The amazing Hunt Emmerson cartoon that announced Our radio series in The Radio Times – long ago, before Time was born.
I try to write pretty much every day: it is my thing, it is what I do, but I cannot deny that I have always found my greatest joy in writing with other(s) – especially when they laughed at my contributions. When they come up with a line that is better than your own, it simply spurs you on to come up with another yourself. The laughter associated with continually topping one another becomes infectious and addictive. I have reminisced on these pages before about the great joy of writing with my (almost) life-long buddy Chris (Crispin Underfelt) and laughing so much as we repeatedly ‘trumped’ one another’s jokes that we then had to take a few days apart to ‘get something down on paper’. We worked seamlessly because we both knew our strengths: Chris was the ideas man, whilst I just twatted about with the words. Together we came up with a thousand one-liners per hour. I jotted down as many as I could remember and ‘worked them up’. Sometimes Chris would fly off in another direction – anywhere from project B to Z – before project A was finished, other times he would doggedly stick to an idea long after I had given up hope. There were times, of course, when Chris would serve up a flat ‘No’ to lines that I thought were great and, as the person who generally did the typing, I would sneak them back into the script only to have them vetoed again at the next read-through. Similarly I would leave out lines I didn’t like, only to find that Chris’s own notes clearly showed that they were in. It always worked for the best and I don’t recall us ever falling out.
I have a boxful of scripts from that time that I flick through now and again and they always make me smile. Like all such things, it is impossible to revisit that time – we wrote a million sketches for the kind of shows that no longer exist – but that knowledge does not mar the joy of what we did then. Through the radio show – which we were absolutely certain would be our big break – TV sketches and a sadly ill-fated musical using the songs of ‘Hello Cheeky’, we operated as a single being: he was up when I was down, he was full of certainty when I was full of doubt. He always made me laugh and I always had a pen.
Chris is a natural performer and he began to drift in that direction as I plodded along writing a number of ‘close but no cigar’ sit-com pilots whilst continuing to contribute articles to any one of a number of humour magazines (all now gone – not my fault I swear) that would pay me for what I did. I am never happier than when sitting at the computer banging away without a care in the world (or, more often than not, an idea in my head) but I always miss the thrill of showing Chris the labours of my week (will he/won’t he laugh?) listening to his jokes, marvelling at the scope of his ideas, shouting at one another until we are hoarse and sharing the laughter…
Now, in case you are wondering why this piece seems out of place and out of time then, yes, I will admit that I have written it in the hope that Mr Underfelt might read it and be spurred on to give you one or two recollections of his own – of our time writing together, of his early attempts at stand-up, and of his own theatre productions of ‘Bouncers’ and ‘Little Shop of Horrors’ , anything. (There are, by way of explanation, links to numerous previous posts scattered throughout.) Maybe he’ll even tell you of our little trip to Hull to see a play called ‘Moose’ and an ill-advised stop to ask some young ladies on a street corner if they could tell us where to go. They did…
EMERGENCY A sudden, urgent and unexpected occurrence requiring immediate action. Usually the result of a late-night kebab from a take-away that you wouldn’t have gone within thirty feet of without a flame-thrower and an economy-sized spray of industrial-strength DDT when sober.
ENCUMBER To load with debt, to impede, to embarrass. Obviously it is the embarrass bit that is relevant here – particularly if you thought this was a green, phallic salad fruit.
EQUIPMENT Anything kept or provided for a specific purpose. Machine guns, ground-to-air missiles, fast cars, Swiss Army knives etc. may all prove to be beyond your means. Don’t Panic! Equipment does not need to be expensive to be effective. A loaded pea-shooter in the ear can be very disconcerting, particularly in the dark. A tumbler applied to a joining wall can be just as effective as expensive electronic bugs – and you can’t drink out of a bug when you get bored of waiting for something to happen. A certain amount of creativity will be required when gleaning information in this manner, as the conversation you hear will unfailingly be muffled, repetitive and exceedingly boring to all but Alan Bennett. The juice of an onion (readily available at Waitrose I believe) makes perfect invisible ink (although it does make all your correspondence smell of onion) and a house brick is the ideal substitute for expensive skeleton keys.
ESCAPE To get away from confinement or restraint. Technical word for what we practiced subversives call ‘running away’. Escape is the only logical response to all types of danger. Much is made of the Fight or Flight effect of adrenaline, produced by the body’s adrenal glands in response to danger. I suggest you strive to develop a Flight or Fight effect. Learn to respond instantly to your initial instinct. Run. Run every time. That way, if for some unfathomable reason you should decide that you do not want to be seen as a pathetic little coward and you take the decision to fight, you will already be too far away to do anything about it.
ESPERANTO A language invented by Dr Zamenhof (c. 1887) to enable people of all nations to converse together. – Also known as ‘shouting’ in English.
