Bloody Kids

…The TV panel consisted of some children, their parents, a couple of government ministers and a parenting expert, and it was clear from the start why the latter was not seated amongst the parents, because nobody who has ever had children would consider themselves an expert in parenting. In fact, the main thing that parenting teaches you is what a total amateur you are at it. You always do what you think is best, but you seldom achieve what you hope is right.

The problem with it all is bloody kids. You can read all the books in the world necessary to make you an expert parent, but as soon as you are faced with a snot-faced little juvenile who has just projectile vomited into a suited businessman’s semi-open pocket, it all goes out of the window. Even more so when you realise that the responsibility for getting them through to adulthood is all yours. “Always place dangerous objects out of reach,” is sage advice if you have never dealt with a real child, equipped with the capability of finding anything you do not want them to find, absolutely anywhere you believe they cannot find it. Who do you run to when you cannot open a childproof lid? Yup, a child.

Every time a child puts themselves in danger – and they do it all the time – it is your negligence that has allowed it. It is all very well putting things on high shelves, but you’ve got a house full of chairs and, boy, do kids know how to move chairs. Find a chair anywhere it does not belong and you know instantly that your child has got hold of something they should not have been able to reach.

Of course, the main problem with children is that they are peripatetic: they can put themselves in danger almost anywhere. It only takes an adult to say “Don’t do that, it’s dangerous,” to make licking a live wire seem totally irresistible. They come into this world with a default setting that means, for a short, precious time, when you put them down they remain exactly where you left them, but shortly afterwards, to huge rounds of parental applause, they learn how to override it and, from that moment, you will never again know exactly where they have got to. It takes no more than a single parental blink to allow them to move a chair, reach the carving knife and get half-way through a sword-swallowing act. Nod off for twenty minutes and you may find that they have sold the house and moved to the Algarve.

Children are also born with in-built defence mechanisms; these are called tears, snot and tantrums. Parents have yet to develop a counter to them. It is easy to spot a parenting expert in the pub when a four-year old is venting because they want sausages and fish fingers: they are the ones that are quietly ‘tutting’ as the parent yells “Well you can bloody well do without either then. You’ve ruined Aunty Joan’s birthday party with your behaviour. I hope you’re happy now.” The other parents in the room will be burying their heads in their drinks and thinking “Thank God it’s not me.” The parenting experts will know that the only sensible thing to do is to explain to the child, calmly and clearly, why what they are doing is wrong and point out the absurdity of their actions whilst offering love and support. The other parents in the room would stand and cheer if the child was led out by the ear and locked in the car*. They will know that no real parent ever knows exactly what they are doing, or why they are doing it. Only parenting experts know that, which probably explains why they never do it…

*Don’t be silly. Of course I’m not seriously advocating that as a course of action – unless you also have a big dog locked in there to keep them company.

Life, The Universe and All That Jazz…

In my previous missive I postulated that my best posts were generally written about subjects of which I have very little knowledge: ‘Life, The Universe, Fashion, Rap Music and all that jazz’ and it occurred to me that I have already covered Life, The Universe and Fashion, that my knowledge of Rap is so very meagre I would annoy even myself trying to write about it, which left only Jazz – a musical genre that always sounds to me like the musicians were still tuning up when the tapes were turned on – to have a crack at, so here it is. (As ever, when sounding off on subjects of which I have zero knowledge, I am deeply indebted to Wikipedia for throwing the shit at my fan.) So…

I have so many questions to ask about a style of music in which it seems that everyone with a musical instrument is expected to play a different tune, at the same time, but with a different time signature that – not unlike a Jazz drummer I have no idea of where to start. Writing Jazz tunes, it seems to me, is probably like throwing notes at random into a hat before sucking them out with a Hoover shaped like a cat. Krin Gibbard (his real name, I’m sure) argued that “‘jazz is a construct’ which designates ‘a number of musics with enough in common to be understood as part of a coherent tradition,’” Henri Matisse said that it ‘is rhythm and meaning’ and my dad said that it was ‘a bloody racket.’

One thing I have discovered is that if you look up ‘jazz quotes’ on the internet, you open yourself up to more pretentious pap than you would encounter at the average ‘science of attraction’ lecture. It is like telling a paint colour mixologist that you just want beige. Jazz, to my (tin) ear is just the name applied to buggering around with a perfectly good tune. It is like throwing a thousand different herbs into Macaroni Cheese and hoping it will be improved. It will not. The only way to improve it is by taking them all out again and giving them to someone in France to make an omelette. Perfectly good things do not need jazzing up, they remain perfectly good without it. If you really must jazz something up, try jazzing up tripe, but remember that in the end it will still be tripe.

