The Writer’s Circle #24 – Redemption (part one)

Since the departure of Dick Hart, Terry Teasdale was perfectly aware that he stood alone as the least liked member of the Circle: not so much its bête noire as its own black dog. It was not a position that he had chosen to inhabit and he had been working slowly, but determinedly to become, if not exactly liked, then at least accepted by the other members. He had not missed a meeting in six months and those around him had slowly grown used to him being there: like a wart on the nose, he was not something with which one necessarily wished to be associated, but the truth was that the more often one looked into the mirror, the less jarring was the realisation that it was there. The transition from excrescence to birthmark was, never-the-less, not without its difficulties. He was trying to change his life – at least the parts of it that others might see. He began to recognise his own sharp corners, and he worked at chipping them away. He had attempted in his own way to soften his image, joining in conversations, being self-effacing, smiling in a way that he was aware did his face no favours. He tried to joke, although with the kind of success that was normally reserved for ‘bottom of the bill’ in an autumn end of the pier review. He wanted to become a bona fide member of the club. He wanted the others to miss him when he was not there. He had even started to write.

Phil’s ‘reverse genre’ game had given him his opportunity. They would all expect him to be inept, writing in a style to which he was not used. That he was not actually used to writing in any style would not occur to anyone. At first he thought that he might be able to ‘borrow’ the prose of others, but he knew it would be spotted: Deidre, Phil, Frankie, Louise, they were all plagiarism Ninjas. They could spot a misappropriated sentence at a thousand paces. He had, at least, the self-awareness to understand that if he chose a battle there he was destined to lose. And he didn’t want a battle. He’d had many. He’d lost them all.

The story he had told them when he had first joined the group had been the truth, but he had couched it in a hard-hearted manner that he believed would be comical. He believed that they would see it as some kind of grotesque ‘Carry On’, but what they saw in it was actually nearer to the truth than he would care to admit. If he had bridges to build, they were bridges that he had himself first burned. In fact, his much vaunted exposé had never made the papers. Any interest in the story he had to tell was lost when those much closer to the editors decided to spill the beans on Devine before Terry had even got his ghost writers into line. Devine’s goose was cooked and Terry had not even had time to put on his toque. It had proved to be a turning point. Terry Tease was no more, Devine had put paid to his career, although not in the way that he had intended. The intense heat of tabloid investigation had burned all of those who were in any way associated with the main target: those deemed to be ‘worth the effort’ were shamed and vilified; Terry was ignored and abandoned. There is no point in harbouring dreams of revenge, when it has already been wreaked by others. In the short time in which he had been a member of the Circle, Terry Tease had to all intents and purposes, ceased to be, and Terry Teasdale was just beginning to re-emerge, a semi-likeable never-was from the sloughed skin of a detestable has-been.

He had no need to work. If nothing else, Terry Tease had provided for his retirement. He was by no means rich, but he had plenty with which to retain his new-found anonymity. The man who used to be the warm-up man for a discredited star was recognised by no-one. The only time he was ever approached in public was by people who knew, but could not quite place, his face. They invariably believed they knew him from school and he was happy to let them. The person they did recognise had gone; he would rather be the person they thought they recognised.

He no longer craved fame or even notoriety; all that he desired was the acceptance of those with whom he now chose to share his life. He had taken his time; he had worked and re-worked his little story. He had honed it into a lean, professional-sounding piece of writing and then slowly, carefully, he had dissembled it; made it less of what he strove to be and more of what he wanted to be: imperfect but meliorated. What he really wanted to be was part of something. Not the Sun, not the Earth, not even the moon: he would be happy to be Pluto (the planet, rather than the Disney dog) even if it was no longer accepted as a full-blown planet – as long as they did nothing to actually kick it out of orbit, he would be happy. So he patiently waited his turn and he was ready to face the Circle, accepting that many of them were not yet ready to hear from him again; hoping that he could soften the reaction when they did. He rose to his feet as the eyes of all assembled fell upon him. He sensed that he might just have seen a fleeting smile of encouragement from Penny, but he couldn’t be sure: if such a thing had crossed her lips, it had done so swiftly and had long since departed. He was, none-the-less buoyed by the fact that nobody looked actively hostile towards him. Antipathy had, in the main, made way for apathy and that, for Terry Teasdale, was progress of a sort. And progress he could work with…

The Writer’s Circle began here with ‘Penny’s Poem’
Terry’s story started here with ‘The New Man’
Last week’s episode ‘Baking Scones‘ is here.
Episode 25 ‘Redemption (part two)’ is here.

