Five More Minutes in the Car

I’m fascinated by characters that slowly reveal themselves through nothing more than conversation. These two people first appeared in Five Minutes in the Car back in July 2022. I stumbled across them a few days ago and decided that I would like to revisit…

“…So, do you think it’s possible that Einstein could have been wrong about things?”
“What kind of things?”
“Well, he said that energy could neither be created nor destroyed didn’t he?”
“Possibly, yes.”
“So he can’t ever have seen you on a Saturday night.”
“Once, just once I fell to sleep during ‘Strictly’.”
“I mean, I look at you and I believe that energy can obviously be destroyed. You are like a vigour shredder. Someone has taken the second ‘o’ out of your oomph.”
“Omph? I don’t understand.”
“Exactly… and if he claims that it can’t be created either, then where did it come from in the first place?”
“Weetabix?”
“It will be the Big Bang I suppose. That’s the problem with Einstein: everything’s boils down to the Big Bang.”
“I remember I went with you to the cinema once to watch Fifty Shades of Gray. That definitely sapped all of my energy.”
“Well, let’s be fair, most of it went over your head, didn’t it?”
“All I know is that if I approached your nipples with two giant paper clips, the reception would be less than welcoming.”
“You have a valid argument there.”
“Anyway, the point is, I went in full of energy and came out two hours later without even the will to live, so where did all the energy get to?”
“You chewed a lot of popcorn.”
“I yawned a lot. I held my head in my hands…”
“I think that just illustrates what Einstein said doesn’t it? Energy doesn’t disappear, it just changes.”
“Into acute embarrassment?”
“Well… Look, we’re driving along now right, which uses a lot of energy.”
“Ok.”
“But that energy isn’t actually lost, it’s just changed.”
“Into what?”
“Well, overwhelmingly into tedium when I’m with you.”
“No, come on. Be serious: I’m interested. Energy drives the car along right, I get that. So where does it get to after that?”
“It’s turned into friction.”
“Friction?”
“Yes friction. It makes the tyres get warm.”
“…A bit of a waste isn’t it?”
“What?”
“All that energy just to make the tyres warm. You could just do it with a hair dryer.”
“But that wouldn’t get us to the Supermarket.”
“My point entirely.”
“Look, if you rub two surfaces together, it takes energy doesn’t it?”
“Right.”
“But it creates friction.”
“Right.”
“And that…”
“… makes car tyres warm apparently… Do you know, I think you might be right.”
“Do you? I mean, you do?”
“Yes, I think that Einstein bloke was obviously an idiot.”
“Wow! That’s going to rattle a few academic cages. Let’s just take a minute here and discuss your evidence.”
“Well… O.K… Right… Boiling the water to make a cup of tea on a Sunday afternoon; that uses a lot of energy doesn’t it?”
“According to British Gas it certainly does.”
“And when we drink the tea?”
“We watch a film and fall asleep.”
“Yes! So, where has all that energy gone?”
“Into snoring, in your case… and farting.”
“Oh come on, that takes no effort at all. Look, just suppose that we’re right and he got it all wrong about energy, he could be wrong about everything else as well.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know… Gravity! What if he was wrong about gravity?”
“Well, I don’t think it was him that actually invented gravity. Wasn’t that Isaac Newton: an apple on the head and all of that? I suppose when you come to think about it, he could probably have sued someone…”
“Oh… Ok, not gravity. So what else did Einstein actually come up with then?”
“The Theory of Relativity.”
“Like genes and all that?”
“No, like the Speed of Light.”
“What do you mean?”
“Einstein calculated the Speed of Light.”
“The Speed of Light? Surely that would depend.”
“On what?”
“Well, whether it was fast light or slow light.”
“Is there such a thing?”
“Yes, of course. The light on the front of an aeroplane goes much faster than that on the front of a bicycle. It stands to reason.”
“Right. I’m not sure that…”
“So did he say anything else then, Einstein, did he have any other great ideas?”
“Well, he said about the Big Bang, the origins of the Universe, all of that…”
“Right, so the Big Bang, I know about that. Everything stated with one almighty explosion, is that what he said?”
“In principle, yes, I think so.”
“So where did the energy come from?”
“The energy?”
“To make the Big Bang. Where did the energy come from? There was nothing before it, right? And according to him energy can neither be created nor destroyed, so where did it come from?”
“Well, it must always have been there I suppose.”
“Before the Big Bang?”
“Yes.”
“The same Big Bang that created everything?”
“…What’s your alternative?”
“I don’t know. A Supreme Being?”
“God?”
“Possibly.”
“So what was there before God?”
“Nothing.”
“Must have been very boring for him.”
“How do you know it was a ‘him’?”
“How much sense does the Universe make to you?”
“It’s very complicated.”
“And serves very little purpose.”
“I see… Anyway, I suppose he had a lot of time on his hands.”
“So he created energy?”
“Yes, obviously.”
“From what?”
“I don’t know… God stuff…”
“I see, so, just before we give Brian Cox a ring and explain that his whole life is a pathetic sham, what exactly is our position on Einstein’s Theory of relativity?”
“What?”
“You know, E=MC².”
“What does that even mean?”
“Well, ultimately it means that half a dozen egotistical old men have enough power at their fingertips to destroy the whole world a hundred times over.”
“Well, let’s hope that he was wrong about that as well then… Have you got any mints?…”

