Just imagine, Waitrose is out of Taramasalata, Hummus is in short supply and some young fool who “really shouldn’t have been given the job if she didn’t know any better” has hidden the Tzatziki behind the grapefruit yoghurts: the oat milk iced lattes are approaching their sell-by date and the cucumbers are completely unsuitable for use in Pimms due to ridiculously knobbly skins. You get the picture? Somebody’s fuse is about to blow. I mean, is it too much to ask for the Rambutans to come in seventy five gram packs to match the recipe in Good Food Magazine? Also, they’re supposed to cater for the busy housewife – au-pairs don’t plan their own diaries you know – I can’t believe that it would hurt them to sell the grapes ready peeled…
It is easy to understand this rage: imagine being the only mother at the school gates who cannot fit an entire flock of sheep onto the back seat of their car, who cannot block an entire pavement whilst still leaving at least two wheels on the road, whose son’s scooter is not badged by Audi. I mean, how can one possibly fulfil one’s potential when the world is full of feckless dicks who cannot produce precisely what you want, exactly when you want it? We have the working classes thronging through Waitrose, pretending to know what rainbow chard is, before they infiltrate Aldi, pretending to go there because it is affordable. God help us if the food bank ever becomes trendy – how will we ever clear the poor people out? Of course, there is a place for them – and they should jolly well know it! What is the point of a station if the hoi polloi is constantly trying to get above it?
There is a broiling middle-class discontent brewing – they let almost anyone shop at Sainsbury’s these days – and it can only be a matter of time before writs are aimed and essential oil-burners are lit. The crowds will gather in the car park – providing, of course that it isn’t raining and Jasper isn’t having one of his turns – and the air will be heady with scented candle. A ‘mum of three’ who spends her time (when not overseeing the upbringing of her children; Sophie, James and… the youngest one…can’t think of the name just now, but it wears a nappy) crocheting tampons for the third world and decaffeinating mung beans, will lead the crowd in a rendition of “One will overcome” (providing Gareth Malone has been available for rehearsals) and several new mums will chain themselves to the organic fruit section whilst their partners block the aisles, discussing the ethics of investing in Iranian Sumac. Hell will be unleashed. Self checkout tills will be rendered useless by the application of mint humbugs.
The media will blame the unseasonally warm weather and an unexpected surge in super-strength Limoncello Spritzers which were being passed around the crowd by unscrupulous venison burger vendors. The cognoscenti will implicate climate change whilst the ruling elite will impugn mansion-envy, but wherever the blame lies (and let’s face it, there has to be one) the flame will have been lit. White Riot will explode and the Buratta uprising will surely follow…
All the power’s in the hands Of people rich enough to buy it While we walk the street Too chicken to even try it… White Riot – The Clash (Jones/Strummer)
“…I knew it would be you as soon as I dialled. How do you do it?” The voice at the other end of the phone was exactly as I had grown to know, except for an air of confusion with which I was not familiar but, not being one to let doubt get in the way of indignation, I pressed on none-the-less. “Your card in the newsagent’s: how did you know that I would see it? How did you know that I would call?” “Call?” I quoted directly from the card that I had removed from the shop window. “‘Tired? Lonely? Need to hear a friendly voice? Just ring,’ and then it’s got your phone number.” “My number? Are you sure?” “It’s the number I just dialled.” “But I don’t have a card in the newsagent’s.” “Yeh, right.” I said, regretting my tone instantly. “So how come I just got you?” “You must have mis-dialled.” “That really is…” I wanted to say preposterous, but the notion was simply so far-fetched that I was already checking the number on the card against the number I had dialled. It was, of course, one digit different. That single digit had connected me with the man I know as Lorelei. But how? How is it even possible to dial what now amounts to a virtually random phone number, and get him. It must be some kind of trick – a mind-game or something. Maybe I was having some kind of psychotic episode. Perhaps I’d been brainwashed, or hypnotised, or… I have no idea what… I would wake up soon and find that this was all a dream. “So, are you?” His voice pricked into my brain like defeat into an ego. “Am I what?” “Tired? Lonely?” I wanted to say ‘no’, but I knew that he would see right through that. Why had I rung the number in that case? I really didn’t want this man to think that I might have been trying to contact the kind of person who routinely displays their phone number in the newsagent’s window. “Well, I’m tired of how things are. Does that make sense?” “I don’t know. What