I tried to return to WordPress on Monday, having been away for a few short weeks and I couldn’t get on. At least, I could, but only as somebody else can get on – e.g. not as me. I appeared as an interloper in my own blog. I could view, but not edit. As things stand, I have no idea whether I am actually there or not: whether I can be read or not, whether the me that I see is the me that you see. Time will tell. It will have to because I have exhausted my entire IT knowledge on the problem: I have turned the laptop off, counted to twenty and then turned it on again; I have hit ctrl/alt/delete; I have pounded esc until my index finger got numb.
Still, by now I will know, because before I finish this, it will all be in the past. Tomorrow will arrive before I try again and I’m hoping that by then (yesterday by the vagaries of the schedule button) in the wake of being turned off overnight, my pc might allow me to log on to WordPress as me because – quite honestly – I’m not at all sure that I’m ready to see me as everybody else does. I mean, what if I don’t like me? What if I don’t really understand me? (Ah, can you see where this is going now?)
Taking time out to consider whether you would like yourself if you were not yourself is seldom destined to end well. Imagine that you rather like the way you are. Those who encourage self-love have never really taken the time to consider how that might be viewed down the pub. It sounds great on paper – especially if you were (as I was) around in the 1960’s – but it’s never going to get you a girlfriend. The phrase ‘He really loves himself’ is seldom spoken as a compliment.
Try making a list of all the things that you like about yourself and another of all the things you do not like (you will find ‘compulsive list-maker’ at the top of the ‘don’t like’ list) and you will discover that one list is very much longer than the other. Those with longer ‘self-loving’ lists are known as narcissists and will go on to become President of one of the world’s major economies, or a Neighbourhood Watch co-ordinator. Those with the longer ‘self-loathing’ records will go on to be normal. Normal people do not go in for self-love. Given time, normal people will learn to develop self-tolerance. Most people can just about put up with themselves on a good day.
So, I’m very much hoping that by the time I approach WordPress with today’s little offering, it will allow me to see me as only I am meant to do: that it allows me to extract my foot from my mouth before anybody knows I have put it in there and it allows me to polish up the odd epithet before anyone notices the shabbiness of my syntax. If it does, you will view me as ever you have and I will be happy with that. If it does not, I will face some awkward truths with my usual fortitude – and you may never hear from me again…
When I was younger, so much younger than today I never needed anybody’s help in any way But now these days are gone I’m not so self assured Now I find I’ve changed my mind And opened up the doors… Help! – The Beatles (Lennon/McCartney)
P.S. I do not appear to have a similar problem in reading your posts and I am enjoying catching up with you all again. Unfortunately I do appear to be having difficulty in making comments. I am working on a solution and I think some may be getting through. I am hoping for divine intervention – if it hasn’t all been used up by somebody else…
The two parts of my A-Z (literally the ‘F’ in dictionary) with which I intend to fill the next two Sundays are not repeats, but they have been awaiting publication so long that they feel like it…
FACE The majority of subversives have at least two of these. Most politicians would commit the country to war rather than lose one.
FACT Thing that is known to be true. Don’t worry, you won’t encounter many of these, and those that you do are likely to be Governmental Facts and therefore ‘unverifiable’. Unverifiable facts are also known as Lies – you will encounter many of these. The author Mark Twain quoted Benjamin Disraeli as originating the phrase ‘Lies, damn lies and statistics’ to describe the persuasive power of erroneously employed figures in informing opinion¹. I would like to propose my own alternative: lies, damn lies and facts. The practicing subversive will have a million ‘facts’ at his disposal, any of which can be used to back up his particular version of the truth. Facts merely have to be believed to be true. The more facts you can cram into an argument, the stronger your case will be, and the greater your chances of conning cash out of someone.
Opportunely, for me, he got the attribution wrong – unless he was just lying.
FACULTY An inherent mental or physical power – Don’t worry. If you are intent on following your current path, you will not need (and almost certainly will not have) any of these.
FAIL Be unsuccessful in achieving one’s goal – If your goal is a grandiose one – world domination for example – it is probably best to remember that many before you have shared this simple ambition and, to date, none have achieved it. Some have come close viz. Genghis Khan, Adolf Hitler, The Emperor Ming, but ultimately, they have all met a (thankfully) sticky end. If you are honest, they are not people with whom even you would want to be compared – especially unfavourably. Others have tried to rule the world through rather more subtle means, viz. Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, but we all know that it is also unlikely to end well for them: they will go mad (at least one of them is already half-way there) miscalculate the public mood or (the cardinal sin in the UK) simply get too big for their own boots. They will not come to their death beds as ‘Ruler of the World’. Indeed, if history teaches us anything, they may be lucky to own their own underwear1. If your ambitions are rather more modest: to seriously annoy a politician, to convince the local bobby that you are actually building a time machine in your garage and not an illicit still, to teach next-door’s big ginger Tom that it is much more fun to shit in his own garden2, then you stand a greater chance of success although, if we’re all being honest here, failure remains the far more likely outcome. Learn to embrace failure: it is the subversive’s only true route to contentment.
Unless, of course, it is tax-deductable.
World-wide, cats do not shit in their own gardens – they shit in mine.
FAINT To suddenly become unconscious for a short time – What you will do whenever you find yourself in a sticky situation from which you cannot run away. The longer you can maintain the subterfuge, the greater your chances of escape. Stop immediately if a man in a black suit and a cravat starts measuring you up and pulling out samples of satin linings.