And there are so many different kinds of jazz. It appears that you simply take music of any genre, chuck a whole load of extraneous notes at it and Bingo! you’ve got yourself a new kind of jazz. Even the jazz ‘sub-genres’ have sub-genres. Take a smattering of Jay-Z and bung in a couple of minor chords and discordant glissandos and you have Rap-Jazz. Throw some Nas and a diminished seventh or two into the mix and you have Hip-Hop-Rap-Jazz. What could possibly go wrong?

This is music for people who do not like melody. Jazz musicians are hugely skilled and very anxious to demonstrate it. A kind of ‘why use one note when we can squeeze ten into the gap’ mentality prevails, capable of rendering beautiful, simple melodies into some kind of aural spaghetti. It is a code that I personally cannot crack. Jazz is like an Escape Room where you have to answer an unfathomable set of puzzles just to be let in.

So, that’s the way it goes. I launched into this post determined to write a piece about jazz music, only to find that I just couldn’t fathom the ‘arguments for’ and consequently what you got was my one-sided critique of a genre that I cannot understand. I am aware that worldwide, Jazz is wildly popular and I am looking forward to hearing from you hip-cats out there just what, exactly, it is all about… although I can’t guarantee that I will understand it.

On the Question of the Stubborn Dichotomy of My Blogging Existence

It is, perhaps, over-glamorising what I do but, in the absence of any other applicable phrases, I’ll run with it for now, each week when I plan my diary what I place at the very top of the list is ‘Blog’. (I think that it is probably necessary to point out here that I am not talking about an actual, physical list – my anankastic tendencies do not stretch quite that far – but the ever-shifting list of priorities that pirouettes between my ears like two arthritic goats dancing the Argentinean Tango.) I seriously hit panic mode if Friday passes by and I do not have the three posts I require for the following week. I cannot divert my attentions elsewhere if this task is not complete. Not that I would call it a task of course, unless I was finding the writing a particular struggle; it is more a labour of love, which is why it remains so essential to maintain my equilibrium, despite my entire readership being somewhat smaller than the number of people who really believe that the most recent attempt to assassinate Donald Trump was not a put-up job, aimed at boosting his popularity. (I am trying to think of a single reason why a would-be assassin would sit with his rifle barrel clearly visible through a fence, so far in advance of the swaggering arrival of his target. Perhaps the party planners had run out of ‘I am a wanna-be assassin, please shoot me’ helium balloons.) If I could explain why I attach such importance to this thrice-weekly shenanigans, I would do so, but I have the uneasy feeling that it is all to do with vanity and the mistaken belief that I may yet be discovered.

So, for whatever the reason, there you are, dear reader, stuck forever at the very forefront of my thoughts – well, almost: I think that chocolate and whisky may have already forged an unassailable lead – ahead of what most normal people would probably view as greater priorities: family, food, shelter, that kind of thing. I sense you beside me. We plough this furrow together. Each bump on the road – and now I find myself trying to reconcile why I am ploughing a furrow whilst travelling a road, but I will shake it off soon enough – brings with it the notion that I might just be able to get a few hundred words out of it. Somehow the ‘needs’ of the blog have begun to subsume the rest of my being. The relationship between my life and my blog has become the kind of symbiotic mess that brought about the extinction of the Eastern Antarctican Blue Mango-Eating Wolf Spider.

My existence is split into two barely distinct threads: doing stuff which just might – particularly if something goes spectacularly wrong – give me something to write about, and writing it. I have not yet started to do things with the sole intention of generating material, but I wouldn’t entirely rule out the possibility. Ironically I always find that I have more to say when I tackle subjects that I do not fully understand: Life, The Universe, Fashion, Rap music, Politics and all that jazz. I suppose it is because I have so many queries to which I require an answer. When I write about me, I have all the answers, but nobody to ask the questions and even fewer interested in the subsequent resolution. It’s disconcerting.

If I’d half a brain I’d probably write a blog about it…

A Little Fiction – The Later Cases of Sherlock Holmes: The Mystifying Instance of the Absent Footwear.