sort of things?” “I thought I was making progress. I thought that she might have been ready to change her mind, but instead she just told me that she was getting married again and…” “Ah, this will be your ex-wife.” “The new man is called Duncan. Bloody Duncan! He sounds like a Blue Peter presenter.” “I thought you had put that particular situation behind you. I thought you said you were moving on.” “Duncan has a sports car. Duncan has his own house. Duncan, apparently, wears clean socks every day and doesn’t behave like a three year old when things don’t go his way.” “Ah, so you’ve not moved on quite so far as you might have hoped then?” “The thing is, I’ve done everything she asked.” “Have you?” “Well, I listened.” Even through the mobile phone I could sense his eyebrows arching. “There was a lot to take in,” I explained. “She had a lot to say. It appears that I have quite a lot of faults.” “I don’t suppose you can remember what any of them are?” “Not really – she might have a point with the not listening thing I suppose – but the other stuff… I’m willing to try.” “She doesn’t want you to though, does she?” “Not now she’s got Duncan. Good old Dunc’…” “She was alone too, just like you, although without the six foot pile of takeaway containers in the kitchen and a mound of dirty socks in the bidet, obviously.” “She left me. She started the divorce. She said we were both unhappy.” “And?” “…It’s bloody infuriating.” “She doesn’t want you to be lonely.” “She wants me to meet somebody. To ease her conscience.” He sighed the kind of sigh that, even over the phone, comes accompanied with a world-weary roll of the eyes. “Where are you?” he asked. “I’m in the park,” I answered. “It’s the nearest thing I get to excitement these days. Can I get home without treading in dog shit? Can I sit on a bench without having my hat stolen by a gang of feral kids?” “You’re not even wearing a hat.” “How can you possibly know that? I…” I looked at my phone only briefly before ending the call. “Don’t tell me,” I said, turning to face the man who I knew I would find standing beside me, “you just happened to be in the park as well.” “I like to walk,” he said. “I like to meet people. It’s a good way to meet people, don’t you think?” “I’m not really lonely you know,” I said. “I know,” he said. “Let’s have an ice cream.” We joined the short queue to the kiosk. “And we’ll see where life takes us.” “Beautiful day,” said the woman in front of us, trying to defy gravity by remaining upright with a bouncing toddler dangling erratically from her arm. She smiled apologetically as a whirling hand caught me a glancing blow a-midriff and gently eased the child out of range. “I brought my nephew to play. An ice cream is a small price to pay, don’t you think? It’s so nice not to be staring at the walls.” I waited for Lorelei to fill the void, but he was silent; smiling benignly at me, the woman and the world in general. He had a look of contentment that, as ever, I found impossible to understand. I tried to grin my way out of the situation, but the silence was becoming increasingly awkward. “Do they still do 99’s?” I asked nobody in particular. “I hope so,” said the woman. “Otherwise I’ll have to get a Flake from the newsagents on the way home. I’ll be particularly unhappy if they don’t do sprinkles.” She smiled. Quite a nice smile, in its own way. “Sara,” she said. “My name is Sara.” “Jim,” I said. “It’s nice to meet you. And this is?…” I looked down at the child clinging to Sara’s hand. “Oh this,” she said. “I’ve really no idea. He’s not my nephew really, I just picked him up at the playground. It’s so much easier to talk to people if you’ve got a child with you, don’t you think?” I could feel my mouth dropping open. “It’s a joke,” she grinned. “Of course I know his name… It’s written in the back of his coat.” The smile again. “This is Tom. Say hello Tom.” “Aunty Sara’s going to buy me an ice cream,” said Tom clinging tightly to her hand. “We’re both having sprinkles.” Lorelei coughed quietly. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve just…” He turned to the woman in the queue. “I’m sorry Sara – I hope it’s ok for me to call you Sara – I hope you don’t think me terribly rude, but I have to go. It’s been good to meet you. I hope you enjoy your ice cream.” “We will,” I replied in perfect harmony with Sara and Tom as Lorelei turned and wandered quietly away. “And don’t be lonely,” he said. “I’m just a call away…” “I know,” said Sara…
First published 10.06.22 under the title “A Little Fiction – Conversations with a Bearded Man (part 7) – Helpline“
Nobody ever says, “I really need to lose a little weight,” unless they really need to lose a lot of it. I know this because I need to lose a little weight myself, but I am at an age that means I will remain tubby or I will become gaunt: I will look fat and healthy or thin and ill. When you pass sixty you are doomed to look either overweight or unwell, there are no other options: leotard or tub-of-lard. I have grown accustomed to being on the plumper side of overstuffed. If I was a cushion, I would be the one that you gave to the dog.