EXCREMENT Ordure, dung. Try not to be around when this stuff flies, sticks or hits the fan. Can be used in a number of subversive ways – none of them terribly pleasant – and none of them I can list here on grounds of taste, decency and the fact that if you subsequently go out and try to execute such an action, I may find myself hauled up before the beak for ‘Putting ideas into the heads of the mentally challenged’ or similar. Remember, if you get caught in the act of using ordure in the course of subversive activities¹, you may well find yourself right up to the neck in it.
Being caught in somebody else’s garden, whilst in possession of poo is something that you are unlikely to be able to pass off as a harmless hobby.
EXPLOSIVE Anything likely to explode eg gunpowder. Let’s face it, as an amateur, you are extremely unlikely to come up against anything more explosive than a prawn vindaloo – actually, I’m not certain that there is anything more explosive than a prawn vindaloo. You could try to feed it to your enemies, but honestly, it’s not the sort of thing you can slip into their muesli without them noticing. A bit like an atomic bomb – it’s the fall-out that causes the real trouble.
EYESORE Something ugly to look at. The world is full of such things, every single one of them man-made. Turning beautiful things into eyesores is an inexpensive and effective subversive ploy: try sticking an imitation wart onto the face of the Mona Lisa¹; build a dirty-great coal-fired power station in the middle of our green and pleasant land; attend an EDL meeting. Please remember that an ‘eyesore’ is not the same as a ‘sore eye’, which is what you will get if you forget yourself at the EDL meeting and reprimand the speaker for using racist language.
I say ‘try’ as the French security guards are unlikely to take kindly to it and you might find yourself nose-down on the floor with a knee in the back of your neck quicker than you can say ‘Zut alors!’ Ultimately, you may wind up in a French prison where you will be forced to share a cell with a large number of blue-chinned men wearing striped pullovers and neckerchiefs, all of them missing wives and girlfriends (plurals are intentional – they are French after all.)
EXERCISE. Translate your subversive Manifesto into Esperanto and see whether anybody either notices or cares.
The problem with self-esteem is that the more it gets chipped away, the more brittle it becomes. The more you are told you are wrong, the easier it becomes to believe it. The more often you are persuaded that your opinions have no value, the less often you voice them. The less that you voice your opinions, the more they are treated with contempt. It is not a question of feeling worthless, just that you are not part of the equation: that the world is perfectly happy to get along without your input…
If I’m honest, I’ve never really brought much to the party: a carefully chosen bottle of wine that only the most desperate would drink, a plate of mushroom vol-au-vents* and five minutes warm-up for the main event. I do have a gift for making everybody else feel a little better about themselves – but only because they are not me. In company I cover up by turning off my brain and switching my mouth into overdrive. I take no responsibility for what comes out of the bloody thing. You should have known better than to have brought me here…
I imagine that everybody needs some form of emotional crutch from time to time: chemical, alcoholic, emotional, chocolate… everyone needs something to lean on and everyone knows someone who is never happier than when they are kicking it away. I wonder what their crutch is? There is some kind of liberation in being freed from the responsibility of participation by the knowledge that your opinion is not worth serious consideration, that generally it can be dismissed without the inconvenience of listening to it.
The Bible says that the meek shall inherit the earth – what it doesn’t say is that it is dependent upon the mighty allowing them to – and we all know they will not. The mighty will inherit the earth, the meek will inherit the task of keeping it going; of accepting the abuse and sticking to the rules. They will not be party to the making of the rules, nor will their participation be welcomed. Rules are not framed by those who must live by them, but by those who consider themselves above them. What is the point in any other opinion, when you are sure you already know best?
It is important (unfortunately) to face facts (something at which I am very bad): if the meek were ever to actually inherit the earth, they would have to hire somebody else to run it. Probably someone not entirely different to the eejits who run it right now. It takes a certain type doesn’t it? Our leaders are one of two varieties: a) career politicians who have always had the conviction that they know best or b) successful businessmen who have discovered that money buys the right to know best. In either case they are unlikely to allow themselves to be ‘ruled’ by the meek for long. We may have been bequeathed the planet, but the lawyers are already picking through the smallprint. We won’t take much persuading that it has all been a big mistake and worthlessness will flood back alongside a vain attempt to retain a little dignity: “The earth? Oh, we gave it back. We never really wanted it anyway.”
In truth, my friends, the meek will inherit bugger all until everyone else has sucked everything good from it, and then we’ll tell ourselves that it is no more than we deserve. It’s what they have told us, and we have to agree…
Suck suck your teenage thumb Toilet trained and dumb (When the power runs out We’ll just hum)… My Iron Lung – Radiohead
*Literally ‘flying in the wind’ – the world’s most disappointing party food, if only because 99% of every one ends up on the carpet.