The casebook of Sherlock Holmes had become somewhat less congested as he moved into his later years, but the analytical mind of my companion never ceased to amaze me. He was capable of the most extreme leaps of logic, such as those I have recorded in my own modest records, and his perspicacity remained unrivalled. Only on his idle days was his behaviour at odds with that of his former self. He no longer smoked his beloved black shag as he was unable to break up the large blocks in which it was delivered and his violin had been permanently retired, consequent upon his tendency to poke himself in the eye with the bow. His use of drugs had become limited to those prescribed by the doctor to control the more erratic habits of his prostate. The strong lens which had found its place in so many of the cases on which I have reported, lay constantly at his side, used to scour the newsprint of the many daily newspapers he still had delivered. He was much taken with the crossword puzzle which had recently become a feature of The Times, although I noted a tendency for his answers to contain a different number of letters than that intended by the compiler. It was from such a crossword, pen in hand, tongue curled up over top lip, that his cataractous eyes rose and almost met my gaze.
‘Has Mrs Hudson spilled the tea, Watson?’
‘On the contrary,’ I assured him. ‘At least an hour has passed since she was last in the room, on the occasion that she had to mop up your broth.’
‘Then is it raining outside? The window casement has, I fear, shrunk in relation to its frame.’
‘No, it is quite sunny,’ I said. ‘And the windows are quite secure.’
‘Then the chair that I now occupy has, in the recent past, been occupied by a damp animal of some kind.’ He half-grinned in his triumphant way. I shook my head slowly: he wasn’t good with sudden movement.
‘Aah, a conundrum,’ he said. ‘We must follow my well-established practice, Watson.’
‘Eliminate the impossible and whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth,’ I ventured.
‘Indeed,’ he said, groaning gently as he raised his wiry frame from the chair. ‘If you would be so good as to guide me to my dressing room.’
I held open the door for him and he entered, already preoccupied with the business, lately much more time consuming, of button opening.
‘I would be awfully grateful if you would try not to widdle in my brogues again,’ I said.

Upon his return, Holmes picked up the long clay pipe which he smoked in periods of deepest introspection and attempted to light the wrong end. I returned to my kipper as Holmes threw down the unlighted meerschaum. His temper had deteriorated markedly since Lestrade had confiscated his cocaine. I looked upon his face, so little changed with the passage of years. The thin, aquiline features, still pale and gaunt; the hawk-like nose embellished only with a dew-drop the size of a bulls-eye. The case of the missing slippers was troubling him. He was restless and short, a condition to which I have grown well accustomed over the years.
‘Data, Watson,’ he said at last. ‘I must have data. All is mere hypothesis until I am in possession of the full facts.’
‘But what facts do you seek, Holmes?’ I asked. He looked at me a little strangely I thought.
‘Facts?’ he said.
‘You said you needed facts.’
‘Did I?’
He took up the position that I know so well: finger tips joined, his chin resting on them, eyes hooded, almost closed. I settled down to review my newspaper whilst he cogitated. Some five minutes had elapsed before I saw his chin slump to his chest. A thin trickle of saliva swelled from his mouth. His breathing became heavier and deeper, reverberating around the room and rattling the china. This happened a lot when he fell to thought these days and I had myself descended to slumber when Holmes emerged from his reverie with a coughing fit that was testament to many youthful trips to the opium den. When the paroxysm at last subsided, I discerned that Holmes had in his eye the bright spark that I had come to recognise as a mark of his genius. ‘The slippers, Watson, are in the third drawer of my desk.’
‘But how can you possibly know that?’ I asked.
‘You know well my methods, Watson,’ he said. ‘Let us start with the hard facts. They are not on my feet. They do not fit your feet which are several sizes bigger than my own and Mrs Hudson is, as we know, averse to all types of plaid footwear. We know, also, that I was wearing them yesterday evening, but not this morning. Therefore, to find the solution to this riddle, we must look for the moment when I ceased to be wearing them.’
‘You used the drawer in your desk shortly before retiring yesterday evening?’ I offered.
‘Precisely, Watson, now, open the drawer and reveal…’
‘… A leather truss I’m afraid Holmes.’
‘Ah,’ said my esteemed friend.

