Heinz. I suppose he’d probably send his people around beforehand to check your condiments.”
“His people?”
“Oh yes, I’m sure he’d have ‘people’. They’d have to check everything out, wouldn’t they? Probably insist on Bird’s Eye fish fingers too… And they’d want to give your air fryer a once over I imagine.”
“I haven’t got an air fryer.”
“I’ll lend you mine if the Mayor’s coming.”
“I’m not sure that I’d know how to use it Marge. I’m probably better sticking to the grill.”
“Oh it’s easy Maisie, you just turn it on, put the fish fingers in and ten minutes later they’re burned to a crisp. Couldn’t be easier. I use mine every day. I haven’t eaten anything that isn’t black in months.”
“So you can cook anything in them?”
“Yes, I do Scotch Eggs in mine.”
“Scotch Eggs? That’s fancy. I didn’t realise that you were such an Episcopalian.”
“Do you mean epicurean dear?”
“I don’t know, is it something to do with fish?”
“All food, I think. Food and drink.”
“So Molly Wormhole is an epicurean?”
“No dear, Molly Wormhole is an alcoholic. She’s not really bothered about food: Coq au Vin perhaps, but without the coq.”
“Dear old Molly, her husband was a funny sort wasn’t he?”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, he always wore shorts didn’t he, whatever the weather.”
“It was something to do with his army days wasn’t it?”
“That’s what he always said, but to my certain knowledge he served the whole of his National Service in Aldershot on account of his feet.”
“His feet?”
“Flat. I saw him once without his shoes on. Like two giant slabs of nougat they were.”
“I would have thought that would make him good in the desert, Maisie – spread the weight, like a camel.”
“They couldn’t get boots to fit him apparently. It’s why he always wore those bloody sandals.”
“I think he was buried in them.”
“I’m not surprised. I wouldn’t have wanted to be the one who had to take them off.”
“Molly insisted they took his toupee off though. Scared me to death when I went to see him laid out. I thought they’d embalmed the wrong man.”
“I never understood why he had a ginger wig. I remember him from school. He had dark hair then.”
“It was in the sale I think. He was a very mean man.”
“I always wondered whether he had picked it up secondhand… from Frankie Howard possibly.”
“Molly hated it.”
“I’m not sure that it was just the rug she hated, was it?”
“He was a very difficult man.”
“Difficult, vain and welded to his sandals. I wonder what she ever saw in him.”
“He was different when he was young.”
“He must have been because you could often catch Molly sober back then.”
“Yes dear, but she never had the best of taste in men.”
“Ooh, not a dating epicure then?”
“More of an omnivore where men were concerned was our Molly.”
“I suppose she must have an air fryer then.”
“What?”
“You said you can cook anything in them.”
“Right… Well… I imagine everybody’s got one except for you dear. Now, how are your fish fingers going? I don’t want you to burn them.”
“No, Margaret, they’re not burning. They’re still frozen. I appear to have forgotten to turn the oven on. I did turn the hob on though: my mushy peas are now more crusty if I’m honest. Black and crusty.”
“Actually, now you mention it, I think I can hear your oven timer going off.”
“It’s the smoke alarm I think.”
“Oh dear, can you turn it off?”
“I’ll take the battery out.”
“Is that wise dear, if you’re going to cook in the oven?”
“I’ll use the microwave.”
“I’m not at all certain that you can cook oven chips and fish fingers in the microwave: won’t they go soggy?”
“It’s not necessarily a problem is it, with my teeth?”
“Your teeth? What’s wrong with your teeth?”
“I appear to have misplaced them when I was searching for my phone.”
“When I rang? You said you were distracted because you were cooking your tea.”
“Oh yes. Thank goodness I didn’t turn the oven on.”
“But why did you take your teeth out in the first place?”
“Well, I often take them out when I take my bra off straight after ‘Countdown’, it’s one of the benefits of my limited diet, isn’t it? I’m perfectly happy to ‘gum’ fish fingers and chips.”
“Of course. Well I suppose you’d better go and find them then dear.”
“Yes, I will. I’ll speak to you tomorrow Margaret.”
“Ok Maisie. We’ll speak then. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight…”

The Beginner’s A-Z of D.I.Y Subversion – A Hastily Assembled Explanation

This little guide began its life as a commissioned article for a magazine that sadly sank without trace before its edition made publication. (A fate for which, having become a regular contributor, I must accept a reasonable share of blame.) Anyway, ‘Hey-ho’, I still had the copyright and so I published in my blog ‘The Gentle Art of Subversion’ in two parts during December 2019 and later as ‘The Beginner’s A-Z of D.I.Y. Subversion – Introduction’ (parts 1 and 2) in January 2022, by which time I had decided that it would expand beautifully into a lavishly illustrated (pen & ink) book with a foreword by a Chinese cyber-hacker, Michael Portillo or the bloke from the local petrol station who wears odd socks, a nylon toupee and barks like a dog every time he is asked whether he can ‘change a tenner for coins to use in the johnnie machine in the gents’.

It proved to be difficult to write and, because of my liberal use of footnotes, almost impossible to format for WordPress, but nonetheless I plugged away, initially through letters A to D and later E to F until I was finally fully demoralised by the fact that absolutely nobody was reading it. The specific reasons for my disappointment were two-fold, firstly because I believed that its episodic nature might mean that anybody could hop on board whenever the mood took them, and catch up if they felt so inclined, at their own convenience, and secondly because I liked it: it was exactly the kind of tosh that I would read myself. Anyway…

Inevitably (due, largely, to the ‘Published this day in the past’ gizmo that has recently appeared in my stats) I re-read it recently and thought ‘You know, I’ll give that another go.’ And so I will, although whether it will be published weekly, monthly or (altogether more likely) sporadically, I do not yet know. What I have decided is that if I re-publish the existing sixteen parts over the next few weeks it might give me the opportunity to a) gauge the reaction (if any) to it and b) to get my head back into the required space. In the meantime I will rootle through the encyclopaedia and carry with me the certain knowledge that when (and if) it is completed I will almost certainly have to employ somebody who is much more proficient than myself at formatting in order to make it readable in any other way. Of course that, alongside the looming issue of letters ‘X’ and ‘Z’ lays far into the future, but as the gentle art of subversion is something that we all develop as we get older, it should, for now, feel perfectly at home here…

For those of you who are about to scan these pages, open-mouthed with disbelief and indignation, I offer my fulsome and unconditional apologies. I am a man of a certain age and my command of the ‘gender-neutral pronoun’ is not great. In short, outside of using ‘he/she’ throughout the text (unwieldy and itself open to misinterpretation) I have found myself floundering in the post-prepositional sentence phase and have tended, consequently, to flit between the two main gender-specific options available to me. Furthermore, I fear that I may have somewhat overloaded with ‘he’, ‘his’ and ‘him’ to the detriment of ‘she’, ‘her’ and (er…) ‘her’. Let me explain. There are many, many female subversives out there – I have met many of them – but few who would require the information offered in a guide such as this. The truth is that the majority of those reading this guide will be male. Men need help. And as a man, this is the best I can do to help them.

I understand that most men will require the services of the gender-dominant fifty percent plus of the population in the pursuit of their long term objectives, but outside of providing the old man with an odd flask of hot tea and clean pants every Wednesday, most will keep their heads down and observe the futility of failed action and impotent rage with a wry detachment. If you are a woman reading this guide in an attempt to understand what is going on between a man’s ears – well, now you know. It’s not pretty, but at least, thanks to all of those gender-specific pronouns, you will know that I’m not talking about you …