For my younger readers, an Iron Lung is a now largely defunct machine that breathes for you when you lose the ability to do it yourself…
A nearly full glass, soon to be made half full – or possibly half empty…
I will begin with a very quick note, to apologise for my absence from your ‘reader’ stats and comment boards of late: I could explain but, frankly, it really is not your burden to bear. Things are settling; I will be back soon I hope. Meantime, thank you all for continuing to read my drivel during this absence.
When I was a boy I knew, as all boys did, that everything was going to turn out for the very best. It went without saying that I would make a more-than-comfortable living from writing sit-coms and screenplays. My house would have a swimming pool, a full-size snooker table and one of those chocolate bar dispensing machines that did not need coins. It seemed well within the realms of possibility that I would become famous from appearing in my own films (before, inevitably it seems, deciding that I couldn’t be bothered with all the graft involved and, instead, started appearing in any old shite my agent might offer me as long as the money was right). I was at an age that meant that I couldn’t completely rule out the prospect of becoming tall, handsome and charismatic. Not completely. In my mind I will always struggle to rule out the possibility that all things will end well: however slim, the chance is always there. Optimism, like getting back to your feet after kneeling for five minutes, is so much easier when you are young. The fact that I am neither tall, handsome nor charismatic is down to genetics, and the fact that I am neither rich nor successful is down to… well, whatever it is down to, it is definitely not my fault.
I suppose it only right to admit that I am generally not viewed by those around me as one of life’s optimists. I do believe in the ‘goodness’ of humankind, and I totally believe in the power of ‘good’. I just can’t help feeling that it might have taken its eye of the ball a little bit just now. I refuse to be pessimistic about a future world that will contain my children and my grandchildren – I know that at least a very small part of it will be good – but ‘making a difference’ seems impossibly hard sometimes.
We are all passengers on this beautiful blue careering spacecraft of ours; unfortunately none of us are driving it. Those at the wheel are either drunk on over-the-limit ego, or blinded by the on-coming lights of something much bigger. This is Big Shit: only the vastness of everything can save us (Little Shit, as we all know, is solved by a Cadbury’s Crème Egg) there is so much potential for a near-miss. Or is that wishful thinking?
And if I wish to stop it all And if I wish to comfort the fall It’s just wishful thinking… Wishful Thinking – China Crisis (Daly/Lundon)
…Oh, and the difference between optimism and wishful thinking? Well, whilst optimism separates the ‘glass half full peoplefrom the ‘glass half empty’s, wishful thinking supposes that there is just the faintest of possibilities that the glass could, just conceivably, be completely full. (The realist, incidentally, recognises that should that ever prove to be the case, it would inevitably get knocked over onto the crotch of your white trousers.) If I’m honest, I seldom expect the best to happen, although I do always hope for better and if it still looks bad, I stock up on bottled water, close my eyes and think positive thoughts…
… I’ll get over you, I know I will I’ll pretend my ship’s not sinking And I’ll tell myself I’m over you ‘Cause I’m the king of wishful thinking… King of Wishful Thinking – Go West (Page/Cox/Drummie)
…And that was the fourth time I met him. He was sitting cross-legged on the bonnet of a car that I did not recognise. It was parked at a slight angle, roughly adjacent to the curb, thirty metres from a very busy junction. Traffic backed up behind him, but strangely nobody took to their horn. They queued, silently and filtered by as the approaching traffic allowed. Many wound down their windows for a better look; some smiled, others waved. He seemed to be listening to music. His head was tipped back slightly, his eyes were closed and I thought I would be able to slip by un-noticed. I had very quickly grown accustomed to not thinking about my life; I was happy to just drift along on its current. I didn’t want my eyes opening, so I kept them down and hummed to the music in my head.