You know how it goes, one of those days when you eat until you start to feel like some kind of extruded sausage. When, having eaten far more than you know you should, you turn to drink and, having drunk, you turn to peanuts. Perhaps you don’t. Maybe you don’t like peanuts; maybe you don’t like whisky, maybe you’ve never felt like too much suet in a single duff. Somehow, it always comes as a surprise when someone tells you that you’re supposed to have an apple instead of cake, not as well as; when they tell you that carrot cake is not one of your five-a-day; that orange squash is not an orange; that a banana split does not count as two bananas…
As you become older everything makes you fatter and nothing, other than ill-health, makes you thinner. Thus, in the minds of most people, an elderly thin person is an unwell one. I definitely carry a little too much timber. I would quite like to shift some of it and I’m quite certain that doing so would not make me ill. The problem, should I actually lose the weight, is that nobody bothers to tell my skin that it has less flesh to cover. It does not shrink to fit. It hangs in folds and gives me the kind of jowls that are otherwise associated with Deputy Dawg. I don’t want to look like somebody else – for a start I’d never be able to get onto my phone – but I would quite like to look like a thinner me. Not because I have a great face – my mum used to show me milk whenever she fancied a yoghurt – just that it is the face that I have grown used to. It is the face that scares me in the mirror every morning. It might not be much to look at, but it comes attached to my body and as long as I see it in the mirror, I know that I am still around. In the movies, when fugitives ‘change their appearance’ with the kind of radical cosmetic procedures that, in the real world, leave relatively normal-looking people resembling one of our less-attractive simian ancestors, who do they see when they look in the mirror? Do they still see themselves, or do they see somebody else? Do they become somebody else? Maybe someone a little slimmer, with less saggy skin…
Don’t want to be a fat man Have not the patience to ignore all that Hate to admit to myself I thought my problems came from being fat… Fatman – Jethro Tull (Anderson)
So, I was wondering why the only thing I’ve never seen Doctor Who do with his sonic screwdriver is to tighten a screw, when it occurred to me how very very sad my life has become, and then I realised that it has always been that way: my ability to whittle over something that is not only inconsequential but also entirely fictional is without equal. You know the kind of thing: why do terrified people always walk into a darkened room; if there is more than one of them, why do they always split-up? Why does the gun always run out of bullets when just one round would see off the bad guy? Why do I worry that my own particular skillset would boil down to gibbering quietly in the corner, attempting to hide in my own sock? Why do I worry that with my back to the wall I would be less John McClane and more clematis?
The only thing that separates fact from fiction is that they are completely different things: situations are not real, reactions are not real and no-one ever feels sick because they have eaten too much chocolate. And of course reality is so much more rational, isn’t it? Well, we have a world led by a man who seriously looks as though he is only managing to dodge the coffin on the grounds that The Lords of the Universe have looked at him and thought, “Well, what harm could he do? And anyway, look at the alternative.” We have Putin, we have Xi, we have Israel and Hamas, we have Iran, and we have madmen running around with guns and knives… doesn’t it all make a sonic screwdriver seem quite logical? (In reality, logic is something that only mathematicians and astro-physicists believe in. For the rest of us it is The Chaos Theory and Wacky Races on TV.) Nothing really makes sense. Why is there nothing in the world that makes you crave a cup of coffee quite like the sound of the coffee machine turning off? Why does nothing make you realise that you’re not that hungry quite like the ‘ping’ of a microwave? Why does nothing make a politician quite so contemptuous of the common man as being elected as a man of the people?
Perhaps we need Doctor Who to sort these things out. Could his ‘wonder tool’* turn the previously pretty teenage girl away from a short-term future as a dead-skinned puffer fish with lips that can only drink through a straw? Could a sonic screwdriver ensure that all of the clocks in the house did not run out of battery at exactly the same time; that your phone didn’t run out of charge at the very second you manage to find a signal; that your keys were in your pocket at the end of a journey as well as at the beginning; could it fix the kind of extremely annoying personality trait that has idiots fretting over things that they cannot control? Could it stop them from believing that a sonic screwdriver actually exists…
You need to find out ‘Cause no one’s gonna tell you what I’m on about You need to find a way for what you wanna say But before tomorrow… Supersonic – Oasis (Noel Gallagher)
Entirely unlike the three-bedroomed, two bathroomed beast we holidayed in – but much cooler to look at.
It seemed like a jolly idea: a few days in a caravan (we haven’t done that for years) in the North East of England (we’ve never been there). The journey, scheduled by Sat Nav to take just less than four hours took considerably longer as (wisdom, not being infinite, as advertised) we decided to make the journey on a Bank Holiday Monday and whomever is responsible for such things decided to dig up every single road along the way. At least the various diversions meant that we got to see the centre of Newcastle – five times I think. We arrived to typical North East spring weather – very cold, locals bare-chested, tourists in mufflers, the entire landscape being shrouded in a thick, freezing sea fret – and moved our gear into the caravan: approximately ten times the clothing required for a holiday in any climate less unpredictable than our own (e.g. absolutely anywhere).
After an extended period spent shuffling from cheek to cheek in the car, I felt somewhat like a cowboy who had spent too long in the saddle, and it wasn’t too long before I realised that the old farmer Giles* had taken the opportunity afforded to them by a long journey to – quite literally – become a right royal pain-in-the-arse. Oh well, I treated them in the way I always do: a raging hot curry should do the trick…
…This morning I am standing by the bathroom door, waiting for the cure to take effect, whilst listening to my wife – who has taken to her bed** – coughing in the bedroom. You just can’t beat feeling ill in a tin box. We’ll wait until she feels well enough to get up before deciding whether to stay here or head straight home: she might not feel well enough to travel and I might need to find a rubber ring to sit on. I would tell you what this morning’s weather is like, but to be honest, I’m not sure. All I can see through the window is grey: thick, cloying grey. My watch tells me that there is no rain in the forecast but, as the site Wi-Fi is more intermittent than sunshine, it might not be the most reliable of sources. I’m sure that I would hear rain on the roof if it was here, but I have no idea of whether it is on its way. (Actually, we currently have what sounds like a whole flock of seagulls clog-dancing on the roof, so having given it some thought, I’m not entirely confident that I would hear the rain. I’m not certain I would hear a nuclear war.)