FAIT ACCOMPLI Something that has already happened or been done and cannot be changed – The ill-advised tattoo from the dyslexic tattooist; the holding cell at the police station given your name following one-too-many ill-judged, smart-arse comments about the policeman you considered to be less intellectually acute than yourself1; general ostracisation, these things were always going to happen. If they haven’t, they will. There is no point in fighting it. All you can do is whine a little – mind you, come to think of it, all you ever do is whine a little.
FALSE Not real, but made to look or seem real – The number plates on your car, the meter readings you send to the electricity board, the money in your wallet, the stories you tell, the credit you demand, whatever you claim as true…
FAME The state of being known or recognized – This is not as alluring as it sounds when all the people who know or recognize you are either police constables, or shop-owners who won’t let you in as a consequence. You are unlikely to ever walk the red carpet, unless they’ve just had the stairs done at the Magistrate’s Court.
FARCE A situation that is very badly organized – See ‘LIFE’ (below)
FAUX PAS Words or actions that are socially unacceptable or impolite – Faux Pas is almost a language to you. You will do little that is socially acceptable – particularly if you have a spouse – and as for impolite, just ask the barman that served you the cloudy pint that time. Social revolution can never be socially acceptable because it has such terrible manners, breaks wind and jumps queues. As a subversive you will commit many faux pas, don’t worry about it too much – at least it means you’re in company.
FEEBLE Weak and without energy, strength or power – So there you are, a word invented just for you. Even your excuses are feeble. If your parents had any notion of how you were going to turn out, they would have given it to you as a middle name.
FEET Plural of FOOT – Always the best way to find them. If you have a deficiency in this department, your getaways are likely to be seriously compromised1. You could become an Evil Mastermind – they don’t seem to move around much2 – but, as most practical subversives appear to spend most of their lives running away from something or other, I can only suggest limiting your activities to those centred about the similarly pedically³ diminished. Alternatively, buy a scooter and ask somebody to push you.
The first thing to check is that you are not merely sitting on the other one.
Although you may need to buy a cat.
I appear to have made that word up. I will claim it as my own only if there is money in it.
FELLOW Used to refer to someone who has the same job or interests as you, or is in the same situation as you – Thus, a word you will never use (See ‘FRIEND’ below).
FLAW A fault, mistake or weakness – Where to start? Unlike friends, you will have many of these: some of them major (See ‘PERSONALITY’ below) and some of them minor (Your tendency to annoy everybody you ever meet.)
FLEA Bloodsucking insect – Similar to a leech, but with legs. You will be compared to this little parasite often (seldom favourably). Don’t take it to heart1. Even fleas have friends – although you wouldn’t necessarily want to meet them.
I have no idea why you would not, but I do know that if you do, you will spend a huge portion of your life feeling miserable.
FLEE Run away – Adrenalin is the master of the Fight or Flight Response. For you, it is only semi-effective. I have not included ‘FIGHT’ in this dictionary as I realise that it might upset you. If anybody ever suggests fighting for your rights, be happy to concede that you do not have, nor desire any. Rights come with responsibilities, another word I have chosen to omit.
FLENCH To strip skin or fat from a carcass – I have included this only because it is the best sounding word I have ever heard, and I hereby start a petition to have it given a new definition so that I can use it more often.
Well, it didn’t take too long in the grand scheme of things did it? We have found a house that we are both happy with: me because it needs so little doing to it; my wife because it needs so much. One way or another, should things go to plan, we will be calling it ‘home’ within a few months. Meantime, I have only blind panic and mild hysteria (both mine) to deal with. My world is quite suddenly filled with things to do and overloaded with things that must be done. It is impossible to imagine that the world holds enough paper to accommodate all these forms. Paperwork fills my days whilst my 3am walkabouts are dominated with hows and whatifs. I know people who are happy to move home quite regularly – to be honest, I can’t think of anyone who has done it less than us – they must be mad.
I know what I am like: if I had a sphygmomanometer screwed into my head, I would probably blow its top off: I am The Flying Scotsman without the benefit of sleek good looks, I am the Marianas Trench without the dark mystery of unfathomable depths. I am not built for stress. I am built for chocolate. I am not completely daft – in my own head at least – I have a good idea of what lies ahead: the weeks or months in the run-up to the move; the move itself; the weeks of readjustment to our new surroundings; the months of building work and adjustment of our new surroundings. I labour under no allusions whatsoever that the coming months will be anything but painful. If I wasn’t as old as I am, I would be looking forward to putting it all behind me, but at this age I really can’t afford to just toss time away. There will be islands of joy, however remote, I am sure; there will be time to draw breath and – unless things run dangerously out-of-hand – we have the wherewithal to employ people to do all of the things of which I am not capable (eg almost all of it). For now, we do what we have to do day by day and try not to get too far ahead of ourselves for fear that it all might yet – like a flat-pack kitchen – fall apart. In truth, the new house (dv) was, for our different reasons, the first choice for both of us. We saw it early and every other place was playing catch-up from then on. If we love it as much in a year’s time then we have definitely won. For now, we still have the results of the survey to sweat on, and my wife has ‘concerns’ about a tree in a neighbouring garden – if you know anyone who can tell us if it will grow big enough to throw our garden into permanent shade, if so, how long it will take and whether I am likely to be in an even more permanent shade of darkness before then, please let me know.