He was speaking to me. I could sense his voice rather than hear it, but I couldn’t ignore it. I removed just one headphone, as if only half-hearing him would allow me to retain some degree of disassociation, and looked towards him. “Lorelei,” he said. “Great track. I heard you coming.” “You can’t have done,” I said, as if it made any difference. I was certain I had expunged all Wishbone Ash from my ancient i-pod, although to be honest, it always had a mind of its own, but I had somehow been totally oblivious to what I was listening to until he spoke. “Don’t suppose you’ve got my petrol can with you,” he said. “You’ve run out of fuel?” “I guess so. The little hand is pointing towards ‘E’.” “Well, as you can see, I don’t happen to have your can with me now…” I was aware that I was sounding like a precocious child. Mentally I slapped my own face and reminded myself not to be such an arse. It didn’t usually work, but it was worth a try. “You’re right outside a petrol station,” I said. “We can get some there. They’ll lend us a can I bet.” He jumped down from the bonnet and together we walked towards the petrol station kiosk. It was then that a thought struck me. “It is your car, I suppose…” “What?” He looked at me as if reflecting on a question he had never been asked to consider before. “The car,” I looked over my shoulder. “The car you were sitting on. Over there. You said you had run out of petrol. It is yours I presume, the car?” “Of course.” He looked hurt. I relaxed. “Well…” I tensed again. “In as much as anything can be said to truly belong to anyone.” I turned to look directly at him. “Do you actually own it?” I said. “Is it yours?” “Yes,” he said. “Almost certainly.” “Almost certainly?” “To all intents and purposes.” “Look, before we go in there – it is surrounded by CCTV cameras by the way – and ask to borrow a petrol can in order to buy some petrol and put it into that car, I need to know that it is yours to drive.” “Why would I buy petrol for a car that isn’t mine?” “Is it yours?” “No.” I started to walk away. “But it’s mine to drive. I have all the paperwork, insurance, all that kind of thing. Would you like to see it?” “Is it yours?” He stroked his beard with his hand, ruffled his hair a little, pulled on a twisted cuff. “If I say yes?” “I would ask to see the papers.” “Ah, I have those.” I turned to walk back towards the car. “But I don’t have them with me.” “What’s going on?” I asked. “Is this some kind of set-up? Am I going to be arrested as an accessory? Is the car full of drugs or something? Just tell me whether it’s yours to drive… legally.” “Legally?” “Legally.” “Legally it is mine to drive. I have a licence, I have paperwork, I have insurance, I have keys.” He showed me the keys. “I have run out of petrol – you know what that’s like – but I don’t have a friend with a petrol can.” Shamefaced I pushed open the kiosk door and he followed me through. “…And I don’t have any money…”
It didn’t actually matter. The tooth-picking, spot-squeezing little shit behind the counter wouldn’t lend us a petrol can and he didn’t have one he could sell us. “The car’s just there,” he said. “Why don’t you just push it in?”
The bearded man smiled at me and without a word we left the kiosk. Back at the car he climbed into the driver’s seat and I was relieved to see that the key fitted the ignition. “Will you be ok to push?” he asked. I nodded and pushed. After a few yards I had gained enough momentum to trundle the car up the slight slope and onto the forecourt, from where it coasted down to a pump. He jumped from the car and I felt that little prickle of doubt again as he searched for the petrol cap. “The other side,” I said. “Of course.” He shook his head. “Never can get used to that. How much should I put in?” “Fill it up,” I said. “I still owe you.”
The youth in the kiosk did not look up from his paper. “What pump?” he said. I looked through the kiosk window. There was only one car on the forecourt. The driver had holstered the pump and was climbing back into the driver’s seat. “Three,” I said. “Ten pounds,” he said. “Ten pounds? Are you sure?” “Pump three?” he asked with exaggerated patience, as if he was speaking to a child. I nodded. “Ten pounds,” he said. I gave him a ten pound note and went out to the car. The passenger side door was already open for me. I climbed in and we pulled away. “You hadn’t run out of fuel had you?” “Apparently not,” he said. “Gauge must be faulty or something.” He flicked it with his finger and it twisted round to ‘F’. “There,” he said. “I’ll have to get that looked at.” “But the car wouldn’t have stopped just because the petrol gauge said empty,” I said. “I mean, if there was still petrol in the tank, it would have still been going, so why did you stop? Why were you sitting there?” “I was waiting for you.” “But you didn’t know I was coming. You couldn’t know I was coming… How did you know I was coming?” “‘Lorelei’,” he said. “You couldn’t have heard that.” “I had it on the car stereo. It made me think about you.” He pressed a button and the song filled the car. “But you said you were waiting for me. Why there?” “If I’d waited somewhere else,” he said with infinite patience, “You wouldn’t have been there. Besides, you were looking for me.” “No, I wasn’t… well, I was… for a while… but then I wasn’t. I was going to return your petrol can, but I never seemed to see you. To tell the truth, things have been a little strange. I threw it in the shed…” “Oh well,” he said. “Never mind. There’s always time. Sometime we’ll all be together, same place, same time; you me and the petrol can.” I suddenly felt very sorry for myself. “Things are just… difficult sometimes,” I said. “Things get better,” he said. “Mostly.” “Some things are just destined to be broken,” I said. “Can’t always mend the things we’ve broken,” he said. “But we can learn to live without them and in the end we learn to live with the knowledge that we at least had them in the first place. Sometimes you just move on. Where you heading?” he asked. I wondered if it was some deep, philosophical enquiry. “Why?” “Just wondered where you wanted me to drop you off.” “Oh, I see. Well, I was going to work.” “Ah good.” The car stopped. I didn’t have to look to know where I was. “How lucky was that?” he said. “But how did you know that’s where I was going? How did you even know where I work?” He shook his head as if bemused. “I don’t.” He said. “How lucky was that?” I stepped out and he started to pull away at once. I thought of all the things I wanted to ask him: every single one forgotten. Oh well, they could wait, I suppose. Until the next time. Except… “What’s your name,” I shouted through the open, departing window. “I don’t know your name?” “You do,” he said as he slipped away into the traffic wafting ‘Lorelei’ behind him…
You shone out of the darkness The light in your eyes. I could not help myself I did not want to try.