The Writer’s Circle #23 – Baking Scones

These were the kind of discussion days that Deidre loathed: talking about how you wrote rather than what you wrote – she lost her edge in such conversations. Everybody knew that she was the Circle’s only properly published author, so she could speak about what she wrote with some kind of authority – and she did like authority – but how one goes about the task of writing, the fundamentals of putting words down onto paper, well, no two authors are the same and that meant that everybody else’s opinion became just as valid as her own. Not a situation she relished. “I just think,” she said, “that as long as you have the idea: as long as you know where you are and where you’re going, then everything will fall into place.”
“And when you don’t have the ideas?” asked Phil.
“Then perhaps you shouldn’t be writing,” said Deidre.
“Steve Martin said that Writer’s Block is ‘a fancy term made up by whiners so they can have an excuse to drink alcohol,’” said Frankie. “It always works for me.”
“Sometimes it’s not even the ideas,” said Phil. “It’s the words. I can spend days just beating myself up over words. Which to use, which to avoid, which words at least sound as if I haven’t had to wring them out of the dictionary with my bare hands?”
“I find that a cup of tea normally hits the button,” said Elizabeth. “It’s not the tea; it’s the making of it, that’s the key. Making the decision that I’m wasting my time just staring at the computer: the thought that at least making tea is achieving something. It’s the routine of it. I leave my desk, I make my tea and I return to my desk with it. If I can’t write then, I just watch cats on YouTube.”
“Sometimes,” said Billy, “It’s a physical pain. Like you have to drag the words out your guts.”
“Have you ever had a proper job?” asked Frankie.
“Sometimes I find it helps to write down a list of what I want to say,” said Penny.
“I always know what I want to say,” said Jane. “It’s just… how do I want to say it.”
“It’s sometimes about finding just the right word,” agreed Penny.
“Especially when it has to rhyme with ‘goldfinch’,” muttered Deidre.
“Sometimes,” said Louise, “I go back to what I wrote the day before and I just write it all out again in the hope that when I reach the end of it I will just keep going.”
“And does that work?” asked Jane.
“No,” said Louise. “If I’m honest. More often than not I read what I wrote the day before and realise what a load of tripe it is. Makes me realise that not being able to write might not be such a bad thing.”
Jeff shuffled a little uncomfortably in his chair aware that he almost certainly had little to contribute, but decided, none-the-less, to join in the conversation. “When I can’t think of what to write, I just write about nothing. I can write about nothing for days.”
“Frankie’s done that for years,” said Phil with a laugh.
“I wish I could argue,” said Frankie. “It’s a gift; like being pitch perfect. Some people never have to wonder whether they’re in tune when they sing. Me, I can write meaningless drivel without even thinking about it. I’m Jeffrey Archer without the bank balance. What about you Tom, what do you do when you can’t write?”
“I’m like Jeff, I think; I just write anyway, to spite it. When I was in… When I first started to write I always had set ideas of what I wanted to say, but it didn’t take long for me to realise how lifeless it all was. Mostly now, when I can’t write, I just read. It’s something I have always had lots of time for.”
“You make it sound like a prison sentence,” said Vanessa, unaware of the fleeting look of unease that flitted across Tom’s features. “Nobody makes us write, any of us. We write because we want to. We write because we think we have something to say. We write because, secretly, we would all very much like to be ‘the next big thing’. All you have to do when you can’t say what you want to say is to find another way of saying it. More often than not, I have too many ideas. I just can’t line them up. They’re like kids: I can’t get them all to sit down at the same time. I can never make them all face in the same direction. If I had just one – I’d pick the best one, of course – it would be no problem. It would follow me around, do whatever I asked of it, but as soon as I have two ideas, they start chatting amongst themselves, playing games, and I can never get them to do what I want them to do. Sometimes my head is buzzing with ideas and the only thing I can do is to find a way of getting rid of most of them. I can’t drink tea – it makes my tongue fur – so I usually drink coffee and that’s the worst thing I can do. I’ve never seen the attraction of water. Why would you deliberately consume something that has absolutely no taste? It would be like going to a Roy Chubby Brown concert on your wedding night. So I bake scones. They’re not good scones; most of the time they’re very bad scones, but the process occupies my mind. You can’t worry about who is going to say what when you’ve got scones in the oven.”
“When I don’t know what to say,” said Terry, “I just employ another ghost writer.”
“Right, well, that’s all very useful I’m sure,” cut in Deidre with an audible sigh. “So, has anybody actually written anything at all to read to us tonight?”

The Writer’s Circle began with ‘Penny’s Poem’ here.
The last episode was ‘The Price of Perceptibility’ is here.
Episode 24 ‘Redemption (part one) is here.

The Running Man on Acute Coryza

Last night, deflated by missing a post and unable, once again, to sleep I happened to stumble across a BBC web page which said that the symptoms associated with the new ‘Delta’ variation of Covid-19 are those of the Common Cold, and it struck me then that, quite frankly, the cold is not quite so common anymore is it?

You know the way things go.

Mask wearing, socially distancing, hand-washing humans, it appears, are not nearly as susceptible to colds as in the past. I know exactly where I got my last cold from: from the same place as all grandparents catch their colds. Grandchilden: the ultimate Super-spreaders. No evil power ever has to devise a missile with which to deliver the agents of biological warfare; just load up a grandchild. When they’re out for a cuddle, the presence of a three inch snot-trail across their face is not going to stop them from giving you one. I believe that it is probably in the small print of Domestos: ‘Kills 99.9% of all known germs, unless they are associated with a weeping child’. Whatever it was that Tony Blair and George W. were hoping to find in Iraq, they were looking in the wrong place.

The Common Cold is not a serious complaint (unless you are a man) and its effects are not too bad – I find that breathing is probably overrated anyway – but by and large I could manage perfectly well without them, thank you very much. The snotty, runny-nosed sneezing phase is one upon which I normally only embark on the morning of an interview. Crispin Underfelt will recall that when we first gathered together for the recording of our radio series- so many moons ago that Apple was just the label used by the Beatles and a laptop was something you rested your dinner plate on – I was mucus-filled and consequently sounded just like every other adenoidal local radio broadcaster on the tapes. If my cold had not cleared up by the second recording session, I think I might have been offered a job.