I have no intention – even if I had the mental acuity to do so – to turn this blog into some kind of helpful housebuyer’s guide – although, heaven knows, I might give it a go if it would ‘buy’ me a few more readers – and, unless something particularly untoward happens, I will return to the usual drivel just as soon as I manage to get some respite from form-filling duties. My brain is currently numb from lack of sleep and the kind of logistical conundrums that can cause nought but total mental mayhem in the early morning hours. Whenever I try to give the poor thing a few empty minutes in which to regroup its frazzled neurons, it merely coalesces around a million little uncertainties into a single knot of fevered apprehension which blocks all other thought like a bowlful of lard down a plughole and leaves me without a clue of how to break back in.
Next week is a whole new world and I am hoping it will be bathed in sunlight – much like the new garden which, according to the compass on my phone, will not be. Do me a favour, just stick around and watch this space. I really hope I will be with you…
I had to pull myself together, I had to be strong So I waited for the postman and it wasn’t long… Whole New World – It Bites
The row, although not exactly monumental, was loud enough to set neighbours banging on walls and dogs howling around the neighbourhood. As usual, at its most heated neither of us could remember what it was all about, but it didn’t hold us back. Such arguments glowed like a malevolent sun, creating in the cauldron of vitriol the very fuel on which they fed. Give us a minor disagreement over the carbon footprint of a Peruvian avocado and we were capable of creating nuclear fusion. Pots were banged, doors were slammed and personal insults were tossed like hand-grenades before – we are adults after all – we both realised that the rancour had gone far enough and silence fell, which I guess is what really spooked the neighbours. It ended, as such things inevitably do these days: with Sara spending two hours swaddled in head-to-toe lycra going absolutely nowhere on a bicycle that cost more than the house it was anchored to (even though, I never tired of pointing out, it had only one moving wheel) and me sitting on the bench near the padlocked park gates, drinking warm Vimto and eating Prawn Cocktail crisps; staring at the homeward bound traffic and counting the raindrops that swelled and fell from my eyebrows.
It was customary at such times for me to be joined by any one of an ever-shifting cast of life’s unfortunates that gathered around the park – and against whom the gates were nightly secured. I usually smelled their approach and automatically held out the crisps for them to take (they seldom showed much interest in the Vimto). They were world-weary souls – philosophers one and all – a serene and soothing (if somewhat fragrant) comfort blanket for my temporarily tortured soul. Inevitably I would be offered a bottle to drink from, usually containing something a little more fiery than my carbonated ‘pop’, which I always declined as graciously as my so recently frayed temper allowed, and a salutary tale of how bad things could get if I wasn’t careful. They gratefully accepted my snacks – why would they not? – but expected nothing from me other than my ear. They soothed my soul. I’m not sure what I did for them, but whatever-it-was I was pleased to do it.
Now the halo spotlight of yellowed sodium streetlight lit the bench beside me as usual and the rain-polished surface of the wooden slats that displayed the scars of a thousand skateboard close encounters glistened in anticipation of an absorbent rear, but I sat alone, absorbed in my own swirling thoughts of apology and appeasement until, forlornly tiring of this damp isolation, I crumpled the half-emptied crisp packet into my jacket pocket and began to rise when I sensed the slight diminution of the light reflecting back from the bench surface, the relative warmth of a body beside me and a smell that was most certainly not the usual amalgam of sweat, feet and urine. I turned my head by the smallest degree possible to allow myself some slight view of my new companion. He was dressed like a runner, but wearing the ‘uniform’ in a way that said he would only ever speed up his stride if he was being tailed by a very angry wasp. His trainers were unblemished white and his long white hair, despite the relentless drizzle, was dry and immaculate. He smiled benignly and fiddled, absently, with the unopened cap of a bottle of mineral water.