We called upon Mrs Hudson, but she confirmed that she had not seen the slippers since they last resided on Holmes’ feet the previous evening. The mystery was troubling Holmes and even the giant intellect of the world’s greatest detective was unable to assemble sufficient fact from which to manufacture a solution. ‘I sense the involvement of Moriarty,’ he said at last.
‘Unlikely Holmes,’ I said, reminding him, as gently as I could, that Moriarty was currently securely confined at the Bide-a-Wee’ care home, where he shared a room with Mycroft Holmes and a selection of spongeable bedroom furniture. Holmes sighed deeply and closed his eyes. Only the nervous ripples that passed spasmodically along the lids betrayed the fact that he had not, once again, fallen to slumber. And then, with the small cry of triumph that he is known to utter when a thousand impossible threads are woven within his cavernous brain into a single cloth, Holmes snapped open his eyes, took up his strongest glass and peered down at his stockinged feet. ‘At last, Watson,’ he said. ‘There is evidence to be had here. You will notice the minute thread of burgundy weave that lies across my sock. An exact match for the weft of my slippers, I vouch.’
‘It’s a rasher of your breakfast bacon, I fear Holmes,’ said I. ‘And anyway, you have changed your stockings since yesterday, have you not?’
‘By Jove,’ he said. ‘You’ve hit the nail right on the head, old boy.’
‘I have?’
‘You have what?’
‘I’m sorry, I…’
‘Don’t worry yourself, Watson. Let us devote ourselves to the matter at hand,’ he said. ‘Now…’ he paused, deep in thought, his furrowed brow almost resting upon his pouting lip, his eyes cast down to his feet. ‘Have you seen my slippers, by the way?’ he said at last…

First Published 06.12.2018

I used to write many more of these parodies but, to do them justice, they have to be written in a way that is amusing to those who have read the original, so they are bound to fail from time to time. I am particularly fond of this one. I love Conan Doyle’s Holmes books – in particular the quiet humour they contain – and I tried to stay as true to the originals, stylistically, as I could. It is true to the ethos of this blog also: finding humour in old age…

The Wonderful Thing About Triggers #941

If you want to find out how reliable your power supply is, simply try cooking a soufflé. Nothing triggers a power cut quite like a heat-critical dessert.

I only have to think about taking a shower for my wife to be overcome with the desire to turn the washing machine on. The water pressure in this house flutters, at the best of times, like the BBC iPlayer in a thunderstorm and my daily toilet is often an uncoordinated dance beneath a dribble of scalding water and, intermittently, a bruising jet of icy cold. My decision to shower, however clearly signalled, somehow triggers in my wife an uncontrollable urge to turn on something (anything) that will bugger it up. (Annoyingly she herself cannot wait to get into the shower at the very moment I decide to water the lawn.)

Life is full of such little ‘triggers’: turn onto the motorway with a toddler on board and see how long it takes to hear the words “I need a wee,” spend the entire day waiting for an Urgent Delivery and see what happens at the very second you cannot wait any longer to go to the loo; do a giant poo in a non-flushing hotel room toilet and wait for the housemaid to knock; if you are a sports fan, you will know that nothing triggers an unexplained collapse like an incautious “they’re looking really good”. We all understand the power of “Well, I’ve never had a bad one…” I don’t know whether the Greeks or Romans ever had one, but surely there is space for a God of I wish I’d never said that.

It takes nothing more than a normal conversation to trigger me into talking complete gibberish. Silence exists only to be broken and, if there is no-one sensible prepared to do the job, my voice leaps into the vanguard: Q. Why did the headless chicken cross the road? A. Because it had absolutely no idea of where it was going… ooh look, a squirrel!

In this house it merely needs me to be perched on one leg, on the top rung of a fully extended ladder, screwdriver in one hand, hammer in the other and electric drill in my mouth, to prompt the cry of “Dinner’s ready”. Simply getting the ladder from the garage is almost certain to precipitate a summer storm. It takes nothing more than a pair of shorts and a T-shirt to trigger a downpour. As sure as summer triggers hay fever, a fresh coat of gloss on the front door will herald a plague of flies.

Senses, of course, provide the biggest triggers of all: that smell, that taste, that song… Slam your finger in the car door and you will find that pain is there too. A certain smell may trigger memories of your first date; a certain taste reminds you of the time you drank so much of something you vowed never to put near your lips again; a certain song might catapult you back to the day when your eyes first met; the merest breath of a breeze across your forehead might bring back the pain of your subsequent walk into a lamp-post.

Everyday life is just a procession of triggers, some bring sadness and some bring joy and all of them trigger chocolate – that’s the wonderful thing about triggers…

Another (New) Little Fiction – Whodunnit? #940

There was no point, thought Daniel, in writing a modern-day detective story. What was formerly solved by logical deduction and cunning observation was now revealed by science. Nobody paid to read how the great amateur sleuth was sidelined by a microscopic amount of DNA. Maybe it was possible to squeeze a psychological thriller out of it: how the great detective coped with ‘redundancy’. Or maybe didn’t. Maybe he would go off the rails and start to commit murders himself. Perhaps he could target scientists: forensic scientists. But how to prevent the crime being solved by science, that was the problem for Daniel, how to recreate the thrill of a traditional Whodunnit?