(‘Lorelei’ – Wishbone Ash – Written by Leiber & Stoller)
First published 14.11.20 under the title “A Little Fiction – Lorelei (Conversations with a Bearded Man, part 4)
EMASCULATE a) To castrate b) to deprive of strength or vigour; weaken. Well, it would, wouldn’t it? Emasculation is of limited use as a weapon for the DIY subversive, particularly the males, who are unlikely to have the stomach for it. I am sure that most of us could make up a very long list of those who should have been emasculated – fathers mostly – before the damage was done. If you truly believe that the man next door is about to spawn the devil’s child (although exactly how that might be possible, I’m not entirely certain) or a future politician, you may consider this a justifiable course of action. I would urge you to consider the following: is defeating the anti-Christ really the role of a subversive? Wouldn’t it be better left to someone with religious convictions¹? Why not contact the local vicar and inform him / her of your suspicions? It will certainly provide relief from the usual diet of ox-coveting and offer a subject for a sermon that almost certainly has not been covered by that other lot up the road. If you are fortunate enough to have one of the keener vicars, they may even consider blessing the Stanley knife for you, although it is most unlikely that they will carry out the act themselves.
You may be able to ‘accidentally’ disclose your suspicions to members of the WI in an ‘unguarded moment’, adding that the person you suspect is also single, has six children by six separate married women and almost certainly votes Labour – that should do it. Never leave your address.
Unless heavily sedated, the victim is almost certain to put up significant resistance². Even those rendered insensible by alcohol or drugs are likely to kick up a bit of a fuss when they realise what you are about to do with the knife, the bowl and the Marigolds. Do you have sufficient equipment to restrain a desperate man? Gaffer tape does not come cheap, and you can’t really trust the stuff you usually buy from Poundland, when it’s not even strong enough to hold the broken zip together on your trousers.
Are you yourself strong enough to control a violent victim³?
Are you planning a single-hack emasculation or a total removal? If you’re planning a full castration, you will probably need a really big box of plasters.
What will you do with the victim once the appendage has been removed? You’ve watched a great many films – alone, of course – and you know all about staunching bleeding with the application of hot tar or by setting fire to gunpowder, but you can’t expect your victim just to shake your hand and wander off to pursue his hormone-lite life without a by-your-leave. You could perhaps leave him in the care of an isolated order of Dominican monks – the kind that would kill him if he tried to escape or, failing that, you could remove his tongue. He may even prefer that to the emasculation itself. You are nothing if not compassionate – why not give him the choice?
What will you do with the appendage once removed? Do you have a cat? Is he / she a fussy eater? If your cat is likely to turn its nose up at this additional source of protein, try next door’s dog – anything that will eat three week-old fox poop is almost certain to relish a freshly severed member. If you have gone for a total castration, you could leave it to dry for a few days before selling it to the hippy couple down the street as some kind of traditional African maraca.
Not, incidentally, convictions for holding religious convictions, which are all too easy to get in some of the world’s most ‘enlightened’ nations and may, indeed, lead to emasculation – probably with something blunt and rusty.
It may be wise to reconsider if he does not.
This is a rhetorical question and, as such, does not require an answer. If you are the kind of pedant who, none-the-less, requires one, it is ‘No’.
We had two pubs on our estate. One was called The Screaming Susan* after a local stream that apparently made such a noise in flood (although by our time all it actually did was gently gurgle through the discarded bits of bike frame, bedsteads, dog shit and assorted household detritus deposited in it by local families who were never able to get themselves out of bed in time for the bin-men) and the other was called The Croquet Lawn. (I realise that this is a really bad choice of pseudonym as nobody from our estate would have even heard of croquet – except in relation to those little cylinders of breadcrumbed mashed potato made by Birds Eye – let alone played it. They would, however have been overjoyed when the developers built a pub on the posh folks lawn.) One had an off-licence, one had a ‘concert room’ and both had more Saturday night fights than you could shake a stick at. The pubs operated in tandem, catering for the liquid needs of a poor estate’s working class inhabitants, but their customer-base was super-faithful: nobody, to my memory, used both pubs. Susan drinkers would occasionally visit the Croquet on special occasions (weddings, christenings, prison releases) but generally bipartisanship was frowned upon.
We lived just across the road from The Susan – the more notorious of the two, and the one that the police closed down most often. It had an off-licence to which I was sent with two bob for two bottles of stout for my dad and a packet of crushed crisps for my trouble (one penny, instead of the normal, uncrushed three-pence.) It was the place to which we returned our (or anybody else’s we could lay our hands on) deposit paid Coola Cola and Tizer bottles in order to raise the cash for Bazouka Joe bubble gum and coloured matches. (An ordinary box of matches with flames that burned in different colours: the poor-boy’s fireworks.)