“It’s you,” I said, somewhat unnecessarily. (After all, he knew it was him.) “I thought you might have been offering counsel to Sara.” There was a hint of bitterness in my voice that was no more than I intended. “Oh,” he seemed surprised. “Do you think she needs some kind of counselling?” “No!” I said, “Of course not, no.” “Oh,” he sighed and, I sensed, relaxed slightly. “That’s good.” “She’s just working it off on the exercise bike.” “Really?” He looked as though he wanted me to explain the nature of an exercise bike. “What is she ‘working off’?” “Anger. We had a row.” “Ah,” he smiled a little sadly. “Can I ask what it was about?” “Well, you can, yes…” “And?” “I can’t honestly remember: something and nothing. It just escalated somehow.” “Right, so she is working off her anger and you are?…” “Stewing on it, I suppose.” “Oh well, as long as you’re not being childish.” “Childish?” “Do I mean ‘childish’? That might not be the right word. You’ve had a row about something – you can’t remember what – and instead of sorting things out you’ve come outside to sit in the rain and eat crisps… Now, what is the word I want?” “…It’s ‘childish’ isn’t it?” “Probably,” he said, nodding quietly. “Do you have any of those crisps left?” I retrieved the crumpled packet from my pocket and offered what remained to him. “Prawn cocktail,” he said. “Interesting…” “They’re all that is ever left in a multi-pack.” “Quite,” he said, but took a single crisp none-the-less and scrutinized it in the dingy streetlight. “Strangely calming at times aren’t they?” “Probably lethal according to Sara.” “She worries about you, doesn’t she?” “She’s all the time trying to… we went out for breakfast this morning: a nice fry-up I fancied. Bacon, egg, sausage, beans, mushrooms…” “The full works?” “Not quite, she made me step away from the fried slice some time ago. Anyway, she just looked at me, you know how she does?…” Lorelei nodded and, thoughtfully, nibbled on the crisp. “…And she said ‘What about this?’” “What was it?” he asked, slipping the remains of the crisp into his pocket. “Avocado on toast – sourdough toast – with chilli sauce and hummus! Hummus! For breakfast. I said, ‘Hummus? Are you serious?’ and she said ‘Why don’t you try it, you never know, you might like it.” “And you said?” “Do you think they might fry it if I ask nicely? I don’t even like avocadoes and, anyway, what’s wrong with an egg? You know where you are with an egg and you know where they’ve come from.” “Not Peru, I assume,” he said. I looked at him carefully, trying to decide whether he was goading me, but his eyes told a story of knowing innocence. “We started to discuss carbon footprints,” I said. “I said that a nicely fried egg was much healthier for the planet and she said ‘What about the sausage and the bacon? What about the rainforests that are cut down to produce the oil they’re all fried in. What about your carbon footprint when they cremate all fourteen, lardy stones of you?’ …So we both had a coffee and went to work without breakfast.” “And this evening?” “It was all forgotten, I thought, but then we had fajitas for tea and she put a huge bowl of guacamole in front of me.” “And you don’t normally have guacamole with fajitas?” “Well, yes, we always have guacamole with fajitas but…” “Yes?” “…Ok. I see what you mean. Do you think I might have over-reacted?” “Do you?” “I really shouldn’t have thrown it in the bin should I?” “I think you have made more rational decisions.” “I’ll go and apologise.” We both began to get to our feet. “And I’ll take the crisps,” he said, taking the packet from me. “We’ll keep those between you, me and the bin…”
…There was no dimly lit corridor, no feeling of warmth, no welcoming arms, no smiling friends and strangers. There were none of those things. There was nothingness. Complete and bottomless, utter nothingness. Like the space behind a Barista’s eyes when you ask for a milky tea. No sight, no sound, no sensation… And yet I was able to comprehend this nothingness; to understand the nature of the void of which I had become part. Cast into a world of non-existence, I sensed myself as part of a far greater non-being: somehow able to recognise the gossamer frail grip I held on existence even though I knew that I had no influence over it. Yet if I understood the depths of nothing, if I felt the fear and the thrill of the utter unknown, if I felt anything at all, then I could not be dead. As a child my mother always threatened me with a fate worse than death and I thought, ‘name one’. What could be worse than non-existence? Well, if this was death, then it – at least what I had seen of it so far – was not so bad, although I have to admit, not being dead still felt like much the better option.
The strangest sensation was of not being anywhere: it was not like a Waiting Room or even like the long tiled corridor I had heard people talk about, it was just nowhere: an ethereal Milton Keynes. I was surrounded by a bright white light, but I wasn’t actually there. Was I actually part of it? No, that couldn’t be so – it couldn’t seem so bright to me if I was part of it. And I know that my life hadn’t flashed in front of my eyes. It hadn’t even wandered listlessly by. Unless, of course, it had and it had been so boring that it hadn’t even held my own attention.
I tried to concentrate on the moment. I wanted to know what had brought me here, even if I didn’t know where ‘here’ was. I think that even without any solid recollection I had a pretty firm idea of what I was like: bad diet, too much alcohol, too little exercise – all of the above seemed to fit into my own impression of me, so I guessed that I must be having a heart attack. Or a stroke I suppose. Or perhaps I wasn’t waiting for death at all. What if this was the life that lay ahead of me? Could I be in a coma? What if this is all that I would have – me – and no outside stimuli for the rest of my days: my whole existence the kind of dream you get after too much sauce on your kebab? I could feel my chest tighten at the thought and I decided that, all in all, given the choices available to me, I was prepared to let myself go – and then I thought of Sara…