…Unless, of course, the murderer was, himself, the investigating officer, tampering with the scientific evidence. Daniel felt a flicker of excitement, which he was quick to dowse: determined to rain on his own parade before his publisher got the chance. There would be evidence, scientific evidence of the tampering: forensic study of computer records, a stray digital signature, perhaps the tell-tale smudge of a pencil eraser… He fell back against the old, familiar problem: no space for mavericks, no space for amateurs, no space for the gifted individual anymore. No space for the locked room, the false alibi, the multiple motives. Just fact. And nobody ever solved a Whodunnit with facts.

There were two obvious options open to him: 1. set his stories in the past, before the science existed (which everybody was doing) or 2. set his stories in the future, when the criminals had the technology to defeat DNA profiling, digital paper trails and university educated investigators (which everybody else was doing), but he didn’t like either of them. The past had been done before, the future would be. He needed to find another way.

“What if,” he thought, “What if the story isn’t about the murder at all, at least not about catching the murderer? What if it is about planning the murder: how to do it, how to hide it, how to leave no clues? A forensic suit perhaps, latex gloves, a face mask? He would dissolve them all in acid, of course. He would turn off his phone, buy what he needed face-to-face, pay in cash. But where was the cat and mouse? Where was the jeopardy? Was it in ‘the hero’ getting caught? If so, by whom?” Daniel’s mind, used to the intricacies of multi-layered plot, of sleight of hand and smoke and mirrors whirled.

Whodunnits, That’s what he did. He guided his readers to a maze with a number of entrances, but only one way out and that nowhere near to where you thought you’d find it. He was good at it. Hadn’t he won The Bronze Stiletto with ‘A Dagger in the Hart’ (a series of seemingly random murders at a model railway convention in a village pub)? But just now the problems of ever doing that again seemed insurmountable. His stock in trade had been trammelled by progress. DCI Birkenstock (his most famous creation and a little nod towards the tradition of gumshoe detectives) meticulously picked his way to the denouement only to be beaten to it by a man with a test-tube. Birkenstock’s penchant for pencil notes on scraps of paper subsumed by silicon chips, the truth unearthed by zeroes and ones…

However he tackled it, Daniel recognised that this would have to be his detective’s last case. A race to the tape with science. A race that his DCI could not possibly win. It would become a tale, not of frailty, but of human nobility: of resignation and the recognition of obsolescence. Birkenstock Bows Out began to coalesce in his head. A glorious, if unsuccessful, finale for the human sleuth…

…The police constable barged his way in through the door. It was locked from the inside, the key still in the latch. He found Daniel at his typewriter – he always preferred the physical presence of ink on paper to the impermanent prickle of pixels on a computer screen – which contained what was apparently the partly written final page of a novel, the balance of which was nowhere to be found in the room. The knife in the author’s back sat neatly, almost symmetrically between his shoulder blades. The fatal wound could not have been self inflicted. The forensic-suited scientists moved in as soon as the room had been completely sealed off, but they found nothing to help them: no computer, no phone, nothing out of place. Not a single molecule of DNA that did not belong to Daniel.

In the adjoining room a world-weary DS turned to his constable and mumbled, “Phone the station Seargent. I think this is a job for AI…”

The Jury is In #939

In common with all other normal, rational people, I cannot cope with a badly stacked dishwasher: the opening of a door on such an appliance is like throwing wide the gates of hell. There can be no devil more impudent than the stray cup dropped into the rack reserved for plates. The ‘rules’ are very simple: dump anything in haste, anywhere it might conceivably fit, and disaster awaits. At least half of the pots will have to go through again; glasses do not get clean below plates and bowls; pans do not get clean when they contain a bowl or a sieve; cups do not get clean when they turn over. (Tea cups, in fact, do not get clean at all these days. They are clearly putting something in it down the wossname, factory.) Two minutes, that is all it takes, two minutes: put dirty things in the right place, neat and tidy, and magically they come out clean an hour or so later. Simple.