And I cannot consider running with a cold. I get out of breath just thinking about it and my throat is so sore that I dare not suck air through it except in the minimal amounts called for by total slothfulness. The combination of blocked-up nasal passages and sore throat means that breathing is accompanied by what I can only describe as a death rattle. My hooter** will become bright red and sore, my limbs will feel like they belong to somebody else and I will not run even if the rain has stopped – especially if the flashing lights are no longer in the sky, but behind my eyes and the rumble is not of thunder, but of my chest trying to do something, anything, with the meagre amount of oxygen it is receiving. If (by dint of some miraculous tear in the space/time continuum) I saw me running towards me with a cold, I would immediately be looking for the man with the scythe chasing on behind. I sound like a man who is far too ill to be in the mortuary, let alone running around the village streets in a pair of baggy shorts and a T shirt clearly made to fit somebody else.

The Cold will return when Covid restrictions get lifted and will, doubtless, make a real nuisance of itself in the absence of recently modified antibodies. Surely Science is missing a trick by searching for cures for specific diseases, when what it really needs to do is to come up with a multi-purpose antibody, perhaps a miniature Batman equipped with a utility belt or a midget Iron Man with a medical A-Z. Like a biological McAffe, but without the tendency to make everything else crash around it.

Anyway, in place of the Cold, everybody seems to have hay fever at the moment. However, the rain has now arrived, the pollen has all washed away, the air is clearer and, despite my increasing slothfulness, I will be able to run today after all. Unless, of course, I catch a cold in the meantime.

You know the way things go.

*Acute Coryza is one of the many scientific names used for The Common Cold. It is seldom used by doctors as such a diagnosis is always followed by the patient saying “Why thank you doctor, I think yours is very cute too.”

**Nose – usually when of the size and shape of W.C. Fields proboscis.

The first running post, ‘Couch to 5k’ is here.
Last week’s running post ‘A very Hot Business’ is here.
A sneaky extra running post this week ‘An abject apology’ is here.

An abject apology

I haven’t been out to run today. I haven’t really stopped to do anything that I want to do – and that includes writing this blog. I am sorry.

I will try very hard to write something tomorrow because I don’t like to see untidy gaps. Not, unfortunately, that I am seeing untidy anything at the moment because I am in receipt of a new pair of specs and, truth be told, something is definitely not where it should be. I can, with a little difficulty, arrange them in such a way that vision is available, but unfortunately when I look in a mirror I then find that my glasses sit at a forty-five degree angle across my face. Now, I know that my ears are not symmetrical and my nose is a little eccentric in its positioning but, none-the-less, this is really not working for me and I’m beginning to get a bit of neck ache. It is a situation I will have to address just as soon as I can be bothered.

Nor is this a valid reason for a) not writing a blog and b) not running, because I tend to do both in contact lenses and I have my old glasses anyway. Somehow the day has just disappeared into a miasmic haze of grandchildren, double-glazing salesmen and plumbers and I can’t seem to pick up the threads. Three consecutive nights of lying awake reading whatever came to hand (last night ‘Adrian Mole – the cappuccino years’*) listening to cats prowling (yes, you can hear that) foxes yowling and homeward bound couples bickering have taken their toll. My whole being is teetering on the brink of a sleep that will, somehow, never come. I have tried no nightcaps, I have tried one nightcap, I have tried two nightcaps; this evening will probably involve a whole bottle full. I feel like many years ago when I sat through the film ‘Ghandi’ wondering ‘why have I chosen to do this with my life? I could have stayed outside, in the sunshine, counting my toes.’

Anyway, tonight I will go to bed with a pad and paper and tomorrow I will run. One way or another you should get something that, although a day late, will fit the criteria. In the meantime, please accept my apology. As always in my life, the circumstances are beyond my control…

*Probably tells you more than you ever need to know about me that these books still make me cry with laughter at times.

The Writer’s Circle #22 – The Price of Perceptibility

Tom Bagshot was, by nature, cautious. He had joined the Circle eight weeks ago and had slowly managed to become a regular member without ever really registering on the consciousness of the other members. He joined in discussions whenever he could do so unobtrusively, but only because not to do so would draw unwanted attention. He was a Ninja member: like John Paul Jones*, unheralded, but always good to have around. A human fitted carpet, useful for when somebody drops the china, but barely noticed otherwise. Ironically, it was the appearance of Jeff – an even more introverted character – that alerted some of the other members to the presence of Tom and the realisation that they knew very little about him.

He had assumed a position in the Circle between Penny and Jane, and he appeared to be perfectly happy with the arrangement. In truth, Tom was perfectly happy with most things in general. He had no great regrets, he kept himself to himself and in the main the others were happy with that. He looked like a man who would not have too much of a story to tell. He would say himself, that whatever his ‘best days’ were, he had left them behind him long ago. He was not prone to bitterness: things could be better, but they could also be worse. The glass may well be half empty, but at least it was because he had drunk the other half.

The one slight niggle that Tom carried around with him was that everybody always seemed to assume that they knew him, that they had known him for years. Every time he sat on a bus, somebody was bound to sit, fidgeting uncomfortably beside to him before, unable to contain themselves any longer, asking “Excuse me. I don’t mean to be rude, but do I know you from somewhere?”
“I don’t believe so,” was his stock reply, but it only seemed to spur his new companion into suggesting a thousand ways in which they may have been acquainted: “Did you teach at St Giles Junior School in 1975?”, or “Were you in that thing on the telly with the robot?”, or “I think you delivered my sister…” He couldn’t get away from it, but he had to admit that in the great scheme of things, it was little more than the mildest of irritations.