The sea-fret is forecast to lift this afternoon – the sun may even decide to fleetingly peep out from behind its folds and shine down on us. I might take my little canvas chair outside… and my big coat… and a mug of tea… and, thinking about it, it would probably be wiser if I stood anyway. Experience tells me that time is the only healer for haemorrhoids: keep the pressure off and allow them to self-heal – I’ve tried medication before and, to be quite frank, for all the good it did, I might as well have shoved it up my arse …
*Piles (haemorrhoids) **With what shows every sign of being a ‘with knobs on’ re-run of last week’s cold.
You better bring your own sun, sweet girl You gotta bring your own sun And don’t you forget, you bring your own sun Just enough for everyone For everyone… Welcome to England – Tori Amos
I had never actually tried to seek him out before, he had always found me, and if I’m honest, I had no real idea of where to start. I wandered the streets for days, sat on buses, drank in pubs. I retrieved his petrol can from the back of the shed, but it held no clues: it was rusty and the last few drops of the petrol it had once housed had long-since absorbed into the softly rotting floor. I couldn’t remember the last time I had even seen a metal petrol can. ‘Only him,’ I thought. There would be a reason for it of course, some kind of message about strength and fragility. I would ask him – if ever I found him.
More than a year had passed since the last time we spoke and much had changed – and yet it was the same. I had made contact with my soon-to-be ex-wife and we had spoken, almost exclusively without rancour. Well, she at least, had spoken without rancour: I had been my usual petulant self, but against all odds we had managed to remain in one another’s company for more than an hour without once resorting to violence and name-calling. It had not physically changed anything: she was still well on the way towards becoming my very ‘ex’, but the absence of desire to kill after our encounter was exactly the kind of progress I thought that I should report.
Also, I now had friends – even if I wouldn’t want to be seen out with them in daylight. We went out together, or more precisely, we met up at the same place every Friday night in the bar of The Harrows for a few pints, a volcanically microwaved prehistoric meat pie and a quiz. We never won, but we always got through the evening without major ructions and, as loathe as I was to admit it, I looked forward to the occasion, even if the quiz master did insist on calling us ‘the sad bleeders in the corner’, when our actual name “Archimedes’ Crew”, was quite clearly written at the top of our answer sheet. More progress to report. My life had become, if not exactly good, then at least bearable at times. Never-the-less I knew that there were still pieces of the jigsaw missing and, instinctively, I felt that he had them.
So it became my habit whenever I had the opportunity to sit for a while, empty my brain (a frighteningly simple exercise) and then just see where my legs might take me. I did things. I did theatres, museums, football matches, bus trips, weekends away – all alone, all in the hope of being found, and as each day, week and month ticked away I became increasingly convinced that my final meeting with Lorelei was already in the past. The little diversions became a way of life – just something I did – but as they became more and more habitual, the feeling of emptiness and disaffection began, once more, to chip away at my soul…
…The rain, although not heavy, was as persistent as a text-message reminder from the dentist and more than a match for my cheap, Ebay kagoule. I couldn’t tell you why I had chosen Newark to visit: it was easy to get to on the train and it had a castle and a river, but as the icy cold precipitation soaked through every one of my manifold, yet inadequate, layers of clothing forming a puddle in my crotch that, despite its location, still succeeded in being a good ten degrees colder than the surrounding temperature, I couldn’t think of anywhere else that I less wanted to be. I picked my way across the market place, along the glistening cobbles, sensing the slick, unsteady surface through the wafer-thin soles of my saturated Converse, towards the dim yellow light that beckoned me from the windows of the pub in the corner, when I became aware of a small crowd gathered around a figure on the floor. Instinctively I pushed my way in, feeling the burning imperative of the recently acquired St John’s First Aid badge in my pocket and found myself looking down on a familiar, bearded face. He looked up and beamed a greeting smile. “I knew it would be you,” he said. “Thank you everybody. I know this man. He has training. He’ll help me across to a seat in the café there. I’m sure I’ll be fine after a few minutes in a chair. I’m so very grateful for your help. Thank you.” And all I could do was wonder why on earth he wanted to recover in the café instead of the pub. I helped him to his feet. “How?” I asked. “I just slipped on the cobbles.” “I mean,” I said, “how did you know it would be me?” “Well I don’t know anybody else here,” he said. “But how