“…Don’t worry,” said the voice inside my head. “She’ll manage perfectly well without you.” As a hypothesis, I realised that it was almost certainly factual, but I wished that I could have been a little less candid with myself, if I’m honest. “She’ll be totally lost without you,” might have been completely untrue, but it was a sentiment I could have thrown my weight behind, if I actually had any weight to throw. Even in such a state of grace I could not depend on me. “I’m just not ready to die,” was all that I could sense myself saying… “Actually, I don’t think you are dying,” continued the voice that, contrary to all expectations, seemed to be coming from outside of me. “If it helps, I don’t think you’re having a heart attack at all.” I was, for some reason of which I was not certain, enraged to hear my instincts so summarily dismissed. “Oh yes,” I could feel bile rising inside of me, “and what makes you so sure?” “Well, I don’t think they’d just let you die would they? You would feel them, don’t you think? I’m sure that somebody would be punching your chest…” Mentally I tried to assemble a list of all the people that might like to punch me, even under these circumstances, and it was regrettably long. “…Someone would be giving you the kiss of life…” Again, a small, rational portion of my mind tried to assemble a roll of all the possible suspects, but this one was very much shorter. “…At worst, I’m sure there’d be a boy scout of some kind with a pen knife…” “A boy scout?” “Well, they’re taught to ‘be prepared’ aren’t they? I’m sure I’ve heard something about them being taught how to cut your chest open and massage your heart. No… someone would be trying to do something wouldn’t they; you’d feel them… rummaging about. The paramedics would be here.” I had my doubts, but I felt it best to keep them to myself. Perhaps a uniformed youth in search of a CPR badge really was my best hope, but I couldn’t help but rail against the injustice of it all. “I don’t want some snotty adolescent hacking at my chest with a bloody Swiss Army knife!” “No, I don’t suppose you do. If I’m honest, I can’t help but wonder if anyone is actually that prepared… I wonder if now would be a good time for you to review some alternative scenarios.” The voice, obviously not my own, was calm and gently questioning. “It’s you, isn’t it?” I said, or thought, I’m not sure. “It’s Lorelei.” “Yes, it’s me,” he said, sounding ever-so-slightly hurt, like it should have been obvious. It should. “What are you doing here?” I sensed that if I opened my eyes I would see his face… Could I open my eyes? I decided not to try. “Well, more to the point,” he said, his voice as soothing as Vaseline on a graze “what are you doing here?” “Well, I thought I was having a heart attack, but you seem very intent on persuading me otherwise.” “No not really,” he said. “I completely agree that you thought you were having a heart attack, I just think that that was what brought on the panic attack.” “Panic attack?” “Mmm, yes, I think that you’re probably having a panic attack.” “But I’ve never had a panic attack in my life.” “No, and that’s probably why you’re panicking.” “So if I’m not dying, why can I see the white light?” “I think it’s probably because you’re in the dentist’s chair.” “Oh God, no. Please tell me that I’m not having some kind of episode at the dentist’s. Please let me be having a proper heart attack – like a man.” “I’m sorry, I can’t do that.” “Oh my… you’re not even really there, are you?” “Well, it depends on what you mean by ‘really there’.” “I mean really there.” “Ah. No then, I suppose not. I mean, I’m here now, but when you open your eyes, I won’t be.” “I don’t want to open my eyes.” “I think you probably have to…” “…Am I speaking out aloud here?” “A bit, yes, I think you are.” “They won’t believe that I’m rehearsing for a play will they?” “I think it’s unlikely.” “What the hell should I do?” “Do you think you can sit up and rinse?” “Yes.” “I’d probably do that then…”
A new episode of this little saga will drop on Friday at 7pm. I hope you will like it. Perhaps he’ll help me to get my own act back together…
…Strange how different a house looks when it is full. Well, I say ‘full’, but that’s a bit of an exaggeration really. Even in a house as tiny as this, it would need a lot more people to actually fill it. Certainly a lot more people than I knew. As it was, most of the guests today were officially ‘Sara’s friends’. Until Sara came along, the most people I had ever had around here was one – and then only if you count the postman. Only once in my life had I been hugged by more people: when I scored in the Over-35’s indoor football final and, strange as it was, I preferred the hugs I was getting today. They were far more fragrant, softer and, if I’m honest, less masculine. Hearty back-slapping was noticeably absent. Even at fifty, there is so much to be said for an unsolicited hug from a member of the opposite sex.
I had never before been the recipient of such a gift: a surprise ‘combined fiftieth birthday and one year since you met me’ party hosted by Sara. I had never before been so completely taken in. (Well, as long as you don’t count the bloke with the ‘lottery tickets’ on the Costa del Sol.) Even after I had walked into the darkened room to find, when the lights snapped on, it filled with people all ‘raising a glass’ to me, it took quite some time for me to process what was actually happening. It took me even longer to equate the party with Sara’s recent ‘suspicious behaviour’, followed by, perhaps, a twenty nano-second gap before the searing embarrassment of knowing that I had ever allowed myself to suspect her hit me with a 300 degree roasting down the back of the neck. I was hell bent on apology, but she had other plans. “Come on Jim,” she said. “Close your mouth: you look like somebody’s stolen your cigar. You’ve got a lot of people to meet. You need to tell them how grateful you are to have met me.” And off we went on a round of all the people who were now our friends. They all congratulated me on my good fortune in meeting Sara (with which I had to concur) and reaching fifty years of age (which, given the lifestyle I had led for many years was probably an achievement worthy of comment) and, eventually, I found myself back where I had begun, a glass in each hand, staring into the eyes of Lorelei. “And of course, you know Christian,” said Sara, kissing my forehead and wandering away to be elsewhere. “Christian?” “Don’t you like it?” “I thought it was Lorelei. That is you, I thought you were Lorelei.” He smiled, moving slightly to allow me to stand beside him. “I’m sure I am,” he said. “And Christian?” “Almost certainly.” “I don’t suppose you ever actually told me your name, did you?” “Did you ever ask me?” he asked, and for the life of me, I couldn’t remember. “She’s quite a woman, isn’t she?” “Sara?” He frowned until, quite suddenly, he realised that I was joking. “How do you know her?” “Oh, you know, we just bump into one another from time to time.” “Like you bump into me?” “You make me sound dreadfully clumsy,” he said. “You were with me when I first ‘bumped into’ Sara in the park and when I re-bumped into her in the cinema.” “We’re quite accident prone aren’t we, the three of us.” He was cradling a small crystal glass tumbler – the