He had developed the ability to blend in with the background most of the time: other people knew he was there, but unless they fell over him, they never troubled him too much. And then Jeff joined the Circle and everybody introduced themselves to him until, eventually, all eyes turned on Tom. “Tom Bagshot,” he had said with absolutely no intention of pushing the narrative any further, but his ‘cloak of invisibility’ had been tugged from his shoulders and he was left exposed. Deidre was first to spot his discomfort and she would never forgive herself if she missed the opportunity to deepen it. “You’ve never really told us anything about yourself, Tom,” she said. “We’d all love to know.”
“There’s not much to tell really,” he said, falling back onto an overused mantra which he knew would not suffice on this occasion.
“Well, are you married?” asked Penny, who could not have regretted it more quickly if she had tried.
“No,” said Tom, conscious of saving her blushes. “I have no family. A lifelong bachelor I’m afraid. I think I may well have met a few Mrs Rights along the way, but unfortunately they were all attached to Mr Rights – or at least to Mr OKs, but still much bigger than me…”

Tom was certainly not ready to admit to the Circle that he was gay: he had never admitted it to his parents, his friends or even himself come to that, until very recently. His father had died thinking that his son was just unusually shy around women; a typical only child with a slightly strange taste in clothes. His mother died knowing it all, desperate for him to confide in her, but knowing that the time had passed long ago, so she did what mothers do and quietly enquired on the (shamefully few) occasions when Tom visited her, whether he had any ‘special friends’. He certainly could not have told her that the only person he had ever really got close to was a man with whom he had shared a cell in Strangeways prison. It was a shame about him. Tom would have liked to protect him, but fighting was not in his nature, besides, if the price of peace was to leave a cellmate to his fate then so be it. No point in getting your own face messed up over it. Tom regretted his inaction of course; he had smelled a whole lot better than most of the people with whom he was forced to share a cell, and there had been many of them over the years.

But his days of crime were all behind him now: he had decided to go straight – you must make you own mind up – on the day of his last trial after the judge had insisted on referring to him as a ‘common conman’. That hurt. He could live with ‘conman’ – although he preferred ‘hustler’ which sounded so much more glamorous – but ‘common’: it was so annoying. Tom Bagshot – or whatever he was called at that time: it is so easy to forget – was many things, but definitely not common. You don’t get to be ‘Europe’s Most Wanted’ by being common. You don’t get to see yourself on the front page of the newspapers by being ‘common’. You don’t get to have your face telegraphed across the world. It was all so very demeaning…

“It’s just that…” Tom’s attention was dragged back into the room by Penny who was staring at him, he thought, in a most peculiar fashion. “I hope you don’t mind me asking,” she said, “but don’t I know you from somewhere?”

*The lesser-known bassist, keyboard player and songwriting member of Led Zeppelin

Episode 1 of The Writer’s Circle, ‘Penny’s Poem’ is here.
Episode 21, ‘Smile’ is here.
Episode 23 ‘Baking Scones’ is here

The Running Man – A Very Hot Business…

Summer has arrived in the UK and running has suddenly become a very hot business: it may last for days. I currently tend to skulk out early in the morning – that is earlier than usual early, not crack of dawn early: man is slave to the universe, I have no intention of getting my butt out of bed until the cosmos says it is ready for me – or early in the evening in order to miss the hottest part of the day. Both options are fraught for me. If I set out too early in the morning, I plunge headlong into hundreds of teenagers making their way to school. I do not hear laughter as I pass, but that is only because I turn the music up. There is nothing quite so irksome for an ageing man as incredulity: I can almost sense the little buggers nudging one another and mouthing, ‘Did you see that?’

If, however, I leave it until half an hour later when they are all safely locked away in their sock-smelling classrooms, I encounter the parents who, having taken the kids to school – or more likely having waited for them to get out of the house before taking breakfast in peace – then take the opportunity to walk the dog before settling down to the day’s ‘working from home’. The streets suddenly fill with dog walkers of all types:

The fully suited who have to attend a Zoom meeting which the boss might just possibly be attending. He is a sly old bugger and will almost certainly ask them to do something that will reveal whether or not the men are wearing trousers. He does not do the same thing to the female staff as the restraining order remains in place.
The semi-formally dressed, who wear shirt and tie, or smart business blouse over jogging pants and furry mules. They also have a Zoom meeting to attend, but they are confident that they can keep their legs under the desk and the wine glass out of sight.
The informally dressed, who also have a Zoom meeting to attend, but who have stuck blue-tack over the laptop’s camera and an old crisp packet over the microphone. They will blame the rubbish internet connection for their intermittent involvement and will almost certainly be downstairs with a doughnut and ‘Loose Women’ whilst Derek from Finance is giving them the lowdown on last week’s figures.
The even more informally dressed (pyjamas under a raincoat) who do not have a Zoom meeting to attend and plan to spend the morning ‘catching up on their emails’ eg watching surfing cats on Youtube.

So many dogs! I have no idea where all these dogs have come from, nor who dreams up all of the new breeds that are currently being paraded around. I spoke to someone who had a Toy Poodle mated with a Shih Tzu and wound up with a Toyihtzu, which, to the best of my knowledge, is a cheap Korean hatchback. I wonder what will become of all of these mutts when these people are able to start going on holiday again? Two weeks in a kennels whilst the owner changes his phone number and bank account details? As soon as the UK sorts out its Traffic Light Holiday Destination system (Red – you cannot travel to these countries: Amber – you cannot travel to these countries, but if you choose to ignore government ‘guidance’ and travel anyway, you must quarantine in Stalag conditions for two weeks on your return, for little more than twice the cost of your original holiday: Green – you can travel to these countries, but they won’t let you in) there will be many canine bargains to be had through the Classified Ads in The Exchange & Mart.