did you know that I’d be here?” “I didn’t… Did I?” He looked confused. Painfully aware that the pub was just next door, I led him into the café and sat him at a vacant table. The waitress was with us almost at once. She was all concern and fret. “Are you sure you’re okay?” she asked. My companion assured her that he was. “Okay,” she said, finally content, “As long as you’re sure. I’ll get your tea. What would you like love?” “Coffee please.” The waitress bustled away. “Do you come in here often?” “I don’t think I’ve ever been here before.” “So how did she know you wanted tea?” “I always have tea. Now,” he said, “why did you want me?” “I didn’t! Well, I did, but…” He was looking around the room, breathing in his surroundings, reading the walls like he was in a museum. “It’s so important to be open to the new, don’t you think?” “Yes,” I cast my own narrowed eyes around the twee yellow chintz palace, “but ‘the new’ can be pretty boring as well, can’t it?” “I suppose so. I always think about see-saws. You want excitement on one end, then you’ve got to put excited on the other. If you want to sit at the bottom end just staring up at nothing happening, then it’s best just to stare. If you’ve got nothing to contribute then you can bounce as hard as you like, you’re always going to end up on the ground with the business end wedged under your chin.” “So you’re telling me that I can only get out of life what I can put into it, right?” “Am I? Oh…” The drinks arrived at the table and, having poured Lorelei’s tea – milk first, one sugar – the waitress fussed away to her romantic novel behind the till. I sipped at my coffee, which smelled great but tasted like it was a virtual stranger to the coffee bean. “I don’t think I always try very hard.” “I don’t think you have to try too hard,” he said. “Just try.” We drank in silence. Somewhere unseen a cuckoo clock marked the hour and, instinctively, the waitress, Lorelei and I all looked at our watches. “Well, I suppose I’d better get going,” said my companion, rising slowly to his feet. I noticed, for the first time the bruise on his head. “Are you sure you’re ok?” “I think so,” he said. “But it wouldn’t hurt to check on me now and again, would it?” “How?” “Oh, don’t worry, it’s easy enough. You can let me have my petrol can back some time.” “It’s rusted.” “I know…”
First published 08.04.22 under the title “A Little Fiction – Conversations with the Bearded Man (part 6)
We had a joke at school that went “What’s the difference between a duck? One leg’s the same as the other.” The joke being, of course, that there wasn’t one. The joy was purely for the teller, to be found in the puzzled look of total incomprehension in the eyes of the ‘audience’. We would tell it over and over, often to the same people – all part of the ‘fun’. It has stuck with me all my life and I think about it whenever I write something that is just not funny – so quite often. There is something altogether more reassuring about thinking, “That’s exactly the way it is meant to be: the joke is on you,” than “What I have just written is utter shite.” I am guessing that we all know someone – it may even be you – who revels in telling the same joke again and again, knowing that everyone will laugh because… well, because nobody wants to be an impolite tosser do they? Who’s going to be the man that says “You told us that joke last week – and it wasn’t funny then”? Habitual joke re-tellers tend to be the life and soul: they have lots of friends. They might be big.
Besides, we all do it from time to time don’t we? Everyone repeats jokes, it’s just a question of remembering your audience. The great Billy Connolly once did consecutive shows without repeating a single joke. Such talent is rare (unique, I would argue). Most comedians repeat material night after night – the jokes remain the same whilst the audience changes.
Jokes can be nuanced: fashioned by surroundings and circumstance, and such light and shade is not necessarily appreciated by the audience. As a youth I often drank in Working Mens’ Clubs and I am pretty sure that a Friday evening comic might have been told exactly where he could stick his nuance. Thankfully the days of jokes that need a target have largely gone: men can still gently snipe at women, women at men, and everyone at politicians, but stray into misogyny or racism and you, quite rightly, will get the reaction you deserve. (If you do get laughs, you almost certainly have mistakenly wandered into a Reform UK meeting.)
Anyway, nobody tells jokes any more, do they? The days of “A man walked into a bar…” are long gone, as are the Englishman, Scotsman and Irish man jokes as, since Brexit, nobody is particularly keen on spending time in the company of the Englishman. Jokes that do need a target will only work when the teller is, himself, the target. Self-flagellation pretty much guarantees laughter. If you have a particular peccadillo, of which most of the audience is aware, so much the better. Making a fool of yourself is always an acceptable way to get laughs, as long as you haven’t done it all in front of the same people before – and if you have, well, you can always become a politician… or a duck.