Probably a couple of things I should explain here. In the UK British Gas also supplies electricity and there are two famous Brian Cox’s: one is a great actor and the other is a heart-throb astrophysicist – I don’t know which is which…

Waiting for the Big One

Nothing to do with this post, but who could resist that face?

There are times when I know that I am not very good and there are things that I know that I am not very good at. There are also things that I’m ok at, but nothing that I could honestly say I am great at. In most ways I am bang in the middle of ‘average’: pretty shit in general but tries hard. Seldom in life’s first eleven, but might make a decent mascot.

Thankfully, I am untroubled by high aspirations, otherwise my low achievements would be exceedingly disappointing. I suppose that how poor I am depends largely on how good others expect me to be. Like all wannabe writers I have always considered myself to be one lucky break away from totally smashing success. Like all realists I have always known that it was never actually going to happen. My wife, who has always looked on over my small triumphs, continues to believe that something is waiting around the corner for me, whilst I am old enough to realise that if it was ever there, it has got bored and buggered off back home long ago.

Now, before I lay myself open to accusations of false modesty or fishing for compliments, I should point out that I do know what I am capable of (not being grammatically correct, obviously) and I do believe that I have written many things through the years that were deserving of that break, but I also know that, at my age, it is no longer waiting for me. The media is on a never-ending search for the new and that, in their collective heads, cannot possibly be provided by a sixty year old. The biggest obstacle to success for me has always been me. I’m very good at getting things done; I’m very poor at doing anything about it. I’ve never adapted well to futility.

Does that sound like I’m giving up, because I’m really not? There is no life without hope, but it is very liberating to be able to decide to write exactly what I feel like writing, exactly when I feel like writing it. I rarely plan anything beyond toilet breaks and I seldom know where I’m going when I start. What would be the point in that? What flaps around between my ears is all my own, so I choose when to use it and how, although I do usually manage to turn up with something when asked. I’m always thrilled when people read what I have to say, even more so if they say they’ve enjoyed it.

I admit that on this platform I have found myself exasperated over the years by my inability to get more readers, but I do absolutely nothing to help myself: no social media, no self-promotion, no research, no attention-grabbing titles, no idea of what people want to read… just wittering on and stories. I genuinely love being part of this little ‘community’. I consider many of you to be friends (not you obviously) even though we have never met and it is a joy to read about your lives. That you allow me to bore you with mine is a real bonus. I continue to be ‘up’ for writing anything that interests me – so if your local village magazine requires an ageing agony aunt or an astrologist (as long as that’s the made-up future predictions tosh and not the thing with the planets – even my imagination does not stretch that far) just let me know. I’ll think of something, even if it’s not very good…

Waiting for the big one
One too many, where ego I go too
Looking for the real thing
It don’t come from what I do… Waiting for the Big One – Peter Gabriel

N.B. not for the first time, I had a little hiccup when scheduling this piece. If you’ve seen it before, no matter how fleetingly, I apologise for my astonishing ineptitude.