Weekend fights were the norm. Weekday scores were ritually settled after a few ‘bevvies’ were consumed. Strangers went unmolested as threat-laden stares and long brooding silences were generally sufficient to drive them out. An abiding memory is of laying a-bed on a Saturday night listening to the raised voices – loudest amongst them usually weekday, mouse-like housewives – wrangling their way home. Fights between the men were settled ‘there and then’ whilst disputes between the women could drag on for decades. If it is possible for a fight to be more innocent, then the encounters between the men at that time were just so. They stopped as soon as one of the protagonists ‘hit the ground’: it was not the signal for everyone else to join in. The loser was usually bloodied, but not in need of emergency care.
In the end it wasn’t notoriety that ‘did for’ the two neighbourhood pubs (notorious though they undeniably were) it was the demise of the neighbourhood per se. ‘Family’ men started doing ‘family things’ in their spare time. Glass-strewn tarmac car parks did not really cut it as ‘family gardens’. The Susan was the first to go, ironically – given the number of misappropriated cars that were found in flames on its car park over the years – replaced by a Fire Station. The Croquet hung on much longer; the treasured ‘concert room’ allowing it to become more of a ‘family pub’ e.g. the landlord was an ex-boxer and fighting in his pub was severely frowned upon, but in the end, neither of them could resist the march of time.
The Croquet Lawn stood derelict for many years, amidst constantly swirling rumours of redevelopment as a bona fide ‘family pub & restaurant’, but reputations linger and boarded-over doors and windows, crumbling brickwork and gently sliding roof tiles told of the developer’s true intentions. Eventually it was demolished and the estate, losing what remained of its heart, gained a shiny new drive-thru coffee franchise.
The days of building a pub (let alone two) with an estate are long-gone. I remember as a child visiting relatives and watching them raze Hulme (in Manchester) to the ground, casting members of my extended family to the four corners of the city in the process, demolishing lives along with the horribly derelict houses: nothing but flattened redbrick as far as the eye could see, except for an untouched and proudly erect church and pub. They rebuilt the estate out of ticky-tacky, then they demolished the pub and boarded up the church. The whole, heartless pre-fabricated neighbourhood became a combat zone**. Families were desperate to get out as drug gangs were moved in. Coloured matches were only ever used to light Molotov Cocktails. There was no more Saturday night fighting because nobody dared to come out of their houses after dark – and anyway, nobody took back Tizer bottles any more…
*Names have been changed for no particularly strong reason. **They have since knocked it down and rebuilt (again) with some success – although no pub.
Don’t give me none of your aggravation I’ve had it with your discipline Saturday night’s alright for fighting Get a little action in… Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting – Elton John (John/Taupin)
Of course, you need to do something after retirement don’t you?
Plan one was to make a list of all the things that needed doing around the house. It was great fun and I fully enjoyed it. I used a pen and some paper, walked around quite a lot and made notes. I think that my wrist probably got a week’s exercise there and then. Of course I knew that the paper could be recycled, so I was able to ‘file’ that afterwards, but I was less certain about the pen. Fortunately it didn’t run out so I was saved the decision, which was good…
Plan two was to tighten all the screws in the house. I knew from my list that I needed more than one screwdriver as I had seen screw heads of many different shapes, styles and sizes (sometimes all fixing the same shelf) and I was keen to ensure that all were catered for. Eventually I decided that in practice a single chisel would actually do the trick for them all, and subsequently I moved around the house in a logical fashion tightening every screw I came across. Whenever I encountered difficulty with a cross-head screw I was able – using the flat side of a spanner I had found – to hammer a slot head into it using the chisel which I then used to check for tightness. My trusty tube of superglue (always in my pocket, because that’s where it leaked, frankly) proved essential each time I attempted to tighten the screws holding plastic light switches. I have instructed my wife to always wear rubber-soled shoes when turning lights on.
A short rest took me through to Thursday afternoon the following week and plan three, when I decided to water the plants that are scattered about the house. First task was to differentiate between those that were green at the top and those that were brown at the top and furry at the bottom. I discovered that when I lifted the pots containing the latter variety, the top fell off at ground level. I presume that this might be some kind of evolutionary defence against cruising herbivores. Also, I now know where all the woodlice are coming from. Irrespective of type, I decided to water them all in the same manner e.g. by pouring water into the top of the pot until it poured out of the bottom and fused the electric sockets. Normally, of course, I would then have dried the power points with a hairdryer, but having no power I instead kept flicking the RCD until it stopped going bang. I decided against tightening the screws on the fuse box as I have no life insurance.