I’m not good-looking, I’m not too smart I may be foolish but I’ve got a heart… Don’t Laugh at Me (‘Cause I’m a Fool) – Norman Wisdom (Seskin/Shamblin)
N.B. If you have read right through this week, then thank you. I do realise that this week’s posts have not exactly been my usual fare (although I do also accept the possibility that is exactly why you’ve read them right through.) If you have enjoyed them, don’t worry, I’m sure there will be more to follow in time. If you haven’t liked them, don’t worry, it will never happen again… Next week I hope to return to something a bit more like normal and the week after… well it’s long way away isn’t it…
…Outside of Bruce Forsyth and Jimmy Tarbuck on Sunday Night at the London Palladium there was little in the way of stand-up comedy for we pre-teens in the late sixties and early seventies. TV is what we had and, by and large, that meant old films…
…My first great comedy love was Groucho Marx: I would watch late-night Marx Brothers films on TV long after what should have been my bedtime – always after Match of the Day and The Odd Couple, long after my parents had departed for the night. My earliest memory of laughing until I cried was at ‘Lydia the Tattooed Lady’ (At the Circus). Groucho was inherently funny, although, unlike most of the comedians mentioned in part one of this piece, he relied heavily on script, particularly for the snappy one-liners for which he became so famous. Without doubt in my mind, the king of the one-liner was Bob Monkhouse, a comedian who would, himself, never claim to be intrinsically funny, but who had the quickest mind of any I have ever seen. A great joke writer and the writer of one of the greatest ever one-liners: “People laughed when I told them I was going to become a comedian – well, they’re not laughing now…” – a great comedian, but definitely no clown. Taking up the baton from Groucho, my next great film love was the giant talent of Mel Brooks, most particularly in the films he made with Gene Wilder*. The Producers, A Silent Movie, Young Frankenstein, Blazing Saddles, these were films that reduced me to a blubbering wreck. Mr Brooks was decidedly (and wilfully) non-PC even back then – Lord knows what the censors would make of any of his films now. I don’t suppose a single one of them could be made today – which is sadly why the world has got itself into the kind of state it is in…
…And I became, as all boys of my age, a complete devotee of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, staying up late to watch the show (Tuesday evening I seem to remember – my parents were never over-authoritarian over ‘bedtime’ and often left me watching TV downstairs long after they retired for the evening, secure in the knowledge that there was bugger-all to watch but the test-card after midnight) memorising entire sketches for repeat performance at school the next day. I started to write ‘comedy’ at a very early age because all I wanted to be was the new member of the MP team. John Cleese was, of course, the figurehead, but never my favourite Python. He is an inspired clown, in the tradition of Charlie Chaplin, who always seemed to me to have to work just a little too hard to make it look like fun. He found his apogee as Basil Fawlty in a truly brilliant and tightly scripted comedy masterpiece (Flowery Twats anyone?) that played to all of his strengths and carefully wrote out all of his weaknesses: his ‘loftiness’ and ‘pomposity’ were played for spectacular comic effect, and his ‘bubbles’ hilariously burst by (I believe) the script contributions of Connie Booth.
In fact I most enjoyed the final series of Python – yes, the one without Cleese – because it played into the hands of my own comic hero, Michael Palin. This series was very much the precursor to Ripping Yarns, the best (in my ‘umble opinion) of all post-Python endeavours. Palin is simply funny and he has the humility and approachability that is conspicuously absent (in the public persona, at least) of Mr Cleese. Eric Idle (the George Harrison of the Pythons) shone brightly in Rutland Weekend Television and via The Ruttles became king of the comic song – so heavily featured in the most recent Python reunion (2014? Surely not…) – and crucial to film and stage endeavours. As for Graham Chapman, delightfully (and drunkenly) bonkers, sadly we will never know what more was to come from him…
Behind the closed door of my bedroom, the only TV being downstairs, a huge part of my comedy upbringing was via the long-lost comedy LP, listened to over and over again until every word, every nuance, was learned by some kind of osmosis – foremost amongst them being Monty Python Live at Drury Lane, Jasper Carrot’s Beat the Carrot, Rabbits On and On and Best Of (purchased solely for the inclusion of the seminal Magic Roundabout) and, of course, the wonderful (and, at that time, otherwise unbroadcastable) Big Yin Cop Yer Whack For This and Raw Meat for the Balcony – proving once again that great comedy could be heard and did not necessarily have to be seen**. I wonder if anybody listens now?
*The one AND ONLY Willy Wonka.
**QV the magnificent Milligan and The Goon Show.
I’m not good-looking, I’m not too smart I may be foolish but I’ve got a heart… Don’t Laugh at Me (‘Cause I’m a Fool) – Norman Wisdom (Seskin/Shamblin)
I had an idea of where I wanted to go, but I was determined that this post should not become just another ‘list’, without realising that it could, instead, become very long indeed (and has thus found itself split into three parts)…
…So, it started with a car-boot purchase of an autobiography by long-retired stand-up comedian (and later film star) Lee Evans (The Life of Lee) and a short passage reminiscing about the comedians he admired as a child, which of course, got me going. There is a certain class of comedians who are ‘just funny’, regardless of script or situation. The undoubted king of this category would, for me, be the late, great Tommy Cooper, a comedian who could, quite literally, have his audience in tears of laughter without saying a word: Eric Morecambe (Morecambe and Wise), Marty Feldman and the greatest of all stand-ups Billy Connolly all had the very same gift of simply being funny. It wasn’t even an anticipation of what they were going to say that got people laughing, it was just them being there. All of them had (or in the case of Sir Billy have) funny bones. It isn’t that you know they are going to be funny that makes you laugh, it is simply that they are funny. A great script is the icing on the cake – but these people are funny anyway. The wonderful Larry Grayson was another comedian who could make me laugh simply by being there. He did nothing more than invite you in to share his life. He didn’t even tell jokes, he just tittle-tattled on. He was simply funny. I would also put the incomparable Dave Allen in this category, although for a minutely different reason: he would make you laugh before he started, but in his case it most certainly was in anticipation of what he was about to say. His humour was never intended to appear spontaneous, but you knew he was going to make you laugh out loud so, what the heck, you might as well start now…
Victoria Wood was very much the same: you were ready to laugh the moment you saw her, because you knew that she was going to be funny. A bona fide comedy genius she played with words in a way that nobody else has ever matched. Her sketches were true comedy gold and in Dinnerladies she gave us an absolute gem of a sit-com, but for me it was always as a stand-up that she truly sparkled. She drew the entire audience in, in such a way that everyone wanted to be part of her life; to laugh with her at the sheer ludicrousness of it all. AND she succeeded where so many failed before her: in making comedy about female subjects accessible as well as wildly funny. Along with my American love, Rita Rudner and, in the UK, Sarah Millican and Sarah Pascoe, she taught men that a) women can be every bit as funny as them and b) men can be every bit as ridiculous as women.