I’m a Believer

Here I am, listening to The Definitive Monkees – a musical rollercoaster of a CD: a collection that is filled with more than its fair share of complete clunkers (even David Gates and Goffin & King managed to chip in with a couple of songs that I am sure they would prefer to forget) but also a few absolute gems. I think it is pretty widely known that apart from the lead vocals (an early contractual agreement stated that only one actual Monkee could appear on any single Monkees recording) the early songs were actually performed by Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart who also wrote many of them, but who cares – listen to some of these tracks and you have a short, but perfect, snap of the schoolboy sixties:
(Theme from) The Monkees
Last Train to Clarksville
I’m A Believer (Neil Diamond)
(I’m Not Your) Stepping Stone
A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You (Neil Diamond)
Randy Scouse Git – Known over here as ‘Alternate Title’ for some reason (Mickey Dolenz)
Pleasant Valley Sunday (Goffin/King)
Daydream Believer (John Stewart)
Valleri
Cuddly Toy (Harry Nilsson)
I’m not sure that Neil Diamond ever bettered those two songs and in Pleasant Valley Sunday – which did feature all four Monkees – Gerry Goffin and Carole King gave them a song that was thirty years ahead of its time, whilst a proto-Harry Nilsson’s Cuddly Toy managed to accompany a jaunty ‘showtime’ tune with the kind of dark, twisted lyric that would almost certainly struggle to find its way onto CBeebies today.

Nevertheless, we’re not talking the ground-breaking majesty of The Beatles here (who, if we count only the tracks on the Red and Blue compilation albums, boast 60+ such seminal tracks – all self-written) but a snap-shot of a time when as soon as somebody’s mum appeared at the door and the call rang out, everyone ran to whatever happened to be the nearest house to watch the show, generally provided with a glass of weak orange squash and a sugar sandwich. It really didn’t matter whose house you were in, everybody was watching the same thing and, the chances were, your own house would be full of somebody else’s kids anyway. Though special, even to the under-tens, The Beatles were altogether more grown-up, and not even Paul McCartney could inflame pre-pubescent female passions as readily as Davy Jones. There was little in this world that would draw me away from kicking a football around the streets in those days, but the Monkees seldom failed.

For most of us way-back-then, I think that to some extent the songs actually got in the way of the show’s anarchy: even the best of them simply interrupted the mayhem and, if we’re honest, Mickey Dolenz (the de-facto lead singer) was the least interesting of the four. I don’t think anybody ever grew up wanting to be a rock star because they’d seen The Monkees, but plenty wanted to be funny – or ‘daft’ as the less hip parents (daddio) were apt to say. I had no doubt that I was going to grow up daft – I had no allusions of a Rock God future – short blimps with red hair seldom drew the girls. (Let’s be honest, if Ed Sheeran had been forty years older, he still wouldn’t have been a Monkee.)

Those programs – and as I get older the few epoch-defining songs – bounce me right back to those days in a way that not even The Banana Splits can manage. It is a single sensation rather than a series of recollections. “Here they come, walking down the street…” and I do not remember being an eight year-old, I become one. My senses are those of a child, whilst my sensibilities are those that pass for adult. I’m not sure that I could even eat a sugar sandwich these days – and my doctor would definitely frown upon the alternative salt sandwich – I don’t have anything like as many scabs, but I do have rather more padding in the space between skin and bone. I can go days without needing someone to patch me back together.

Time changes us all in a million different ways, but essentially we remain the same. A good person will do what they think is right and a bad person will become a politician or, if sufficiently ruthless, an estate agent. I don’t know if there are fundamentally good people and bad people (if I’m honest, when I watch the news I see little evidence of good, though I do continue to believe in it) but I don’t think that a person’s nature actually changes much through life. Perhaps the way they regulate it does.