best one we had, I noted – of Scotch in his hands and I hoped it wasn’t the rubbish that I normally drink. His collarless white shirt was spotless and he was the only person in the world that I could think of who was capable of wearing a waistcoat with style. I remember feeling shocked that, like everyone else, he had left his boots at the door. Unsurprisingly his socks were immaculate. It was no surprise when Sara appeared, carrying a bottle of the kind of Malt Whisky that most of us only ever see on our fiftieth birthday, to top up his glass. He smiled benignly, and Sara glowed perceptibly. I wondered how many other people he regularly ‘bumped into’. How many other lives he had saved… Now, there was a strange thought. Had he saved my life? I don’t think he had done anything so dramatic, but he had helped me piece it back together. And Sara? Why had she needed him? Oddly we had never spoken about him, despite the fact that we were both conscious that it was he who had brought us together. Had he saved Sara? “She is a remarkable woman,” he said, inside my head as always. “I was at such a… loose end when I met her. She gave me a purpose. She brought me peace whenever we spoke whilst you, you brought me… variety. You asked me questions that had to be answered. You made me think about what my answers should be…” “You always seemed to have all the answers,” I said. “Perhaps you just asked the right questions.” “Ok, then here’s my question for today; do you believe in guardian angels?” He looked down into his whisky, swirling it slowly in the glass. “Yes,” he said finally. “I believe that I have two…”
First published 04.11.23 under the title “Being There (part two) – Conversations with the Bearded Man (9)
So here we are, Monday evening, thirty minutes before the Getting On witching hour and I have nothing at all to give you. I will be forced to improvise which means that, in the great tradition of comedy improv, I will undoubtedly make all the obvious jokes and miss all the funny ones. I will gurn a lot…
You are right to assume that I am no great fan of improvised comedy: like bomb disposal and brain surgery, I really would prefer somebody to have thought it through first. Because a joke has just occurred, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s funny, does it? Look at it again. Does it still make you laugh? No? Then dump it. I know what the inside of my head is like; the thought of not reading through, of not whittling down, of not at least trying to make sense fills me with dread.
I believe myself to be reasonably quick-witted (in much the same way as David Icke believes himself to be an alien God) and I know that when I am off on one (nerves or tiredness are generally to blame) gags can tumble from me like sparks from a grounded exhaust pipe, but I also know that in the cold light of another day – after coffee and party rings – I will realise that most of them are just empty noise and the few that do work have to make their way through the catalytic converter before anybody else gets to hear them.
The point is – oh yes, there is one – that today I have to think on my feet and you, dear reader, may have to tolerate all manner of spelling mistakes and syntax that leaves much to be desired while I do so. (See?) I am often well into a piece before I have any idea of where it is heading. Transcribing from feint-ruled exercise book onto laptop screen offers me the opportunity to pretend that I knew where I was going all along. I do not. Often I can actually reach the end without knowing what I was banging on about and, working in this way, I cannot disguise it.
And choosing the title could prove to be a thorny knot (I hereby claim this portmanteau metaphor for England and the King). My little ‘headlines’ have all, so far this year, been song titles. Since I am more bloody-minded than a vampire bat it will continue until I have seen the intended year out, but I have noticed of late that the most simple titles bring along the fewest number of readers and, as a consequence, I have started to look for lyrics that suit the text in the hope that the associated song titles might be a little more attention-grabbing or, at least, interestingly oblique. So where do you go to find a song lyric that celebrates making it up off the top of your head? Who ever wrote a song to extol the virtues of saying whatever comes into the writer’s head without the pretence of forethought? Nobody ever won a Mercury award with a song about tossing the lyric off in thirty minutes.
My mind currently finds itself split into four: one part thinking about what to write; one part thinking about what to call it; one part thinking about not thinking about the house sale, and one part thinking about chocolate. I fear that twenty five percent of this poor, enfeebled sponge is not going to reach a conclusion any time soon, but hopefully, before Wednesday, I will have got back ahead of myself, far enough to know where I have been and exactly where I thought I was going before I changed my mind…
Way of the world for me and my kind Far from grace and weak by design… Diary of a Hollow Horse – China Crisis
…Sara left the house while I was still in bed, not sleeping, but just keeping my head down, because I knew from the way she was preparing for the day that she didn’t want to speak to me. There had been a few days like that lately. And mystery phone calls. If I asked who they were from she would say “No-one” and if I asked what they were about, she would say “Oh, nothing.” I was closing in on fifty years of age and though, I must admit, never the most intuitive of souls, even I could see the signs. Problem is, I had no idea what they were the signs of…
I climbed out of bed as the car pulled away and went downstairs to make coffee. Sara’s phone was on the table. I stared at it for a while and thought about opening it to examine her call record, but not for long: whatever the circumstances, that felt like a betrayal. Besides, if her phone was in the house, she couldn’t take any more calls, could she? Leaving the phone where it was, I went back up the stairs. “Only me,” she shouted on her return, just seconds later. “I left my phone. I’m expecting some important calls today,” and with that she was gone.
Sara had moved in with me six months before and we seemed to be getting along just fine. Cross words were few and we laughed a lot, but her behaviour had changed lately. She seemed distracted, she sighed resignedly whenever I did anything stupid, but did not comment even when I dressed especially to provoke a reaction. She passed over the hated corduroy waistcoat with nothing more than a raised eyebrow and even the pale green chinos prompted nothing more than a silent ‘tut’.