Now, I know what you are thinking, and you are wrong. I am not at all anal: this is pure common sense. I do not generally feel the need to preach it. Outside of the occasional heavy sigh, you would never know that I was having to re-pack the bloody thing – again. And if you think that this is an analogy of my life, well it could be, except in life I am the one who insists on putting everything in the wrong place; the one who really should take a minute or two to consider what I am doing before I cock everything up. If you want a kitchen analogy of my life you’d probably be better to consider me as a dysfunctional Kenwood Chef. I am a terrible mixer. I find smalltalk excruciatingly difficult. I make ill-advised jokes or – in an attempt to not completely shame myself – remain stoically silent. When it comes to mixing with new people I am, in the professional jargon of the psychoanalyst, a complete waste of time and space.

I have just completed my first ever stint on jury service. (Something about which I could not write – nor indeed talk – at the time and even now, when it is all over, I feel it incumbent upon me to leave all detail in the courthouse, although I think I am free to talk about it in general terms.) It is fair to say that just over two weeks ago I was dreading the prospect. I do not feel that I am in any way equipped to pass judgement on other people. I am also totally unused to being thrust into a roomful of people I do not know.

I sat sullenly silent with fifty other souls in fevered anticipation of what horror awaited me. What actually happens is that you are split into ‘juries’ and sent your separate ways. You are immediately a band of brothers (actually, in this case, ‘sisters’ by majority vote) and you become closer than you would ever feel possible in such a short space of time. After two weeks you part, feeling that you have missed the opportunity of life-long friendship with people you almost certainly will never meet again. There is so much ‘hanging around’, spent chatting and joking, fretting and sitting in companionable silence – and I now realise that I can do that. It comes as a complete surprise to me. I am able to chat! In extremis I am able to be me without pretending to be somebody else. I enjoyed the company of everyone there and thank them all (although they will never know it) for fitting me in.

I realise that I do not fit in with the intellectual elite, but at the same time, I do not always fit in with the stupid either. My position within the circle of the inept is unassailable – and we can turn up just about anywhere. I am always amazed by the capacity of others to put up with me and, I now discover, my own to fit in with them when I have to. I do not know what we might have done for the defendant (well, I do actually, but even now I’m not certain I can say) but I know what the jury did for me. Sometimes everything just stacks up nicely…

A Little Fiction – If

…Staggered through the heavy, creaking iron gates shortly before 9.30 a.m., heavy eyed and stiff limbed. Slight suspicion that tongue may have been sand-papered overnight. What a party it was! Seven straight dandelion and burdocks and two helpings of trifle from those crinkled paper bowls. Also Marmite sandwiches and Cheese & Onion crisps. Sausages on sticks. And red jelly. Sally, the short freckled girl with braces on her teeth and unevenly pierced ears, made a big play for me during Postman’s Knock. It took me a whole two hours to get the jelly out of my ear. Also partial night brace from my left nostril.

Glanced up through designer sun-glasses to meet the stare of “Hoppy” Hopcroft as I stumbled gingerly towards the school entrance. Smiled sweetly at him as he spun away on his black leather-luk swivel chair. Have never been afraid of Hoppy – his school needs me: best runner in school, demon centre forward, ace seam bowler, opening bat and all round sporting hero. Anyway, the photos I took of him and Miss Denby in the senior cloak room have always given me the edge.

Morning break. Sat with Alison Penderford whilst others chased a threadbare tennis ball around to a final score of 47 – 33, twelve grazed knees, one badly sprained ankle, two fat lips (both, strangely, attached to the same face) and an already neurotic playground monitor taken to matron’s office with whistle fatigue. Meanwhile, I took Alison behind the bike sheds and gave her the full benefit of my training as a doctor’s nephew. She promised that I would be first to know if she suffered a sudden attack of breasts.

Sat through geography with Mr. Laing, vainly trying to concentrate on his lecture about watersheds, or anti-cyclones, or something, but unable to wrench my eyes away from his armpits. Has he never heard of anti-perspirant? He must be single. No partner would allow him to sweat like that. Nor wear those socks. Or the purple toupee. Nylon I shouldn’t wonder. Probably attached with copydex. Like my eyelids.

Shared a table with Linda James at lunch time. She is a sweet girl and almost certain to embark upon puberty at any moment. I do not want to miss it. I gave her one of my luncheon meat fritters and she agreed to notify me the moment there are any developments.

Summoned to Hoppy’s office at 1.30 p.m. He did not mess about. He immediately offered me ten pounds in return for which I was to tell the rest of the class that I had been reduced to tears by his erudite and fearsome wit. I enquired whether this was a bribe and he said `No’. I said, `Good,’ and showed him the photos.