All I know is that back then, all I wanted to be was a Monkee and sometimes, when I listen to those songs, I still do…

Then I saw her face, now I’m a believer
Not a trace of doubt in my mind
I’m in love
I’m a believer, I couldn’t leave her if I tried… I’m a Believer – The Monkees (Neil Diamond)

Frankie & Benny #8 – Barry

“…Well, I’m pleased we went.”
“Yes, me too, I’m pleased we went.”
“I’m sure he appreciated it.”
“…Do you think he knew who we were?”
“He thought you were one of the staff; that’s why he asked you to empty his commode. He wouldn’t have done that if he’d remembered who you were, now would he?”
“I wouldn’t put it past him. He always had a strange sense of humour, Barry, I think that’s why nobody liked him… Would you visit me if I was in one of those places?”
“Of course. You owe me money.”
“Do I?”
“You don’t remember? Maybe we ought to go straight back and sign you in. Where do you keep your Will?”
“I don’t have a Will. I don’t have anything to leave – unless you want the Crinoline Lady off my spare toilet roll.”
“You have a spare toilet roll?”
“Anyway, I don’t owe you money, do I?”
“Have you got any?”
“On me? No.”
“Let’s hope we can find a pub that gives credit then, because it’s your round.”
“Francis, my dear friend, I always ensure that I maintain the pecuniary wherewithal to finance your sad alcohol dependence. I have my debit card in my wallet, an emergency ten pound note sewn into the hem of my trousers and, should all else fail, a lead-lined cosh in my pocket. Do not worry my friend, you shall not want for a tipple. And anyway, when have I ever missed my round?”
“What about last week?”
“Frankie, I was in bed with flu. You came round to mine and drank all four of the cans I had in the fridge and you ate all of my Blue Ribands.”
“I brought tea to your bedside.”
“Call that tea? It was like warm pish.”
“Honey and lemon, very good for you – at least, it would have been if you’d had any honey in…”
“…Or lemon…”
“…Or lemon.”
“So, what was it then?”
“Golden syrup and Oxo. I had to improvise.”
“You thought that you’d cure me with sweetened gravy?”
“At least I came to see you.”
“And you ate all my sausages!”
“They were going off.”
“I’d only bought them the day before.”
“Well you should have taken them back, they were horrible.”
“Really? What was the sell-by date on them?”
“Who looks at sell-by dates? You can smell if things are going off.”
“So they weren’t off then? Otherwise you wouldn’t have eaten them.”
“No, not off, just horrible. Where did you get them?”
“The corner shop.”
“You’ve been in Derek’s Bargain Bin again haven’t you? I told you, he just puts the crap out of his own fridge in there. No wonder you’ve been ill, eating all that stuff.”
“I didn’t eat it, did I? You did.”
“Yes, well I’ve always had a stronger constitution than you haven’t I? Even when we were kids, you were always the weakling.”
“I was not!”
“You were. You were never at school. Always wrapped up at home in bed, in your muffler.”
“My mum was just a bit over-cautious, what with my dad and everything.”
“Your dad?”
“Yes, and his chest.”
“Benny, there was nothing wrong with your dad’s chest. He was on the sick from 1955 to 1985 and I never once heard him cough. ‘Work-shy Wilf’ my dad used to call him. The only time he ever broke sweat was when he had to go and sign on.”
“He gave his life to that foundry. All that smoke got onto his chest, that’s what killed him.”
“Benny, he smoked sixty a day. I never once saw him without a fag on.”
“Can’t have helped, I’ll grant you…”
“Staying at home in bed, in the room directly above your dad had to be more unhealthy than going to school. Maybe you missed out on headlice, threadworm, measles, chickenpox and mumps, but laid up there, I’m surprised you didn’t turn into some kind of a kipper.”
“Well that’s as maybe, but I didn’t miss out on mumps did I?”
“Oh no, I forgot you caught that when you were eighteen didn’t you? You had a ball-bag like a bull elephant. You had to lie flat on your back for weeks. Your mam could never balance the breakfast tray on your bed…”
“Yes, well I’m pleased you find it amusing Frankie. It was a scary time.”
“Of course my friend, of course I understand. The fear of not being able to have children…”
“I don’t think that ever bothered me. I was worried that I would never be able to wear the new flares I had just bought. They had a button fly and very little in the way of non-essential space.”
“Yes, you always did like a tight trouser, didn’t you?”
“It was the fashion.”
“It might well have been the fashion, but I don’t think I ever saw you sit down for about six years.”
“Yes, well I’ve got over it now.”
“You certainly have.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Well, your trousers are exceedingly… accommodating these days, aren’t they?”
“I buy for comfort now.”
“Yes, you look as comfortable as a man twice your size.”
“Well, thank you for your sartorial input, Mr Versace… You didn’t answer me earlier. Would you visit me if I was in one of those places?”
“What makes you think that it won’t be you visiting me?”
“Well, granted that you’ve got a bit less ground to cover before you get there than me, but let’s just suppose…”
“Maybe we could both go ga-ga together.”
“Maybe we already have.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Well ok, take this bus, why are we sitting upstairs and why are we right at the front?”
“It’s what we always do.”
“Yes, but why?”
“I don’t know. Do we have to have a reason? It’s just what we always do isn’t it.”
“We used to come upstairs to smoke, like everybody else back then, nobody under fifty ever sat downstairs, I remember that, but why did we start sitting at the front? I don’t remember Frankie, do you?”
“No Benny, I don’t, but I don’t think that means we’re going senile either. Nobody remembers exactly why they do everything they do. It isn’t practical. Why do you always wipe your chin with a hankie before you eat?”
“I don’t… Do I? I didn’t even realise I did that.”
“My point is, Benny, you get to our age and it’s much more important that we remember what we have to do today than why we started doing something else God-knows-when.”
“And you think that’s all it is: knowing where we are and why we’re there?”
“As long as I can remember that it’s your round, I’ll be happy.”
“But what if it isn’t?”
“Then I’ll have to hope that you’ve forgotten.”
“…Do you remember when you realised that Barry wasn’t quite right?”
“Barry was never quite right.”
“Yes, I admit he was always a little bit… adjacent… I’ll give you that, but we didn’t notice when he started to change, did we?”
“Change? The thing is, we all change all the time don’t we.
“And?”
“Because it happens so slowly, you just don’t see it.”
“Like you reaching into your pocket at the bar?”
“Or you stumping up for a fish supper when it’s your turn of a Friday.”
“He kept forgetting names though didn’t he? Then he kept forgetting where he lived. Do you think we should have noticed sooner?”
“We all thought he’d had too much to drink.”
“To be fair, he normally had.”
“Yes, and if I’m honest, if I’d lived where he lived, I’d probably try to forget it too.”
“Not the best of housekeepers was he?”
“Generally speaking, flood did a better job.”
“Anyway, I’m pleased we went to see him.”
“Yes, me too.”
“We should raise a glass to him later.”
“Providing we remember…”
“Yes.”
“Do you know whether this bus turns round at the end of the route?”
“We’ve missed our stop, haven’t we?”
“Yes…”