…Knowing that I would otherwise spend an unproductive day feeling sorry for myself, I pulled on my running gear and headed out for what I fancifully called ‘a jog’ around the park – the very place where I first met Sara, probably a year or so ago now. The fresh air would clear my head and the steady thump of my feet on the tarmac would soothe my soul, but there was a slight drizzle in the air and I almost turned back before taking my first stride, when I saw the supermarket delivery man next door and his cheery wave ensured that I had to keep going: lack of moral fibre seriously affects delivery times around these parts.
By the time I reached the park gates, a hundred yards or so along the road, I was already approaching death: my chest burned with every rasping breath, my eyes misted over, my heart had moved up into both ears and was banging, arhythmically on my eardrums, the muscles in my legs were trying to tear their way out. I headed towards the top of the hill and a shaded, hidden corner that housed a small memorial bench tucked, discreetly, behind a bush of unknown genus: its very isolation one of the reasons why the park had to close at night. It was the perfect place for me to gather my what-passed-for thoughts whilst I sucked some air back into my lungs; to rest my weary bones and count down the twenty minutes that I would allow before reappearing, looking for the world like a man who had just jogged all the way around the bottom of the park on the other side of the hill. As it was, I had to walk a little before I got there, but I managed to effect a quite passable limp, so no-one was any the wiser.
“I didn’t know you ran,” said the voice behind me. “You!” I said. I didn’t need to turn around. I somehow sensed that this was the moment for Lorelei’s reappearance. I acknowledged – if only to myself – that actually, I might have been looking for him. “What are you doing here?” “I was just passing through the park,” he said, “on the way to do a little errand, when I saw you limping and thought that you might need a little help.” “I wasn’t actually limping,” I said. “I know,” he replied. “You weren’t exactly jogging either.” Infuriating. “I understand that you and Sara are together now.” “How do you know that?” “Is it a secret?” “No.” “Then that’s how I know. How is she?” “Sara?” “Is there somebody else?” As usual during these conversations, I began to understand the sensation of being a rabbit staring into the headlights of an oncoming lorry. “No,” I said. “…At least not for me.” “Ah,” he said. “What do you mean ‘Ah’?” I snapped, not unreasonably I thought at the time. “Just ‘Ah’… Would you like a mint?” He held out the pack and I took one, mainly to make certain that it was real. “Are you a figment of my imagination?” I asked. “I don’t believe so,” he said. “What makes you ask?” “You only ever seem to appear when I’m troubled.” “Perhaps you only notice me when you’re troubled. Perhaps for the rest of the time, you just don’t see me. Maybe you’re a figment of mine.” I looked at him, the long white hair, the neatly trimmed white beard, the long black coat and the snakeskin ‘cowboy’ boots he always seemed to wear. Was it even possible to not see him? “So why are you troubled?” he asked. “Did I say I was troubled?” “Well yes, I believe you did.” “Ah,” I sucked my mint. “It’s just that…” I bit my tongue. “There’s something she isn’t telling me.” “About what?” “I don’t know, do I? That’s the whole problem.” “Well, do you know why?” “Why what?” “Why you think that there’s something she’s not telling you?” “She’s just acting strange…” I looked into slightly disapproving eyes. “…Strangely… distracted. And she keeps getting phone calls: won’t tell me who they’re from or what they’re about.” “Oh, I see… Can we walk, I’m getting cold?” We strolled back down the hill towards the park gates in silence, mine brooding, his contemplative. “Does she often keep secrets?” he asked as we walked out onto the street. “Well, I wouldn’t know, would I?” “I suppose not, no… Why do you think that’s what she’s doing?” “Have you another suggestion?” “Perhaps it’s just something she wants to keep to herself for now. Perhaps just be patient for now. Just be there.” “That’s all very well, but…” We had reached the steps that led to the house. It used to be my house, but it became our house within seconds of Sara moving in and now I couldn’t picture an inch of it without her in it. He laid his hand lightly on my arm. His touch felt like an electric shock: an intravenous Espresso. “Just be there,” he said. He held out a small envelope. “This is for Sara. …My little errand,” he said by way of explanation. I took the envelope, knowing that no amount of explanation was going to make any sense to me now, and he turned to leave with a smile and just the slightest of nods. Of course he knew where Sara lived – of course he did – but how could he have an envelope for her? What kind of message was in it? “But…” I started. “Just be there.” he said and he was gone.
I weighed the note in my hand. Was it possible that he was on his way to deliver it when he accidentally encountered me in the park? That wasn’t the way he usually worked. Why was he sending her messages anyway? The envelope was not sealed and I knew that I could just open it and read whatever was inside, but I also knew that he would know and that was all I needed to resist the temptation. I placed it on the mantle and when Sara returned from work I told her that I had found it on the doorstep when I got back from jogging. She read it quickly, slid the paper back into its envelope and pushed it down into her pocket. “Who’s it from?” I asked. “No-one,” she said. “Well what’s it about?” “Oh, nothing…”
First published 03.11.23 under the title “Being There (part one) – Conversations with the Bearded Man (9)
Well, it came as a bit of a shock, but we’ve sold very quickly and now we have to look for a house to buy with some urgency. I’m sure that neither of us thought that it would happen this soon and we are only just beginning to compute the implications. We have, I think, viewed eight properties over the last couple of days – they have been too expensive, too big, too small, too rundown and too much of a home for wallaby-sized rats – but we are left with one or two ‘contenders’ – nothing is perfect is it? Oddly the pressure I have started to feel is more in terms of getting ready to move out of this house than where we’re going to go to when we’ve done it.