If, however, I choose to run in the early evening I find myself in the tiresome, lycra-clad company of the rest of the running world. The whole world is running. I do not mind; it is a free country, I just wish that they didn’t all look so much better than me whilst they were doing it. They are better equipped, they are ruddy-faced and fresh complexioned, they do not sweat like a horse in a duvet and they do not spend most of their time coughing up flies. I have grown immune to the humiliation of being overtaken by the old lady with the West Highland Terrier, but I still find myself automatically changing route every time I see an approaching runner, with the net effect that I spend an awful lot of time running round in circles, occasionally never leaving my own driveway. By the time I get home, showered and changed, the whole point of the run, e.g. to earn the right to eat cream cakes and drink whisky, becomes lost in the urgent need to moan, very loudly, about the fact that every Tom, Dick and Harriet is out there running these days. (I have been running for over a year now and I am a seasoned athlete: I can often put my own trainers on without being out of breath.) Eventually, aware that nobody is listening to me, I retire to bed in order to spend the whole night bemoaning the fact that it is far too hot to sleep. How long can this go on?*

Sleeping has suddenly become a very hot business…

*This is the UK: my prediction – summer will last until next Tuesday when it will collapse into biblical rainfall and a cold blast from The Urals…

My Running Diary began with ‘Couch to 5k’ here.
Last week’s Running Diary ‘Bangers’ is here.
Next week’s Diary is here with ‘An abject apology‘ and here with ‘Acute Coryza’

The Writer’s Circle #21 – Smile

Elizabeth was aware that the story she was about to tell was, for the most part, the same story had she had recounted, tearfully, on the occasion of her first meeting at the Circle. She had little to add but, she hoped, she now had a different outlook, a different viewpoint, a happier place from which to tell the story, particularly since this was a night of many firsts: the first time she had been forced to look at herself as others did, with a raised eyebrow and a resigned sigh; the first time she was ready to admit that she was more Miranda Hart than broken heart; the first time she had written anything creatively since school; the first time she had read to the group and, thanks to Phil’s little brainwave, the first time, in a long time, that she had set out with the deliberate intention of making other people smile…

“…I know that people always say that they knew it was bad news as soon as they heard the knock on the door, but I was expecting an Amazon delivery, so I didn’t really pay much heed. In fact, if you want the truth, I felt a little bit guilty about not answering the door quickly but I had just located a very long hair on my nipple and I wasn’t letting go until it was out. My husband had told me about it. It was the last thing he shouted at me as he left for work…

Well, you all know that it wasn’t the Amazon man. (In fact he didn’t turn up until the morning of the funeral and then it was with a parcel for my next door neighbour – he wanted to know if he could leave their parcel in my bin because theirs was full.) It’s so disconcerting to see a policeman at your door – particularly when you’re holding a piece of damp tissue to your breast – but you try to kid yourself that the news isn’t going to be bad even though you know, in your heart of hearts… well, they don’t send the police out to tell you that you’ve won the lottery, do they? He was so young and so nervous that I found myself apologising to him: ‘I’m sorry you had to break that news to me,’ without actually taking in a single word of what he was saying. ‘Mrs Walton, I am afraid you will never again see the man with whom you have spent the last thirty years of your life bickering,’ was what he was trying to tell me; ‘You will regret every little thing you have said and done over the last twenty four hours for the rest of your life,’ was what he was trying to say, but all I heard was ‘I’m really sorry,’ and it wasn’t his fault, was it?

I lost six months then – I don’t know where I put it, but it was almost certainly wearing my glasses – and then I woke up one morning in a poky little flat with only the vaguest of recollections of how I came to be there. Everything in the flat was new, but it wasn’t mine. Everything that was mine was ours and I’d sold it all because I couldn’t bear to have it around me without having him to moan about it. I wouldn’t insult you by saying that he was the perfect husband, nor I the perfect wife, though it was pretty typical of him not to see the bloody bus coming, even though it was the one he had gone out to catch, but it wasn’t his fault that I fell to pieces so spectacularly and because of that, I’m not going to give him the credit for everything I’ve achieved since. I have decorated my entire flat and wallpapered for the first time, with only one single piece upside down – something you can barely see since I spent the evening with the Tipp-Ex and the felt pens – and I have discovered that you can put kitchen tiles up with double-sided tape. I have learned how to change a plug, and how to contact an emergency electrician: I have learned how to change the washer on a tap, and how to make an insurance claim. I have discovered that I can’t paint, I can’t knit and that falling off a bike is exactly as easy as falling off a log. I have mastered a new television and a new phone and as soon as I find out why my phone keeps changing the channels on my telly I will let you know.

I have learned that I can’t write, and that most of the time I struggle to read – particularly when it is those ghastly family sagas that I told you all I wrote. I don’t of course, although you already know that, because I have also discovered that I am a terrible liar, and I guess it is something that nobody wants to admit to being very good at anyway. Unless they’re not. You know that thing where you have two people in the room and one of them can only tell the truth and the other can only lie; how do you tell which is which? And you think, why do I care? Lock the door, let them sort it out; I’m having a glass of sherry and some Hobnobs. Well, that’s how I feel anyway. I’ve told you that I’m over the death of my husband and you know I’m not, but I’ve also told you that I am getting on with it and I have learned to smile and I have learned to enjoy and, whilst I’ve found out that I have no interest in the labyrinthine sagas of the extended families of Victorian match sellers, I have also discovered that it doesn’t matter. I come here every week and, frankly, you don’t care as long as I pay my subs and remember who likes ice, who has peanuts and who has scratchings. As long as I remember not to sit too close to Billy after he’s had cheese & onion, I always leave here feeling better than when I came.