First published 26.05.23

Peaches

I try to maintain a rhythm in my life and whilst others either sunbathe and read, or play Biff-Bat in the warm Andaman Sea, I lay and write. Two weeks on holiday requires six posts. They will not be published until after my return, but that’s how I work anyway. These holiday posts are always fragmentary – a couple of hundred words here, a dip in the sea, a leisurely lunch, a couple of hundred words there, a nap, a conclusion of sorts, all to be cobbled together on my return home – but today more so, because today we pack our bags for the journey home, but we don’t head home, we head instead for an airport hotel to ease our way into an early morning departure.

My handwriting, always less than calligraphically perfect, is a mish-mash of varying styles and legibility depending on writing stance and sobriety. I write additions to the lined text across every margin. I have more corrections than a minor public boy’s school. Should future scholars find this tatty little Exercise Book they will believe that, like the Rosetta Stone, each leaf contains a number of different languages forged by different hands. They will have a tough job of making sense of it: I write it and half the time I am unable to make head nor tail of it. At least, for you, it means that holiday posts tend to be a little shorter than normal – although not necessarily any more concise. Word Count appears to offer no limiting boundary to aimless wittering. The same prattle, fewer words.

I have just checked into my last fifteen minutes of gazing-out-to-sea time. A fevered period of attempting to stuff worn clothing into suitcases ill-equipped to deal with the volume will follow then a brief period of limbo before a ninety minute taxi ride to our overnight accommodation, around which my wife hopes to find shops and I hope to find a bar. (We found neither. The hotel was as clean and well-equipped as you would expect but placed in the middle of an industrial estate that was also home to a number of backpacker hostels. We found a 7/11, from which we bought snacks, and a bar with a barbecue that nobody considered safe to use. I have no idea who was responsible, but it was almost certainly me.)

