A Little Fiction – Nefarious Activity

The field backing onto the house was dark and progress across it was challenging. There was no option to use a torch – the neighbours would spot it at a thousand paces – and the moon, although full, was hiding behind ever-thickening clouds. Low lying brambles clawed at his ankles and nettles threatened any area of skin left incautiously unsheathed. Not that he had much of that: he was a professional. He was clothed from head to toe in black lycra. His hands were covered in surgical blue latex and his face in a neoprene ski mask. Not ideal on a night as sultry as this, but he had been too long in this game to grow slack. He had even drawn over the logo on his trainers with a black Sharpie and he had boot polish covering the small exposed area of his pallid face. He was a stealthily moving black ghost, lost in the darkness of night, his position betrayed only by the muttered curses each time he strayed into something that an animal had left behind, and the near-silent complaints that his wife had once again skimped with the shopping and had not bought the waterproof Cherry Blossom that he had instructed her to buy, aware that the sweat that was currently pricking on his brow would very soon be carrying rivulets of cheap, unlabelled shoeblack down into his eyes.

The back fence was no easier. It took an age to find a panel that was sound enough to bear his weight and, when he finally did, he found that it backed directly onto the shed. His scrambled descent from the top lowered him painfully into a stack of metal buckets and an old hosepipe that wound around his legs and tightened about him like a cobra. He suppressed a scream when something ran across his shoe. At night, the rats always came out to play. He hated rats. He had stifled so many screams that he had a callous on his tongue. Still, at least behind the shed he was not visible to any of the neighbours and he was able to take the time to quietly disentangle himself from the hose, the sprinkler end of which had posed serious challenges to his manhood.

Satisfied that he was clear of all encumbrances and able, should his information have been incorrect, to make a rapid escape, he peered around the shed corner. The security light flashed into life, but he was not concerned: it was what he wanted. The curtains did not twitch in the houses to either side: the occupiers – both cat owners – fully aware of the tendency for the lights to beam into life in response to anything more substantial than a passing moth. More to the point, nothing at all stirred in the house ahead of him. The curtains were partly open, there were no lights within, no flickering TV to light up the walls. Definitely empty. He grinned inwardly and slipped out into the open garden, never actually leaving the comforting shadows of the fence. His movement was steady, even when alarmed by the unexpected movement of bush and shrub, and he was there, pressed against the back wall of the house within seconds.

Here he paused for a few seconds giving the security light time to go out, before he slid around the brick extremities, undetected by Passive Infra-Red detectors or mid-week, wine-weary neighbours. They were all the same and he hated every single one of them: all the ‘haves’. He was tired of being a ‘have not’. He had spent too long living in a world of dark, idle poverty. It wasn’t jealousy that drove him on, it was a burning, overwhelming desire to have everything that they had: everything he did not. He dreamed of being ‘a better man’ and he was prepared to take whatever it took to get him there. He remembered the time that it had first struck him, like a light bulb in his head. He was certain of his path. He had devoted the rest of his life to it.

He carried out the rest of his task with quiet, dark efficiency and it was a matter of minutes before he was retracing his steps back across the unlit garden, over the fence and into the blackness of night…

…It was just after midnight when he found his way home. The streetlights had turned off and he had removed his ski-mask which, experience had taught him, drew the immediate attention of any random police vehicle that might pass by. He had painstakingly cultured the gait of slightly drunk man creeping home from the pub, hoping not to be noticed by his partner and was seldom bothered by the upholders of law and order. He entered his own back door, un-noticed by his neighbours who were either sleeping themselves or watching something on the TV at a volume that ensured nobody else was sleeping either. His wife was in the kitchen waiting for him with a freshly opened bottle of beer and a glass. “What have you got?” she asked by way of greeting. He took a swig from the bottle and without speaking, proudly opened his bag to reveal its contents. She peered inside. “A light bulb,” she spluttered. “What the bloody hell am I supposed to do with that?…”

This is the first time I have written on of these ‘stories’ in quite a while. I used to write my Little Fictions quite regularly, but became disenchanted with them because so few people ever read them and I have written few outside of my ‘returning features’ recently. I did, however, enjoy writing and, more recently, re-reading them so, in an orgy of self-indulgence I have decided to republish some of my past favourites in the now regular Sunday repeat slot. They vary substantially in length and in genre – reflecting, I think, my mood at the time(s) of writing – as I generally just let them tell the story – and I’ve tried not to mess too much with what was originally published (except for correcting the most jarring of cock-ups). I tried all kinds of ways of assembling them into some kind of logical order, but they beat me, so they will arrive in a totally random order. I hope you enjoy them…