Mostly, what I have discovered in the last year is that the only way of coping with being on your own is by not being on your own, and what I’ve found in the last few weeks is that I no longer am…”

Elizabeth sat down. It wasn’t great. She wasn’t sure if anyone had laughed; she wouldn’t have heard them if they had, but everyone was smiling and she was happy…

The first chapter of The Writer’s Circle ‘Penny’s Poem’ is here.
The previous story ‘The Lounge Bar in The Steam Hammer’ is here.
Episode 22 ‘The Price of Perceptibility’ is here.

In case you are wondering about Elizabeth, her story unfolds through ‘The Core’, ‘The New Chapter’ and ‘New Beginnings’.

The Running Man – Bangers

My life is to a large extent ruled by music. I listen to music all the time. As I write this piece I am listening to music (currently Phaedra by Tangerine Dream, as you ask, with Rush’s Clockwork Angels to follow). Music is in the background of everything I do. Music accompanies me every time I run. My tastes are eclectic – there is little I do not like* – but my choices are limited for my running playlists as the tracks have to accommodate my need to plod**. Never-the-less I change the songs on the playlist every couple of weeks – I always forget that I have done it and I am subsequently taken by surprise each time I run – although I have noticed there are a handful of songs that never seem to drop off the phone. I don’t know why; it is not a conscious thing and, undoubtedly, of no interest whatsoever to anyone else – which is why I intend to tell you about it…

Many years ago on a family holiday to Fuerteventura we encountered a guitarist/singer who inhabited a ‘pitch’ every evening in the local village square. This man (I want to call him Kevin Wilson, but I have no idea why) was simply superb: he played Pink Floyd, he played a version of Still Got the Blues for You which could well have been better than Gary Moore’s own version and he played Cocaine with the kind of protracted solo that Mr Clapton can only have dreamt of. My daughters loved him and, consequently, we had to go to see him every night, except one evening, when he was not there. We had a subdued dinner with much in the way of bottom lip quivering and had began to walk back ‘home’ when we heard a familiar voice in the distance, which we tracked down to a nearby restaurant, where Kevin was playing what I can only describe as ‘wedding songs’ to togged-up holidaymakers. Before we could stop her my daughter charged in, her T-shirt bedecked with the requisite amount of dinner for a six-year old, shouting ‘Kevin, Kevin, I want Cocaine!’ to the consternation of all present, except for Kevin, who just chuckled, said ‘I think you might be a little young for that’ and played it anyway. What a man! Cocaine by Eric Clapton never leaves my running playlist.

Even more years ago than that holiday, my wife and I went to see Roxy Music who were in their full early pomp at, I think, the De Montfort Hall in Leicester. It was an all-standing affair and we were late. I am not tall (five foot eight’ish most of the time unless somebody bothers to measure me, when it is five foot seven) but my wife is substantially below five feet even on tip-toes. Roxy Music were great, but my wife saw nothing other than, she thinks, a glimpse of Bryan Ferry’s foot during Do the Strand – and very happy she was with the whole experience. Roxy Music and, latterly, Mr Ferry have been one of my very guiltiest pleasures since their first appearance on The Old Grey Whistle Test way, way back in the day. Avonmore is the title track of a 2014 Ferry album which proves that despite the occasional detours into As Time Goes By and a peculiar interregnum during which he attempted to be the lead singer in some kind of a Bob Dylan cover’s band, Ferry is still very good at being Ferry when he chooses to be. It never leaves the list.

Bowie has been the musical love of my life and, if I was forced to make a choice, Heroes may well be my favourite song of all time. The song has an incredible habit of bursting out of my headphones at the moments when I think I might just have to give in – but you really can’t stop when that song is playing, can you? I have a particular aversion to the butchered and truncated ‘single’ version of the song and so it is the full album version that has become a fixture on my running playlist. Definitely the most uplifting song on there.

Most surprising song is probably Check Out Time 11am by Sparks which was recorded in 2017 (long after even people of my age thought they no longer existed) for a 7” vinyl single-only release and tucked away at the end of their three-album ‘Best Of’ set. A great song, perfect for running; it always makes me smile – although if I’m passing by, it might look like a grimace.

The rest of my unshakeable running ‘bangers’ are I Feel Free by Cream, which is just a wonderful song that buries into your head fifty five years (yup, 55 years!) after its release; Don’t Fear the Reaper by Blue Oyster Cult which is my ‘funeral song’ – so I thought it would be handy to have it playing if the paramedics have to come and find me; Freedom Calling by Colin Hay – a perfect running beat for me and the only ‘cool’ song to my knowledge to feature bagpipes; Personal Jesus by Depeche Mode, which again has the right beat for me and is, despite the fact that it really should not be, a great song; Shout by Tears For Fears, again a brilliant tempo for my limping running gait with a drum line that you only ever seem to pick up on headphones and finally the greatest rock ‘n’ roll song of all time, aptly called Rock and Roll*** by Led Zeppelin which just means that wherever I am on my run, I have to summon up just that little bit of extra energy required for air guitar.

I would be lying if I said this was anything close to a list of my favourite songs – although that list would be very long and would contain some of these – but clearly they share something that makes them indispensable to me when I run. At any one time, my running playlist contains about 40 songs, which I update fortnightly and, as far as I can see, these are the only songs that have never left it. I have no idea why. Perhaps it is a comfort thing.