I never feel ready for home at the end of a holiday. Home may be where the heart is, but it is also where the bills are, where the pipes have leaked or the tiles have blown off the roof. Home is where reality is: it is where you find out that whatever has occurred during your absence, you are not insured for it.

Don’t get me wrong here, I do realise that a holiday is not a holiday if it is permanent – my own body is crying out for some form of exercise that doesn’t end in beer – if a holiday becomes routine then, sooner or later, you will need a break from it. For most of us ‘holiday’ is such a small portion of our lives that we always find ourselves wishing that it could be a larger part. Going home is a vital part of any holiday. Returning to work and reality will put an end to all of that ‘r…e…l…a…x…’ nonsense. By the time you have driven from the airport you are as wired as a telephone exchange and not even the threat of unpacking can dent the expectation of freshly laundered clothes going back into the cases sometime soon.

My next holiday will be post-retirement, so I have no idea how I will feel about the whole business then. To holiday more is the retirement I planned for, but will holidays be the same when there is no work to escape from? Time will tell. Perhaps time on the beach will tell me even more…

Oh shit, there goes the charabanc!
Looks like I’m gonna be stuck here the whole summer
Well, what a bummer
I can think of a lot worse places to be
Like down in the streets or down in the sewer
Or even on the end of a skewer… Peaches – The Stranglers (Greenfield/Burnel/Duffy/Cornwell)

Holidays in the Sun

Warning: this post contains many unfounded, sweeping generalisations.

…A long day on a trip with multi-nationalities has just made me realise how different we all remain, and also that the three little words without which no British person could even function – ‘please’, ‘thank you’* and ‘sorry’ – appear to have no equivalent in a number of languages. I will not name races – insert your own – and I can understand why ‘queuing’ might be an alien concept to some (it is clearly a cultural thing) but not why ‘not queuing’ is actually an acceptable excuse for some to physically barge past those who choose to patiently wait their turn, in order to get what they want when they want it, without any admission that other people even exist. Most galling to we pathetic queuers is the absence of manners – a failure to even acknowledge that human interaction is vital. Even more infuriating when we are in a place where our hosts are very much more mannerly than even the most uptight of us. The world appears, quite suddenly, to be full of people who believe that they have the planet all to themselves. Anyway, breakfast over…

Multi-cultural groups are always an education. The guide will inevitably speak English which means they have a chance of being understood by almost everyone except Australians who have recently picked up the baton of wilfully ignoring everything they are told, doing everything they should not be doing, not doing everything they should. I am fully aware that I am from a nation that has for many years had the reputation of supplying the very worst of all travellers, but since we have learned that it is not entirely necessary to drink until we collapse, demand egg and chips for every meal, or consider our host nation as less important than our own, we are – I hope – no longer viewed as quite so bad. I have met many Australians and have always found them to be the very best of company – open, friendly and funny – but something seems to have happened since Crocodile Dundee. I have no doubt that this view is a grossly unjust oversimplification, based on a tiny group of people who have been massively rude to both staff and fellow holidaymakers, but it is clearly apposite. The gently mocking sarcasm of their conversation persists although no longer accompanied by a Shane Warne wink and smile, but a sneer instead.

Obviously we have just been unlucky with some of the company we have been keeping – quite surely they will be saying exactly the same thing about us – but I am saddened by it. Travel is meant to broaden the mind, not narrow the outlook, and surely nicking the very last breakfast doughnut from right under my nose is not part of that…

I dared to ask for sunshine, and I got World War Three,
I’m looking over the wall and they’re looking at me… Holidays in the Sun – The Sex Pistols

Look, I’m sure that I don’t have to explain that this piece is intended to be wholly ironical, but just in case, I will. I do try very hard not to be a complete twat…

*I realise that ‘thank you’ is two words, but only really because autocorrect keeps telling me so. You will have to excuse my inaccuracy. Thankyou.