I am very aware that the key to a healthy retirement is exercise, so (plan four) I decided to do some sit-ups. I started by sitting up to watch three consecutive episodes of The Night Agent before, conscious that I might be over-doing it, I watched a further three laying down. At this time I also performed a large number of burpees – I’m sorry, burps, I mean burps. I regulated my hydration by drinking beer and wee-ing regularly, in the course of which I was often forced to walk several steps at a time.
Diet is, of course, an important factor in living a hale dotage. I understand that it is important, for instance, that you do not eat too much chocolate, but I also know that you can never eat too much chocolate. It is important to retain balance.
Furthermore, I recognise the importance of little steps to fitness and to that end I have refrained from changing the batteries in the TV remote which now needs quite a prolonged prodding before being effective. Similarly I have located a very blunt fork which greatly increases the effort required to puncture the film on a ready meal. I have moved the chair some two metres from the microwave. I eat with a smaller spoon.
All in all I feel that I can now look forward to a long and healthy retirement full of life-enriching pastimes, healthy food, brain and body exercise and companionship – as soon as I have house-trained the woodlice. I will not be standing still – unless I have a wall to lean on – but forging forward with the rest of my life in the knowledge that, although it is impossible to defeat ‘the fall’, it is possible to make a controlled descent. Ultimately, we all encounter the same end, so we might as well enjoy the journey and pad up for the landing…
(Better take care) Think I better go, better get a room Better take care of me (Again and again) I think about this and I think about personal history… Never Get Old – Bowie
The bus was just as buses always are on rainy winter evenings: hot and steamy, filled with the smell of impatience and anxiety, damp dogs and incubated dust, perspiration and yesterday’s kebab. It was approaching full and I was, as usual, trying to look large enough to fill both halves of the seat without actually spreading myself over the entire thing – that would be rude. I focussed briefly on each person as they walked down the aisle, beaming out my telepathic message, “Don’t sit here, sit elsewhere,” vaguely aware of how uneasy I would be if I turned out to be the last person that anyone chose to sit next to: the last person with a seat to himself – the public transport pariah – the man with whom not even the unwashed neurotic would choose to sit. Behind me, a child was rhythmically kicking the seat, sending tremors through my backbone like juddering metrical tics. I should have turned and asked his mother to make him stop, but she was in a deep and shouted mobile telephone conversation with somebody called Tiff, about the lacklustre nature of her sex life and I had the feeling that any attempt to communicate would inexorably lead to accusations of a nature that would drive me, red-faced from the bus and out into the translucent sheets of freezing rain outside. In front of me two teenage girls carried out a yelled conversation, each struggling to be heard above the tinny cacophony of the friend’s still-playing i-pod. I thought of Ray Bradbury, his little ‘Seashells’ and decided that, were he not already dead, I would kill him for that one. Somewhere, someone was eating cheese and onion crisps.
“Like research labs for observers of human perversity aren’t they?” said the man at my side. I hadn’t noticed anyone sit beside me, but I knew that when I turned to reply, it would be to an elegant, lean and hirsute man, with whom I had spoken only twice before. “Buses, I mean,” he said. “All human life is here. If alien life-forms really do visit this planet of ours, they could learn all they would ever need to know of human nature by beaming up the 5.30 North Circular.” “I’m sorry,” I was trying hard not to splutter, “I didn’t know you were there. I didn’t see you get on. I didn’t feel you sit down…” He held out a white paper bag. “Pear drop?” “Thanks.” I took one, popped it in my mouth and sat back. “I have your petrol can,” I said. “Do you?” he said, looking down at my feet. “Well, not with me of course, but I still have it.” “Right,” he said. “Good.” “I need to let you have it back.” “Do you?” He looked out of the window. “Well,” he said. “Don’t worry then. You will.” “When?” “Oh, we’ll see…”
We sat in silence for some time sucking mutely on the fossilized concoction of sugar and chemical something-or-other. “Always seem so full of lonely people, buses, don’t you think?” “Well, yes, I suppose so,” I said. “But, to be honest, most of them deserve to be lonely don’t they?” “Do you think people are ever truly happy alone,” he asked. “I thought I would be.” “But you’re not? “Not always.” “When are you not?” “When I’m alone…” Odd, I’d never thought about it before. I loved not having to worry about anyone else, pleasing just myself, being alone, but only while I was in company – at work, in the pub, watching the football – when I was alone I felt, well, alone. I was quite happy to sit in silence when I was in company, but when I was alone I had to have the sound of music or the TV or often both. Meals for one are so bloody boring. Eating straight from the foil container is sad. Drinking straight from the bottle is sad. Waking up at three thirty in the morning with an empty wine bottle in your hand and your face in a half finished chicken vindaloo is sadder. You could judge how long a person had been single, by the strength of the take-away curry they bought. By the time they were eating phaal, they had given up on ever having friends again. And yes, I still thought of sad, lonely people as ‘they’ and never ‘me’. “What about you?” I asked. “Me?” “Are you happy? Are you alone?” “It’s hard to be alone. It’s easy to be happy.” “So, are you?” “Alone or happy?” “Both.” “Yes,” he paused as if trying to decide. “Both,” he said. “Sometimes both. Sometimes neither. When I’m alone it is because I choose to be alone, when I’m happy it is because I choose not to be alone. Everyone deserves the everyone they get,” he said. “But you, you need a friend, I think.” “I’ve got friends.” “Any that don’t see friendship as weakness?” He smiled and held out the paper bag as he rose to his feet. “Have another,” he said. “This is my stop.” He moved towards the aisle and as he did so he indicated the two teenagers in front who had fallen into silence, the music clearly audible from their earphones, a song I had known for years. “‘Everybody Needs A Friend,’” I said. “Exactly,” he said and was gone.