N.B. I have made no attempt to provide links to any of these songs as it would certainly end in tears. You will all be far more proficient than I at finding them should you choose to. If I might suggest anything, try I Feel Free by Cream, in order to experience what the world could sound like in 1966.

*I always say that I struggle with Reggae, but I love Bob Marley; I do not understand Rap, but I can always listen to Eminem; Grime has come along 50 years too late for me, but Stormzy is phenomenal. Perhaps the only genre I truly can’t listen to is Country & Western – except, of course, for Johnny Cash…

**As a fan of many ‘Prog’ rock ensembles, I could not envision running to any of them without the risk of dislocating something.

***Although forever known as Been A Long Time by my eldest daughter.

My first ‘running’ post, ‘Couch to 5k’ is here.
Last week’s running post, ‘Twelve Months of Becoming Er…’ is here.
Next week’s little outing, ‘A Very Hot Business’ is here
There are many ‘running’ post in between the two which are all linked, should they be your own particular cup of tea.

The Writer’s Circle #20 – The Lounge Bar in The Steam Hammer

Jeff had read about the Circle in the local online ‘newspaper’ and had actually been to the pub twice already without finding the courage to join the others. On the first occasion he did not even enter the pub, on the second he followed what he assumed was a member into the Lounge, but left without ordering a drink as soon as he realised that there were more than a dozen members there already and he would have to introduce himself to them all en masse. He vowed to return at an earlier hour the following week, giving himself the opportunity to introduce himself to one or two members at a time. Much less daunting. Much more manageable…

So, here he was, a week later, alone in the velour-seated splendour of the Lounge Bar of the Steam Hammer, hovering between door and bar, and truth be told, on the point of leaving again before any of the members arrived when the landlord peered around the partition wall between the Lounge and the bar and smiled. Well, sort of smiled. It looked a little like a smile, although there were definitely some slightly disturbing elements to it.
“You’re here for the Writer’s Circle,” he said.
“Well I…” stuttered Jeff, once again on the point of fleeing. “That is I…”
“You came last week, I saw you, but you left as soon as you saw them. They don’t bite you know. You’ve no need to worry about them, they’re a total bunch of losers. You can’t be any worse than they are.” Jeff could feel the pressure of the prized manuscript rolled up in his breast pocket. He could almost smell the mediocrity of every single word leaching out into the air around him. “Go and sit in the corner over there; that’s where they congregate when they first come in. I’ll let them know that you’ve come to join. They’ll make you welcome. They’re always after new members. I thought of joining myself once.”
“Really?”
“No. Are you mad? I told you, they’re all losers – no offence – they all lack friends. They just come here for the company and to feed their egos.”
“You don’t like having them around?”
“I love having them around. Have you looked through into my bar? If I didn’t get this bunch in every week I’d come nowhere close to hitting my gin target. My only regret is that the licence doesn’t allow them to drink upstairs. Besides,” he continued, “it makes a change from having to spend my entire evening looking at the mis-spellings on the faces of the cretins in there.” He indicated that Jeff should look into the bar, which he leant forward to do. “Easy,” warned the landlord. “Don’t let them see that you’re looking. They wouldn’t like that.” Jeff sprang back with all the nonchalance of a chicken at a fox’s birthday party. “See the fella in the beanie hat?” Jeff nodded. “Got ‘LOVE’ and ‘HAT’ tattooed on his knuckles, on account of losing a pinkie while trying to break into a safe with a Stihl saw. The other bloke with him, Lucky we call him, the bloke with one arm, he was holding the safe.” Jeff made a gallant attempt to swallow his own Adam’s apple, but it wasn’t going down. “See the group around the pool table? They’ve all got teardrops tattooed on their cheeks. S’posed to signify that they’ve killed someone in prison, but most of them have never been inside. They got them done when George Michael died.”
“Really, I…”
“You didn’t hear that from me though, and I’d advise you to keep it to yourself. It’s easy to unwittingly stir up trouble, if you catch my drift. Besides, they’re good lads, they spend a fortune on pickled eggs. What’ll it be?”
“I’m sorry?”
“To drink. This is a pub. What do you want to drink? I’m guessing you’re a red wine man, am I right?”
“Well, I do like red wine, but I thought I’d have a pint, if that’s ok.”
“Of course. What do you want? Lager? Guinness?”
“Do you have any real ale?”
The landlord looked, just for a second, as though he was going to take offence, but then his face softened. “I’ve got Newcastle Brown in bottles,” he said.
“I’ll have red wine,” said Jeff.
“I’ll go and get it,” nodded the landlord. “I keep it upstairs. If I keep it down here, the locals interfere with it when I’m not looking.” He moved his own heavily tattooed frame towards the doorway before turning back. “By the way,” he said, “the lav over there is broken. If you want to go you can either go into the bar or hold onto it.” He looked Jeff up and down. “I’d hold onto it if I were you.”
Jeff was now uncertain whether to linger by the bar – he felt fairly certain that the landlord was unlikely to offer table service – or to head for the corner table so, eventually, he opted for loitering self-consciously, mid-way between the two.