The Ocean

My vision is folded – well demi-folded as only one contact lens has decided to jacknife in my eye – some distance away from a decent mirror and something with which to wash my fingers before poking them into my watering orbs. I’m not overly concerned, sooner or later I will blink and the offending lens will catapult itself forth, never to be seen (or see) again. My world will be hazy, but without a crease in it. At least an artificial one…

The way I see things has always been a little eccentric. My vision has always been a little bit like those mystery photographs of everyday objects you used to get in magazines (usually a corkscrew): I see the same as everybody else, but not necessarily in the same way.

Do you ever look at the horizon and wonder why, wherever you are, it remains in the same place and why if it doesn’t move, you can never touch it? Funny thing, the sea, don’t you think? It is fed billions of gallons of fresh water from rivers every day, yet it remains determinedly salty. Why? It can’t all be due to toddler wee. Conversely though, why are rivers not salty: they are made up from the same rain, they run over the same rocks (fundamentally) and the flow must make them every bit as astringent. I know – I believe – that climate change is causing sea levels to rise, but I am struggling to understand some basic principles. Thermodynamics are not my thing, but I’m pretty good at gin & tonic. I realise that ice-caps are melting, but I’ve seen ice melting in a full glass and it doesn’t overflow. I also know that the drink gets colder. If this is up-scaled, the oceans will not get higher but they will get colder. I might just have stumbled on the solution: the sea needs more gin.

The sea here is definitely warm, but I have no idea of whether it has always been that way. At home I live just a few minutes drive away from the east coast and the sea there is not warm. The sea is never warm. The Skegness foreshore is cold enough to cool the whole planet. People do swim there, but they are certifiably mad. There is no sane reason for entering water that is only survivable if you are covered in goose fat.

It is part of the human condition that we seek to create boundaries where none exist naturally. When I was at school there were five oceans (I think: my geographical knowledge has always been best described as ‘extremely dodgy’) Atlantic, Pacific, Indian, Arctic and Antarctic, but it’s all really just one body of water isn’t it? So, who decided to split it up and where to do it? Was it a few powerful nations saying ‘This is my fish. Go to another ocean to catch yours’, or is there some more scientific rationale – which would explain why I don’t know it?

In any case, it is hard to argue against the ocean itself being the mightiest of all powers. It is vast and its strength can be devastating. It will be the true ruler of the Earth until the Sun decides to throw in the towel and evaporates it all – and I won’t care by then as my view of the world will be exactly the same as everybody else’s…

But here comes the waves
down by the sea
Washing the eyes of the men
Who have died… The Ocean – Lou Reed

I am writing this piece whilst overlooking a section of coast that was devastated by the Boxing Day tsunami of 2004 which caused an estimated 165,000 deaths. Whilst here we have spoken to people who experienced the destruction and we have seen photographs that will haunt me forever. Today the sea is a vast aquamarine millpond and I hope for the sake of these beautiful people that it will long remain so.