First published 05.09.20 under the title “A Little Fiction – A Further Further Excerpt from a Different Unfinished Novel”
In the hope that sufficient time has elapsed since the first few chapters of this little guide stirred up such remarkable apathy…
EAR The organ of hearing. The external part of which can be removed with relative ease (compared, for instance, to little finger, thumb or nose) and sent to relatives in a jiffy bag. Blood loss is minimal, as is the effect on auditory sensation, although earring wearing may become a bit of an issue and the amputee may have to address the problem of his spectacles constantly sliding diagonally across his face.
EARLY Before the usual or appointed time; ahead of time. It is a good idea to make it your business never to be early for anything, unless it has a free buffet.
EARNINGS Money earned; wages. Well, I must admit, I was fairly unfamiliar with the verb to earn, but, according to my little dictionary I find that it means to ‘acquire through merit’. Unfortunately, being equally unfamiliar with the word merit, I was forced to look that up as well. Merit, apparently means, ‘claim to respect and praise’, which, I must admit is something I have never encountered in all my years of subversion.
EAVESDROP To listen secretly to a private conversation. You might as well – you’re unlikely to ever have one of your own.
EDIFICATION Morally or spiritually uplifting improvement or enlightenment. The kind of thing that many Americans pay one third of their income for, only to discover that the humble man-of-God to whom they paid it, has emigrated to the Bahamas upon discovering that he has, apparently, misread the signs and turquoise, shell-suited Gods are actually extremely unlikely to descend to earth aboard a cigar-shaped silver craft on this, or indeed any other, Thursday teatime.
EDUCATION The process of imparting or acquiring knowledge or skill. Well now, this is an impossibly huge and alien concept for the subversive, so I will tackle it in two parts:
a) Knowledge –
the sum of what is known. So, what is known? Well, that depends upon where you’re sitting, doesn’t it? I once met a man who could recite pi to the thousandth place, but didn’t know how to tie his own shoelaces. I know what I have tucked away in my belly-button, but I very much doubt that anyone else will want to. Einstein was the most intelligent man who ever lived, but did he know how much fart-powder should be added to the tea urn at the women’s institute meeting on Thursday mornings to produce the most devastating effect?¹ A great deal of knowledge is totally surplus to requirements unless you aim to make a living out of winning pub-quizzes and, in fact, you will never win a pub quiz by knowing anything of any significance whatsoever.
sexual intercourse (archaic). Intriguingly, used in this context, the word is almost always accompanied by the word carnal, which, as we all know, means fleshy, which just goes to show why it’s no fun being a supermodel.
b) Skill – ability to perform a task, especially when acquired by training. So, it stands to reason that if you have a particular skill, based upon many hours of practice and selfless devotion, possibly behind closed doors, you are per se ‘educated’. Now we all understand why boys get such a particular education at public school don’t we? That kind of skill would have got me a clipped ear as a boy, not to mention the threat of incipient warts and blindness. But let’s face it, the fact that we can exhibit our education through the ability to pick our toenails at the dinner table is a great thing and an achievement that can only serve to narrow the class divide in our country.
1. The answer is almost certainly ‘Yes,’ isn’t it? The man was a bona fide genius. It is possible that he knew more than my mother.
EGO When your ‘girlfriend’ sighs ‘God, you’ve got a big one…’ this is what she is talking about.
ELECTION Selection of a person or persons for office by vote. Unless you are in an unusually democratic gang of one, this is highly unlikely ever to happen to you. If you choose to try and follow this path, might I recommend local politics to you. The turnout for local elections is traditionally below 40%, the winning candidate might be one of eight or nine¹, which, by my calculations, means that you can win an election with the support of substantially less than 5% of the electorate. In certain rural constituencies, this might be bought with little more than a decent size bag of sheep-nuts.
1. Conservative, Labour, SDP, Green, Various Independents (including single issue candidates), Monster Raving Loonies, UKIP, Reform UK, EDL (First four listed in order of wealth and the rest in order of sanity).
EMAIL Method of writing, sending and instantly regretting messages.
Getting On 