We’ve lived here for forty three years. We bought it when we really couldn’t afford it, but we were young enough (and just the right side of stupid) to take on ‘a project’. At times I thought that the bloody thing was going to kill me, but we slowly got it together. We raised our children here and I think that almost everyone we have ever known has visited it at some time or another. Now we think that the time is right for it to shelter somebody else’s growing tribe. Our buyers (fingers crossed that they remain our buyers) are such; a young family whom I hope will be very happy here – as we have been.
So we have to start sorting through forty three years of assembled ‘stuff’. Mementoes of pre-parenting life; of the blissful days of early-parenthood; the more difficult, but ultimately rewarding days of parenting young adults; of letting them go; of welcoming them back; of greeting new family members and, eventually, our precious grandchildren – all of these have to be sifted through and either saved or abandoned. We are downsizing so the abandoned pile has to be the bigger, we both agree on that… until we get the bin bags out..
Our children are startlingly non-nostalgic and did not want to keep much of what we had kept from their childhoods when they left home, so they are even less likely to want it now. I wonder if this knowledge will make it any less of a wrench when we haul it all down from the attic and tip it into a skip? Probably not.
I’m not at all certain how we will feel going forward: our lives are woven into this house: we built this nest around us like little birds. It will, when the time comes, be difficult to leave, but hopefully we will walk into a new chapter… whilst we are still able to walk.
It’s hard to avoid thinking about mortality at times like this – if I’m honest, it is something you can never successfully turn your back on at my age – because if we live as long in our new home (wherever that may be) as we have here, I will be 109 years old and almost certainly not able to climb trees with the great-grandkids without the assistance of a block and tackle. Unless we get it very wrong – or decrepitude forces arthritic hands – this will be our last home: only the third we have ever shared. And all that we have to do is find it…
That house broke my back That house I built skinned my knuckles That house I built picked my pockets And buckled every joint It pointed me from youth and any truth I knew Towards a painted sundown on a break your nose horizon… Belly of the Whale – Guy Garvey
I’m sorry if the title of this piece led you away from where it was actually going, but the song was in my head before I even started to write…
In theory it works like this: a young couple want to move from their tiny flat into a 2-bed terrace house; the owners of the 2-bed want to move into a 3-bed semi; the semi owners want a 4-bed detached; the 4-bed owners , whose family have flown the nest, want to downsize into a bungalow before they can come back, and the elderly couple in the bungalow, now finding the garden a little too much to cope with, want to move into a flat. This is the house-buying chain: each link totally reliant on its neighbours, each one as fragile as the next.
The first thing to know is that when buying of selling a property in England nobody is actually committed to anything at all until contracts are exchanged, and this happens at the very end of a lengthy process that usually takes several fraught months. Make all the plans you like baby, somebody is always going to pull out at the very last minute. Panic will kick in on either side of the crumbling link – someone no longer has a house to buy, someone else no longer has a buyer for their house. Somebody will end up panic-buying anything with a roof whilst somebody else is dropping the asking price by daily increments. Two separate chains become a knot and everyone within it is doomed!
It is a commonly held opinion that buying/selling a house and moving home is the most stressful thing that most of us will ever do. I doubt that many of us will ever sit in a roomful of snakes, so it is possible. And when the move is done, well, it doesn’t really stop does it? Now is the time to spot all of the defects you missed before you bought it; this is the time when you notice that a damp patch doesn’t stay painted over forever; this is the time that you notice that the hallway was light and airy only because the front door doesn’t close properly; this is the moment you realise that the sofa doesn’t fit…
Not that we’re in that position yet. We have neither buyer, nor anywhere to buy. We are looking, tentatively, but it is difficult: you either find a buyer whilst you have no idea of where you might go, or you find your dream home and lose it while waiting for someone to buy your own. This is Limbo. Meanwhile, we stalk around ‘maybe’ houses with uncomfortable homeowners who look as though they are waiting for the axe to fall, me looking for somewhere to store my CD’s and books, my wife looking for walls to knock down. We leave full of the positives and wake up the next morning full of the negatives. Sooner or later, I suppose, it will all resolve around us and we will become a link in our own little chain… and woe betide anyone who breaks that one up.
This very evening we have visited ‘a bit of a project’ – two bedrooms (we need three), a small kitchen (we ‘need’ a large kitchen/diner), a low-ceilinged conservatory that would almost certainly ‘have to come down’ in order to build a less Lillipution extension – and having gone through the motions inside we went into the garden which was ‘a good size for us’. I was by now at the ‘had the contact lenses in about an hour too long’ stage, but I made out something moving on the grass. “I think you have a bunny on your lawn” I said, and the owner shooed it away. But it came back defiantly, sedately enough for my poor beleaguered peepers to register that it was, in fact, the biggest bloody rat I have ever seen in my life; the result, apparently, of a next door neighbour keeping chickens. It was the size of a kangaroo.
The ‘project’ is not at the top of our list…
Listen to the wind blow, watch the sun rise Running in the shadows, damn your love, damn your lies… The Chain – Fleetwood Mac (Christine McVie / John McVie / Lindsey Buckingham / Mick Fleetwood / Stephanie Nicks)
Getting On 