He made a renewed offer of fifty pounds, which I was pleased to accept. We shook hands amicably and I made a mental note to look out the snaps of Hoppy in an extra-curricular romp with Mr. Wynecroft, the school janitor. I intend to email a copy to myself in case of accident. Also if Mr. Wynecroft attempts to show me up in front of Betty Smith again.

Fought with four uncouth youths from 7C during afternoon break, confirming my belief in the efficacy of a brick-loaded satchel. The reason for this unseemly brawl was a loudly intoned slander on my good name. I prefer not to go into detail, but suffice it to say that the question of my sexuality was raised, owing to my preference for spending the games session in the gym with the girls rather than out on the cold and muddy rugby pitch with the boys, none of whom are conversant with the game’s etiquette, preferring on most occasions a swift kick in the groin to the more orthodox flying tackle. Anyway, I am allergic to mud.

Walking home with Valerie, she suggested that we could find something interesting to do in the woods. Blood coursed through my young, unfurred veins at a pressure that made me fear the imminent explosion of my upper cranium. Scenes from ‘Don’t Stop Now’ flashed through my mind. Or was it ‘Toy Story’? I can never be sure, I slept through both. “Hurry up,” lisped Valerie, leading me away to pleasures unknown. Visions of two naked bodies, dappled with late afternoon sunlight as it filtered diaphanously through the autumn-brown leaves; relaxing contentedly entwined, leaning back against the trunk of an ancient oak, sharing a gob-stopper, one colour change apiece…

Picked thirty two conkers and found an old kettle which is probably solid gold. Part of Captain Kidd’s hidden treasure I shouldn’t wonder. Valerie took it home to her dad. I’m sure a skilled craftsman could fashion a new lid, replace the spout and repair the hole in order to return it to its former glory, and Valerie’s dad has just bought a new hammer.

Past dark when I got home. Mum yelled in a muffled sort of way (her teeth were soaking in a mug of bleach) and tried to hit me with a box of fish fingers. I ran upstairs and wedged the bedroom door. Below, I could hear my parents discussing what to watch on Netflix and arguing over the last tin of lager. Attempted to read one of dad’s magazines under the bedclothes by the light of my phone. Perhaps my battery is going, but I couldn’t make out the pictures at all. I could not tell if I was holding them the right way up. Certainly there was something amiss with the man whose beard had slipped, and I wouldn’t want to meet Doreen from Devon on a dark night. Downstairs, not even the gathered might of Fast & Furious 73 could disguise the fact that mum and dad had settled the dispute over the lager and were now setting about the contents of mum’s secret gin bottle (not as strong as it was, since I discovered it). Strange rustlings and giggling as I dropped off to sleep.

Slept fitfully, waiting for the inevitable thump of parents attempting to climb the stairs quietly; faint echoes of whispered abuse; pleas to come out of the bathroom quickly, and the distant twang of the Slumberdown.

Sex, drink and violence, that’s all adults ever think about…

First Published 09.05.2020

Originally written for a magazine that went bust before the end of the print run. We all love a morality tale don’t we?

Whatever… #937

I know it does me absolutely no credit, but I currently seem to be afloat in a sea of lassitude. I am the sunburned prat bobbing about a mile out to sea on an inflatable unicorn. I am the Lifeguard’s darkest nightmare; adrift at the whim of every breeze. When I am shepherded in directions I don’t want to go, ‘persuaded’ to do things I don’t want to do, I no longer stamp my little feet (actually size 8 – perfectly normal for someone of my size I’d say) and shout ‘No!’ I don’t even plead for time to allow consideration. My spirit is now the watered-down stuff they put in All-Inclusive cocktails. I no longer rouse myself to suggest a moment’s contemplation on the sheer folly of it all. “Whatever” is what I say: I bow to the inevitable and steel myself to do whatever must be done. That it might (in my eyes) be completely the wrong course of action is immaterial. Things, these days, seldom reach my ears until they are a fait accompli. They have been pre-decided elsewhere. Objections, I have discovered, can delay, but never prevent. “Whatever,” I say, and await instructions.

First thing in the morning schemes are the worst. I know how my mind works overnight. It is unhinged. It seldom reaches conclusions that could, in any way, be considered rational. My overnight cogitations are suitable only for one fate – they must be quashed before they have the opportunity to precipitate unrest. My own nocturnally generated plans remain locked between my ears.