Heroes

I will not be going into unnecessary detail today because a) it would not benefit anyone and b) I’ve only given myself five hundred words to play with, but I went to a Year 6 (10-11 year old) school leavers play/concert yesterday and it just might have changed my life. To say that it was a joyous occasion seriously undervalues it. The roles, allocated I presume by someone in authority, were assigned with a breath-taking abandon: the lispers, the whisperers, the stutterers, the mumblers, the painfully shy, the bouncing off the wall’ers, the tone-deaf, the scratchers, the nose-pickers, the ‘I definitely do not want to be doing this’ers, the ‘everybody look at me’ers, all given the most inappropriate roles possible. The tone-deaf were front-rowed to sing the big solos, the introverted were tasked with performing the comedy duologues, the extroverts were given scenes to shift, yet every single one of the kids appeared to fully embrace the task they had been given. Every child was fully engaged. Every face wore a smile whilst perfectly good jokes were lost in the telling and painstakingly constructed songs were crucified. Somehow the sweetest of voices were flattened by the big finish, the atonal were always the loudest.

The audience of siblings, parents and grandparents sat in their miniature chair semi circle, craning their necks to see past the head of the man in front, eyes on the spot occupied by their own family member, the main action taking place elsewhere on the stage becoming nothing more than a distraction. Each hastily delivered just-slightly-too-old-for-the-kids-to-understand joke receiving pleasing laughter from the cast and a bemused ‘What did she just say?’ raised eyebrow from all but those involved in interminable bedroom rehearsals. It is the universal sanctuary for the nervous when given something to say: say it quickly, say it quietly, look at the floor…

The main cast had head-mic’s which contributed to all manner of heavy breathing confusion during the delivery of the short explanatory scenes whilst the rest of the cast had to take their turn to dash for one of the two microphone stands set either side of the stage, the massive size differential obvious in children of this vintage ensuring that the shortest kids always got a laugh when they had a line to deliver. A far cry from the Junior School productions of my own youth when, unencumbered by technology, the instructions were always simple: ‘Speak loudly dear, and slowly. Try not to pick your nose and if you really must, try to wipe it on your own trousers and not those of somebody else.’ My recollection is of singing a few hymns to the assembled mums (the only dads who could make it would have been unemployed and, therefore, unwilling to show their faces) and trying not to giggle if Miss Sellars was looking. I don’t believe we were ever given jokes to deliver. The best way to involve the whole year was to let us all sing at the top of our tuneless voices – and put the ugly kids at the back…

At the end of last night’s show, the entire year assembled for a gustily delivered version of The Monkee’s ‘I’m a Believer’ and the Head Teacher made a little speech about ‘inclusion’ which called for more rounds of applause than the average University Graduation ceremony. She said she was proud of every one of the children and she was right to be. They were all heroes. They made my heart sing for ninety minutes – and it is so out of tune, it could have been a member of Blue*…

As I think about it now, I suppose ‘life changing’ might be stretching it a bit, but it did make me very happy for a while, and that’s a decent start…

I, I will be king
And you, you will be queen
Though nothing will drive them away
We can beat them just for one day… Heroes – David Bowie (Bowie/Eno)

*A truly dreadful Noughties Boy Band.

I’ve Got That Photograph of You

I write almost every day, even if what I produce cannot be described as being of merchantable quality, I still go through the motions. Not, of course, that I would suggest for one minute that my motions are, in any way, something that you might wish to go through. But I do. Or did. For the last few weeks I have not. I have started one or two pieces, but I have finished none. It has been a period devoid of application and inclination: a lethargy that has actually seeped into my soul and found it to be disturbingly empty.

I have searched for an excuse: I have been busy and preoccupied with housemoving matters, but I’ve been busy before and it has never stopped me writing. I have delved into my memory – have I had a period like this before? – but my memory is not what it was (or, to the best of my recollection, ever has been) and it is currently highly-coloured by a lifetime of photographs needing to be sorted and, in large part, binned. The attic was full of them: boxes of 6×4 inch (or 7×5 during more affluent periods) snapshots of a million yesterdays, some of them featuring people that neither of us can remember, most of them including faces (largely blurry) of parents, children and yesteryear selves. So many, in fact, that I think the surveyor thought that we might have been using them to insulate the loft. The temperature in the house – as well as the spirits of those within it – plunged with each discarded binbag.