The comedy giant (in Britain) that is Peter Kay has recently returned to his stand-up comedy roots and when he is in full-flow he remains impossible to resist. He has mastered the skill of playing to huge audiences: allowing us all the opportunity to laugh at ourselves and everybody else around us. Michael McIntyre and Romesh Ranganathan at best are capable of the same, but like most modern stand-up comedians they have shone brightly for a while before, at the very first opportunity, finding something else to do. Something that is far less demanding and which, at the same time, exists solely because of past glories.
Stand-up is not dead, it has just become a game show…
I’m not good-looking, I’m not too smart I may be foolish but I’ve got a heart… Don’t Laugh at Me (‘Cause I’m a Fool) – Norman Wisdom (Seskin/Shamblin)
N.B. I make absolutely no apology for including this song amongst the list of classic rock I have used for my titles so far this year. Norman Wisdom films were a staple of my youth and this song sums up his hapless lovelorn screen persona to a tee.
It has occurred to me that most of these great comedians are, in fact, late great comedians and I wonder what that might mean for stand-up comedy in the future. There are many many very good comedians doing the rounds these days, but how many will go on to be great and how many see stand-up as merely a stepping stone to TV gameshow host or Hollywood voice actor remains to be seen. Also, I realise that many of these comedians, Sir Billy outstanding, are probably fairly-well unknown anywhere outside of the UK. Comedy can be very ‘location specific’ and those that brook the geographical laughter barriers are few and far between. Other than the ubiquitous Mr Connolly, we have only really shared Eddie Izzard, Ricky Gervais and Russell Brand with the US of late (and for one of them – at least – I can do nothing but apologise). Germany has given the UK Henning Wehn, the US gave us Reginald D Hunter and Rich Hall. Canada gave us the delightful Kathrine Ryan and the much missed Kelly Monteith (who once made me laugh so much in a theatre that I feared auto-asphyxiation). TV and film comedians find national divides much easier to bridge, for the stand-up the world is made up of very different places. Perhaps this shrinking world of ours will change things. Perhaps we all need to learn to laugh at the same things – or maybe we just need to learn that it is ok to laugh at one another sometimes…
If you have not heard of the comedians I have mentioned here, I can only apologise and urge you to check them out on Youtube…
Yet another day when my spirits had descended to previously unplumbed depths: I was a compromised bathysphere, slowly sinking into the abyss whilst building up the kind of internal pressure that could foretell of nothing other than impeding disaster and a date with the fishes. My mood was black – I would say blacker than black, because ordinary black had become my normal default mood, but my mum always told me that there were no shades of either black or white, so whilst no saintly youth club leader could ever be whiter than white, I could not be blacker than black, just black, very black indeed – and my spirits were lower than the Trustpilot rating of the average Italian politician. I could not have been more down without being out. Except Christmas Day lay just around the corner: the knockout blow; the nightmare scenario for a man whose very best efforts at false bonhomie fell somewhat short of the minimum expected, a man abandoned by the Grinch because of his over-zealous views, a man whose ho-ho-ho had somehow become a strident no-no-no. I am tempted to say that I have always felt the same way about Christmas, but it would involve me in the kind of lying that would redden my cheeks and make my nose itch. This seasonal melancholy was relatively new to me, although I had been engendering it in others for years apparently.
Christmas is no time to be alone. I have no family, whilst the few friends I have, do have family, with whom they chose – treacherous scum – to spend the festive period, so, as usual, Christmas Eve found me alone in the pub observing life through the bottom of a beer glass. I had almost reached the decision to go home early – a plan that was only forestalled by the fact that the kebab shop hadn’t opened yet – when a hand reached out to take my glass. I was about to protest that I hadn’t finished, despite the fact that I patently had, when I noticed the cufflinks and the crisp white cuffs. The landlord was a grand chap, don’t get me wrong, salt of the earth and all that, but not really a cufflink wearer. The kind of people he employed as bar staff were much more likely to have them through ears, nose or nipples than shirt cuffs. Given the state of the table tops, nobody in their right mind would wear a white shirt in there. To be honest, a full forensic overall would be less out of place and definitely more suitable.