With the flow is where I go these days. I follow all the safety information: I lay on my back like a starfish (do starfish even have a back?), relax to the best of my ability – which, in water, is extremely limited – and hope that I am carried to safety. I sink, even in sea water. I think I have a lead-lined soul. Now I know what you are thinking, and I do accept that the fault is all mine, but I have found myself at the pointed end of such schemes for many years. I have always dealt with them in the same way: I succumb to the sanest, transitorily voicing my reservations, seldom loud enough to precipitate change – the deleterious effects of which might be dumped at my door – and object only to the patently potty and those that would challenge the resources of a small nation.

Now I say “Whatever…” and hope that the law of natural attrition – which I believe I have just invented – will apply: that the holes in the cold light of day filter might be small enough to let through only the most plausible of plans.

And don’t get me wrong here: I do get things done – admittedly often in the grip of a monumental huff – and plans do come to fruition. When things work, it is generally because of, in my opinion, the modifications I have air-dropped into them; when they do not it is generally because I told you so! It should be obvious to any even vaguely sane person that the humps in the road can be seriously smoothed out by just getting on with stuff, knowing that the impractical will fall, like ambition, by the wayside, whilst the practical will get well and truly done, by me, to the very best of my extremely meagre capabilities. It is the way that things now go.

You live, you learn. Whatever…

Free to be whatever you
Whatever you say, if it comes my way, it’s alright… Whatever – Oasis (Noel Gallagher)

I wrote this on the third of August and, to the best of my knowledge, published it shortly afterwards. As far as I can see I did not do so. It has remained in my little ‘to be published’ file ever since and, for no better reason than it gets it out of there, I have posted it today. Whatever…

Just Another Wednesday #936

So, having monitored my posts a little more closely since my recent ‘Wednesday’ post, I discover that I was, indeed correct (please don’t tell my wife!) irrespective of what I post, Wednesday’s readership is generally the lowest of the week, which leaves me with a conundrum: should I stop posting mid-week altogether; should I write ‘special’ posts for Wednesday, perhaps shorter or less polished (look, if you’re going to make your own jokes up, I won’t bother at all), or should I simply carry on as I am, resigned to the fact that whatever I write for Wednesday is unlikely to get a fair crack of the whip. I always write in advance: perhaps I should look at the three posts I write each week and schedule the weakest for Wednesday. Or is that giving in? Maybe I should schedule to strongest instead.

Maybe it’s not that easy anyway: how do I decide which is which? What is strong and what is weak? Whenever I post anything I really like, it always hits the floor flailing. I have lost count how many times I have hung onto a post for weeks because it just didn’t feel right, only to publish it when I realised I didn’t know what else to do with it and find that it was really liked – usually by a group of people who want to sell me advice about how to make my fortune out of this meagre salmagundi. I am an adult. I know that I am never going to make any money from this – which is why I make no attempt whatsoever to do so – so please do me the courtesy of not ‘liking’ posts you have never read and NO, I DO NOT WANT TO BUY YOUR BLOODY VITAMINS!

Of course, it might not only be me. It might be that fewer readers turn to WordPress in the middle of a working week and that all Wednesday posts have a readership within the range of Donald Trump’s IQ. (I am not American and so, for the sake of common decency and uncommon neutrality, I must point out that Kamala Harris is… well, I must be honest, I don’t know what she is. I come from a country that recently managed to have three Prime Ministers in a single year and the only one that didn’t physically send the country to hell in a dustcart, got thrashed in an election and beaten by a man who cannot make up his mind whether he has an opinion or not* – my grip on Modern Politics is about as great as that on Modern Pentathlon – it is not modern and, by my count, has only four actual events – so I am seriously under-qualified to comment on the politics of anywhere else in the world except… oh come on, we can’t have a world with two Putins** in it, can we?)

Which has just given me an idea: I could test out my ‘nobody reads on a Wednesday’ theory by saying something really controversial in order to see how much ‘hate mail’ comes in, except – you may have noticed – I am about as confrontational as Mr Magoo: I don’t want to argue and I really don’t want to make enemies. Even on a Wednesday. I am about as aggressive as a Fruit Pastille. In a world full of Extra Strong, I am a Peppermint Cream. I could, I suppose, post photo’s of kittens, koalas and sloths, that would almost certainly provoke a reaction. I could go hyper-topical but… well, that would mean seriously getting my arse into gear and, probably, using the opinions of others when I don’t really have any of my own.

So, all in all, the probability is that I will stumble on as I am, pale, almost certainly vitamin deficient and uninteresting, and you will still have to ignore me on Wednesdays…

*The general consensus is that he has, but that it is not necessarily one of his own.

**Two giant egos, two tiny intellects, the empathy of a tsetse fly and a single combover