My memory consists of flashcard incidents, like the thirty second trailer for a thirty part series on TV, there is generally no context or chronology to them. I remember anything notable, but with no reference to time or place. I remember holidays I have loved, but I cannot ‘picture’ them. Photographs are the key: it’s all in there somewhere, the frozen image just unlocks the door. It’s amazing just how much ‘forgotten stuff’ is stored within the brain. Like the attic, it needs unpacking and sorting before I can decide what to keep and what to take to the dump; what needs retaining and what needs tearing in two before burning.

It’s an odd sensation, being an outsider peeking in on your own life, still unable to follow the plot. It’s like watching an old film and realising that whilst you have retained the general gist, all the detail has passed you by. You realise that there are many things you have completely mis-remembered, like you would never wear that shirt… would you? We are all shaped, to a greater or lesser extent, by every single encounter in our lives: some round off edges, some leave fractures that it takes an age to smooth over, some break us in two. We are all pebbles on the beach being ground down into sand – and we all know how bloody annoying that can be in the underwear. It is impossible to wash away; it irritates and chafes until one day it is no longer there, just a faint rash to leave you wandering where it has gone…

…Well, I can tell you. Most of it has gone back into the boxes it came out of and back into the attic. We will sort through it before we move – obviously – although the new house does have an attic and, at the moment, there is absolutely nothing in it…

I’ve got that photograph of you
It’s in my head
And it won’t ever fade away.
My eyes they took a snap of you
And my heart said
Photograph, please don’t laugh, I love you… I’ve Got That Photograph of You – Spike Milligan

I know that this song does not really fit in with the general remit, but I recall seeing Milligan sing this many, many years ago in an episode of (I’m guessing) ‘There’s A Lot of it About’ and the obvious joy he took in doing so. As soon as the theme of this post began to resolve in my head, it was joined to this song and so it will stay…

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

FLOG Beat with a stick. Sell, or offer for sale – I am unsure what the word is for selling a stick. Flogging a dead horse¹ (although I have no idea why anyone would want to buy one) is what you will spend most of your life doing.

Flogging a dead horse – to waste efforton something when there is no chance of succeeding. For the average subversive, all effort is wasted.

FLOUR One of the main tools in the subversive armoury when faced with reasoned argument (along with over-ripe tomatoes and rotten eggs).

FLUID A substance that flows – in addition to the three historical ‘humours’ – wind, bile and phlegm – all three of which the average subversive has in abundance, there are the three other fluids – tears, urine and sweat – which he/she will shed whenever it is beneficial. Many scholars claim the existence of a fourth fluid – blood – but no subversive will own up to having that, let alone shedding it.

FOE An enemy – The human race in general: anyone with more money, more power, more charisma, better looks, better clothes, fewer hang-ups, fewer jars of ointment… In short, everyone. You cannot fight such an enemy, you can only cause them mild irritation (which you probably do simply by being alive). You may well find yourself unable to counter the logic of a greater intellect, but you will soon discover that putting your fingers in your ears and saying ‘Na-na-na-na’ very loudly can be particularly effective. Subversion is the art of not having to fight. Unfortunately it also often involves not washing and mixing with other subversives.

FOIL (1) A thin, light sword – Will not keep your sandwiches fresh.

FOIL (2) A thin metal sheet – Will not help you win points in a sword fight, nor toast more marshmallows simultaneously than anybody else at the village hall barbecue.

FOIL (3) To prevent somebody or something else from being successful – This is the ultimate aim of all subversion. Subversives do not actually want to achieve anything other than ensuring that nobody else does either.

FORBID To refuse to allow something – In a subversively ideal world, anarchy would rule¹ and nothing would be forbidden – except, hopefully, double-dipping at buffet restaurants. The lawless would be in charge² and subversion would lay in following the rules³.

Except it wouldn’t, would it? Being anarchy and all…
I’m not at all certain about the veracity of that statement. I don’t think anybody would actually be in charge – except somebody would have to make sure that nobody was obeying the rules (which wouldn’t exist) otherwise everything would just descend into… erh…
Oh, this is getting far too complicated now. Maybe we could just do away with a state of lawlessness and settle on one where you are allowed to yell ‘Sausage’ through stranger’s letterboxes on the occasional Bank Holiday.

FORMER Of, or as, an earlier time – As in ‘friend’ (below). As a subversive, all your friends will be ‘former friends’ unless they are the kind that you really don’t want as friends, in which case they will still be friends and you will be stuck with them.