Phil was the first member of the Circle to enter the room. Jeff felt the cold rush of air as the door opened just as he heard the landlord coming back down the stairs. Both men appeared at the same moment. “I’ll bring it over,” the landlord shouted into the otherwise empty lounge.
“Right,” both customers answered simultaneously.
Jeff moved over towards the corner table where Phil was already placing his coat over the back of a seat. “Can I join you?” he asked.
“Are you here for the Circle?” asked Phil. “I hope so; we could do with some new faces.”
“Yes,” answered Jeff, looking over his shoulder, still uncertain whether he should go over to collect his drink or wait where he was, but before he had the opportunity to reach a conclusion, the barman appeared carrying a pint of Best Bitter for Phil and a tumbler full of red wine with a cocktail umbrella in it, spearing a glacé cherry. Jeff looked at his red wine, the barman and then at Phil, who held out a hand to shake. “Phil,” he said.
“Jeff.”
“Erm, I hope you don’t mind me asking Jeff, but you look a bit uncomfortable. Are you ok?”
“Ok? Oh yes. Yes, fine. It’s just a little bit… Well…” Absent-mindedly he picked the umbrella from his drink and ate the cherry. “It just seems like a strange place to hold a literary meeting. Here, I mean.”
“Why?”
“Well, it’s just…”
Phil looked over Jeff’s shoulder and caught the unmistakable silhouette of the landlord convulsed in laughter. He looked at Jeff’s red wine. “What’s he told you?” he asked.
“Who?”
“Kenny.”
“Kenny?”
“Kenny. The landlord.” Phil sighed. “What’s he told you?”
“Well, nothing really. Much. He just… have you seen that lot in the other room? They look like a load of mobsters.”
“Ah… Well they are, sort of…” said Phil, light slowly dawning. “The Sharks and the Jets: local am-dram production of West Side Story. They rehearse in the room upstairs before us.”
“And Kenny? Is he really the landlord?”
“Oh yes, he’s the landlord, but he’s in play as well. He’s playing Tony, although, truth be told, he would probably have preferred Maria…”

This story started its life as a simple conversation with the landlord at the end of which Jeff once again bailed out before the Circle members arrived, but just as I was writing the final sentences, the absurd possibility of West Side Story occurred to me. So, having written the new ending, I had to go back to the beginning and rewrite the whole thing. I wish I was more organised…

The first story from the Writer’s Circle, ‘Penny’s Poem’ is here.
Last week’s story ‘Natalie’ is here.
Episode 21 ‘Smile’ is here.

The Running Man – Twelve Months of Becoming Er…

A year has now passed since I first downloaded the Couch to 5k app, chose to be accompanied by the dulcet tones of Jo Whiley and launched myself on the village roads, a lumbering, perspiring, gasping mess. I have no doubt that not even the effervescent Ms Whiley, soothingly urging me on through my headphones, had any idea quite what she was taking on at that (or any other) stage. If I’m honest, I am quite proud of myself for persevering through the program, and not a little surprised that I managed to find the determination to do so. I’m sure that the circumstances of Lockdown must have helped in that respect: the streets were largely empty even though, I seem to recall, the sun shone a lot. I seldom ‘bumped into’ anyone that I knew and Lockdown restrictions meant that, when I did, they could legitimately move as far away as possible from me without embarrassment. This was a period when we were all too scared to share a pavement with anyone – especially if their breathing came in the kind of wheeze normally associated with the elephant’s graveyard – and crossing the road to avoid your neighbour became the norm. This was the time when the whole country’s social calendar revolved about banging saucepan lids at 8pm every Thursday. Like Global Conflict, we just referred to it as The Lockdown at the time, not realising that it would too soon become The First Lockdown when the second one started.

In the past twelve months I can definitely claim to have become more ‘er’: I am definitely not quick, but I am quicker; I am not fit, but I am fitter; I am by no means thin, but I am thinner. Ask me why I still do it and I most certainly will say, ‘Er…’. I can’t actually remember what prompted me to do it at the time, but I was one of many. The streets were full of people following the run/walk/run regime. We began to recognise one another, to wave, but most of the Lockdown Runners appear to have stopped now. Far more people are running these days, but I don’t seem to recognise any of them. Nobody appears to be quite as past it as I: they are all younger, fitter and altogether better dressed for the occasion. Some of them even chat as they run. I have to devote my entire attention to breathing without inhaling wildlife. There is nothing less conducive to a steady pace than trying to cough up a wasp.

What I most recall about the early runs is the sense of dread that hung about me as I prepared to set off; particularly on the final run of each week when I stupidly allowed myself to look at what the following week’s stepped-up regime was to demand of me. The joyous sensation of hearing the half way bell ring, meaning that I could turn around, was spoiled only by the knowledge that I now had to try and get back home without attracting the attention of a Coroner’s vehicle. I have kept myself going by setting targets. My early thirty minute runs were nowhere near 5km in length (they still are not) but I set myself a 5k course and I started to run it, trying to speed up week on week until I realised that I had peaked at a speed which would have shamed an end-of-round electric milk float, so instead I started to go further. These days I do not set goals – reaching them is such a disappointment when you realise that all you can then do is to set a new one – so I rely solely on the grim determination I have to keep going. The determination comes from the knowledge that someday, sooner or later, my body, the doctor or friendly paramedic will tell me that I have to stop and I will be able to say that the decision to stop was not my own. I will never be a good runner, but I am dogged and, for good or bad, it is now twelve months since I first found I had something to be dogged about. My anniversary run was the same as all of the others: breathless, hot and plodding, but I did it and, in a year’s time I will… er… do it all again.

My original post about starting to run, ‘Couch to 5k’ is here.
Last week’s running post, ‘Getting on with It’ is here
The next ‘Running Man’ installment, ‘Bangers’ is here.
And there are many branch-line stops on the uneven path between then and now that you can visit if you choose – just follow the links.