“Same again?” said the voice that I knew I was going to recognise even before its owner had spoken. “How do you do that?” I asked, simultaneously nodding an affirmative. The man that I now knew as Lorelei simply smiled and walked to the bar. The landlord left his conversation and served him without a hint of rancour. If I had wanted serving in mid-Brexit rant, I would have been told to hold my horses in no uncertain terms. For Lorelei he was all genial host. But for the fact that he was as bald as a coot, his forelock would have been on the receiving end of a severe tugging. I could not hear the conversation, but whatever my bearded friend had to say, the coot found it exceedingly amusing. He made no attempt to short change him.
I thanked him for my drink and took a long draught from the glass. “I’m surprised that you drink beer,” I said. “I don’t,” he answered, “but the landlord was so happy to serve me, I didn’t have the heart to ask for a dry sherry.” He took a long drink without flinching. “A bit more hoppy than I was expecting,” he said, after pause for reflection, “but quite adequate, all in all, I expect.” “So,” I ventured, trying to sound as cool as I could. “What brings you here on Christmas Eve? Not exactly your local, is it?” “Isn’t it?” He looked shocked and I realised – with a flicker of the surprise I had grown used to in his presence – that I had no idea at all of where he lived. “Well I’ve never seen you in here before.” “No,” he said. “Is this your local?” I was painfully aware that he already knew the answer, but I gave it all the same: “It used to be” a mite more sulkily than I intended. “When I was… you know…” He nodded. “More local?” “We used to come in here a lot, when we were… you know… Before she left me for that…” I wanted to swear, but I felt quite certain that I would feel as though I had let myself down by doing so. Odd, I can normally barely stitch two sentences together without writing out an IOU for the swear box. “…Estate Agent,” I concluded, feeling it a more than adequate signal of my distaste. “Ah,” he said. “Should I have bought peanuts?” “What?” “I was just wondering, I’m quite new to this, Christmas Eve and everything: should I have got snacks with the drinks?” “No,” I said. “No. This is fine. I’ll get some when I go to the bar. You will have another?” “As long as it doesn’t have to be the same,” he said.
We sat for some time in companionable silence. I studied his face as closely as I was able to without seeming… weird. He seemed genuinely happy to be there, smiling, out of place in my mind, but not in his. He did not touch his beer. After what seemed to me to be a suitable pause, I asked him if he would like another drink. He asked for a whisky. “He keeps a nice malt under the counter,” he said. “His little weakness, I think. I’m sure he’d be pleased to share.” I approached the landlord with caution, it always seemed wise, and explained what my friend had suggested. “A gent,” he said pouring an unmeasured tot into a tumbler. “Tell him it’s on the house. Here…” he said, handing me a freshly filled water jug. “He’ll want this.” Unsurprisingly, my pint was not on the house.
Lorelei seemed much more at home cradling his whisky than he had appeared to be with beer, although he did not appear to be convinced by the pork scratchings. “Well,” he said at length, “it’s so nice to be in company, isn’t it?” I had to admit that, even though the conversation between us was sparse at best, I was happy and comfortable in his company. “Sometimes,” he said, “you’ve got to let old things go before you can find new things.” “Sometimes,” I said, “it’s easier said than done.” “Yes,” he agreed, “but it’s a whole lot easier to not even make the effort. Why don’t you like Christmas?” “Well I… I… Why do you say I don’t like Christmas?” “Do you?” “No.” He smiled. “But,” I continued. “I used to.” He swirled his whisky in his glass, peering down into it as though he was looking into a crystal ball. I felt obliged to fill the conversational void. “It’s not the same, is it,” I whined, “when you’re on your own.” “The same?” he sipped his drink with exaggerated pleasure. “The same? No, I suppose not. Nothing is ever the same, but you can find pleasure if you choose to look for it. Perhaps you ought to start looking.” “Where?” “Where? Everywhere. Maybe not through the bottom of that glass – it’s not been cleaned properly in years and the beer… oh dear, the beer – but if you look for joy, you’ll find it. If you’re content with what you find, then friendship will find you.” He drained his glass and began to rise from his chair. I looked at the clock on the bar; 11:30. Where had that time gone? What is it they say about time? Lorelei had waved his goodbyes to the landlord, who looked like a dog who had just been given a Bonio, and had moved towards the door. “Do something tomorrow,” he said. “Don’t wallow. Paddle.” He opened the door and a cold rush of late evening air spilled in. I tried to stand, drain my glass and put my coat on, all at the same time. Two things too many as it turned out. “Do you fancy a kebab?” I asked as he disappeared into the night. “No,” he answered…
First published 12.12.20 under the title “A Little Fiction – Conversations with a Bearded Man (part 5) – A Pre-Christmas Exchange”.
Getting On 