FRACTURE A break or crack in something hard, particularly bone – The reason why an enemy’s skeleton exists. There are many, many ways of causing fractures, the most reliable of which is alcohol. Causing a drunken enemy to stumble is simplicity itself – just persuade them to get up – but beware, drunken people often bend when they should break and, although they will have forgotten almost everything about the previous evening when they wake up, they will remember who pushed them.

FRAUD The crime of getting money by deceiving people – also known as ‘being in charge’. Throughout history, those in charge have relieved everybody else of their money by deception: ‘The Health Service is safe in our hands’, ‘Every penny raised by this new tax will go towards making the life of the working man easier’, and ‘Buy me a fish supper and we’ll see…’ This is what you are fighting against. However, short of working, it is also what you must do to pay the bills. Whilst it is not possible for most of us to sell Nelson’s Column to a Chinese tourist, it might just be possible to persuade them that we are quite happy for them to finance a nuclear power station. Remember, fraud is not a victimless crime – if you get caught trying to pull one, you might just find yourself on the receiving end of something far more physical than a bogus lottery ticket.

FRENCH The people of France – French people, the entire French nation is by nature subversive. Ask them the time in the wrong way – e.g. in a British accent – and the average Gaul will have barricaded all the ports before you can say sacré bleu. To the average French Air-Traffic Controller, a bank holiday is the only excuse he needs to go on strike. Most French people own cars only so they can set fire to the tyres when they disagree about something. The only thing that French people find more annoying than the average British tourist is other French people. French people always sound as if they are arguing, but this is not always the case. When French people argue, they hit each other with baguettes. They also lace all foodstuffs with garlic, wear stripy ‘T’ shirts and carry strings of onions around their necks. As a nation they are shameless in their stereotyping of Britons.

FRIEND A person who you know well and like a lot – As it is essential that this sentiment is reciprocal it is unlikely that you will have any of these. It is undeniable that anyone you know well will almost certainly not like you a lot. In fact at all. Let’s face it, the fact that the pub empties when you go in is not down to your charisma or your hygiene. During the course of your subversive activities, you may establish a few tenuous friendships. You almost certainly will not want them.

FUGITIVE A person who is running away or hiding from the police – Well, you’ll certainly be doing that. It is the burden of the D.I.Y subversive to be hounded by the fuzz, particular if you were captured on CCTV putting that crisp packet into the recycle bin. Let’s face it, you are unlikely to ever become Public Enemy Number One; it is doubtful that you will ever fall into Interpol’s remit; Elliot Ness will not be carrying your photograph in his wallet – but it doesn’t hurt to run away anyway. You can never be too careful, especially if you might be embarrassed by what they find when they turn your pockets out – particularly if it’s a note from your mum explaining that you’ve been off work because of a carbuncle on the backside.

FUNERAL Funerals are long, sombre affairs spent staring at a coffin and dreading the false bonhomie that follows in the pub afterwards, when a thousand assorted photographs of the dearly departed will be produced and everyone has a good old laugh at their expense. If you are the kind of subversive that goes looking for trouble, you could attend many of these. Make the most of the opportunity to consider your own mortality and resolve not to do anything that might put you in danger in the future. Consider how you can persuade somebody else to do the dangerous stuff whilst abusing the free bar at the wake, and smuggling the potted sardine sandwiches out for the cat.

HOMEWORK

Plan your own funeral – you may even be able to sell tickets – and write your own eulogy. Refuse all forms of burial or cremation unless it is read out aloud. Place it somewhere you are certain it will be found after your death – stapled to your life insurance policy and stored with the pasta – together with a CD of Deep Purple’s ‘Burn’ and a limerick about flatulence.

Another Five Minutes in the Car

Explanation: the last time I published one of these little conversations, Herb commented that from time to time he lost track of who was speaking. I didn’t want to tread on your toes in relation to personality, so I tried to give the two characters a number, but Microsoft decided that I must be writing a list and thus did all manner of strange things to the formatting. So, instead, I have given them a letter: as to their gender, age and name, you can work it out for yourself. You can’t expect me to do everything…

X – “So… do you know where we are going?”
Y – “Well… that’s a bit deep for this time in the morning isn’t it?”
X – “The station. I mean, do you know where the train station is?”
Y – “I think so. It’s right alongside the railway line isn’t it?”
X – “Oh, very funny. Very sharp. Had an extra coffee with our bagel this morning, did we?”
Y – “Alright, yes, I know where the station is, thank you. Unless they’ve moved it since I last took you there… a week ago. I am capable of finding my way around you know.”
X – “Ah, you say that but…”
Y – “If you mention Skegness again I will stop the car and you can walk to the station. ‘Tell your mum I’ll meet her at the chip shop,’ is not the most detailed of directions is it? Particularly in a town with more chip shops than people… and almost all of those people in a chip shop.”
X – “I would have thought it was obvious.”
Y – “Really? Why?”
X – “Well, it would be the one we always use.”
Y – “We hadn’t been there since before the kids were born. They have all changed hands, been opened and closed, a million times since then. The chip shop we used to go to is now a vape shop… everywhere is now a vape shop… if they did salt ‘n’ vinegar flavour vapes, they’d clean up.”
X – “I found it easily enough.”
Y – “You found a chip shop, not the chip shop. It had only been open six weeks – I asked – when we were last there, it was a Gonk shop.”
X – “What’s a Gonk?”
Y – “You must remember. They were ugly little furry dolls. You could win them by throwing darts at the fair or knocking over a stack of tin cans with a beanbag. If you were useless, you could go to the Gonk shop and buy one instead…”
X – “…I bought one, didn’t I?”
Y – “You did, but only after you’d been chucked out of the fair for piercing the darts man’s hat and accusing the beanbag man of gluing his cans together.”
X – “They didn’t flinch when I hit them.”
Y – “Yes, well… you always were a bit limp-wristed.”
X – “What do you mean by that?”
Y – “You can’t throw very far, you can’t open jars, you’re useless with a hammer… we can’t even visit anyone if they haven’t got a doorbell. What did you ever do in that boarding school of yours?”
X – “What do you mean?”
Y – “Oh come on… fifty adolescent males in a dormitory. I mean…”
X – “We had cubicles!”
Y – “I bet you did. I bet most of your friends at school had a fairly well-developed right wrist.”
X – “Not the left-handers.”
Y – “No, but you’re not left handed… and you’re limp-wristed on both sides.”
X – “Well, excuse me for preferring Biggles to… to… anyway, I can open jars.”
Y – “Only after I’ve loosened them.”
X – “You can’t possibly pre-loosen every jar lid in the cupboard. When would you ever?… You do loosen them all don’t you?”
Y – “Every single one. Don’t you ever wonder why the ‘safety buttons’ have always popped?”
X – “I presumed it was because you always bought Home Labels.”
Y – “It’s because I didn’t want you to be embarrassed.”
X – “Well I wasn’t… but I am now.”
Y – “Shall I stop then?”
X – “What, so I have to ask you to do it all the time?”
Y – “I do do it all the time… Look, don’t worry about it. You have other strengths.”
X – “Do I?”
Y – “Well…”
X – “I open all the childproof lids.”
Y – “Well there you are then: what you lack in strength, you make up for in technique. You may have weak wrists, but you can squeeze and twist with the best of them… And you worked out how to do it all by yourself.”
X – “You always do this. You can’t resist. You always try to make out that I’m stupid. I’m nothing like as stupid as you think I am.”
Y – “You have no idea how stupid I think you are.”
X – “Well, however much it is, I’m not.”
Y – “So, we’re not considering the possibility that you are not stupid, we are merely engaged in a negotiation over the extent of your stupidity?”
X – “Erhm…”
Y – “OK, let’s take a sliding scale from Albert Einstein to Boris Johnson, who are you nearest to, boffin or buffoon?”
X – “I think I’m nearer Einstein than Johnson.”
Y – “You do?”
X – “Of course. Look, I’m not going to pretend that I understand The Theory of Relativity, but I have got to grips with contraception.”
Y – “You were quite a catch, I must admit.”
X – “Well, you caught me.”
Y – “I prefer to view it more as a mercy mission: I felt like I was rescuing a weak-wristed runt puppy. My dad told me I could have a hamster if I’d let you go.”
X – “Your mum liked me.”
Y – “She spent most of her time keeping dad away from you. He thought I should have had you put down.”
X – “You dad would have much preferred me if I’d had my face disfigured in a rugby scrum.”
Y – “…But, sadly, nature got there first.”
X – “Well you must have seen something in me: weak-wristed, thick and ugly and yet here you are. What happened?”
Y – “I think I just got lost…”
X – “In my eyes?”
Y – “No, on the A42. I think you might miss your train…”

If you want to read the first two of these car-borne conversations, you can find them at Five Minutes in the Car and Five More Minutes in the Car.

Help!

How soon they forget…

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 Beginner’s A-Z of D.I.Y Subversion (Face to Flench)

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.

Whole New World

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

Conversations with the Bearded Man (11) – You, Me and the Bin…

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…”

Conversations with the Bearded Man (10) – The White Light

…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…