Frankie & Benny #7 – The Cold

“…How many layers are you wearing under that coat Benny?”
“Why?”
“Four, five?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“You look like somebody’s pumped you up.”
“Well, you’ve got plenty on yourself.”
“Nothing special: vest, shirt, jumper, cardigan and hoodie – the same as I wear about the house. I just threw a coat on top to come out with you.”
“Your dressing gown belt is hanging below your coat.”
“…And a dressing gown.”
“Well, whatever. It’s cold, I’ll grant you that, but it’s nice to get a little bit of sun on the face isn’t it.”
“Drizzle.”
“Alright, if it makes you happy, it’s nice to get a little bit of drizzle on the face. It’s nice not to be looking at the same four walls.”
“Especially with your wallpaper.”
“What’s wrong with my wallpaper? I put that up myself.”
“How long ago, twenty years? Thirty?”
“Probably. About the same time you last bought new trousers.”
“What’s wrong with my trousers? They’re good trousers.”
“There’s nothing wrong with them Frankie. I like a good turn-up myself. And a button fly. How long does it take you to do that up in the morning?”
“If I’m honest I don’t normally bother unless I know I’ve got to go out.”
“…My wife chose that wallpaper, that’s why I’ve never changed it, since she… It’s the only time I’ve ever wallpapered.”
“It’s stayed up well, I’ll give you that. No sign of it peeling or anything.”
“So it should. It cost me a fortune in Bostick!”
“Bostick?”
“It was all they had at the corner shop. Everyone in the block was suffering hallucinations the week I put it up.”
“You made a good job of it though.”
“Until I ran out of paper.”
“Yes, well, always been the elephant in the room that one, hasn’t it. Couldn’t you have got some more?”
“They wanted me to buy a whole roll and I only needed one length. I always meant to push that old Tallboy in front of it, but…”
“…It’s hiding where you tried to plaster over the serving hatch.”
“So I’ve never bothered much since… Do you fancy a pasty?”
“What time is it?”
“Pasty time.”
“Ok then. We’ll walk through the park shall we, get one from the pub?”
“Why not? Nothing like a microwaved pasty and a pint of lager for warding off the cold.”
“What about a whisky?”
“Whisky? Are you paying?”
“Well, I have had a small win on the scratchcards.”
“Really? How small?”
“Enough for a whisky to accompany our pasties and, but not enough to put the fire on when we get back home.”
“Oh well, an hour in the pub then, and then an afternoon on the seat over the heater on the bus before we head home.”
“Are we at yours or mine tonight?”
“Mine I think – providing you do your buttons up.”
“I’ll probably put my onesie on.”
“You’ve got a onesie?”
“Yes. Well, it’s more of an overall if I’m honest. I kept it when I finished work.”
“That was fifteen years ago.”
“I knew it would come in… and since I spilled the tomato soup it matches my slippers.”
“Do you sleep in it?”
“Benny, I’m in my eighties. I sleep in everything.”
“So do you wear it over your clothes then?”
“Some of them, I mean, I don’t suppose you’ll be putting your heating on will you?”
“It depends on what you class as heating…”
“I’ll bring a blanket then, shall I?”
“A hot water bottle wouldn’t go amiss… and drop a tea bag in it. It’ll save boiling the kettle later.”
“I’ll bring those squashed Wagon Wheels* I got last week.”
“We’ll put a plastic bag over the smoke alarm and light a candle, that’ll warm things up.”
“I might have to take these plus-fours off though. I think I might be allergic to tweed and they might be just a bit too much even inside your flat… Still the bloody drizzle. I wish I’d put my balaclava on…”

*A chocolate covered marshmallow topped biscuit. When I was a child the advert used to go, ‘Wagon Wheels are the treat for me. They’re the biggest biscuit you ever did see.’ They have shrunk.

First published 15.02.23

On Every Street

I was persuaded, not entirely easily, that we should visit Patong as it was ‘just a few minutes’ away from where we were staying. The world famous Bangla Road (of which I had never heard) I was told, was a must see experience. Our lovely hotel, being somewhat reclusive and wise enough to be within walking distance of absolutely nowhere, did offer a twice-weekly courtesy bus, out at five and back at seven. If we enjoyed the experience we could stay to eat and taxi back instead. So, off we went…

The ten-minute bus journey actually took close on an hour, most of which was spent in the stationary traffic of a permanent rush hour, whilst thousands of mopeds flew by on both sides and across left to right and right to left and back to front… I am not a great fan of humanity en masse and outside the bus’s windows a large proportion of this poor benighted planet’s eight billion floated by.

Eventually we de-bussed in what appeared to be the bin-yard of a supermarket – probably the only place we could disassociate ourselves from the hubbub – and followed the river of humanity onto the traffic-free Bangla Road: a solid crush of tens of thousands of people and the noise of even more. Each bar (and there were many) had several board-bearing touts outside endeavouring to tempt the guileless in – ‘Single beer 70 bahts. Five for 350’ – bargain! I love live music and preferably loud, but within the confines of a relatively narrow street the cacophony of competing volumes was disorientating at best and at worst bloody annoying. The road consisted almost entirely of ‘Weed Shops’, ‘Massage Parlours’ and bars.

The bars had either live music playing or a line-up of scantily clad ‘ladies’ (many of which, even to my untrained eye, did not appear entirely female) dancing on the counters. These bars were generally populated by sweating, middle-aged men with a posture that cried out for massage. The massage parlours themselves had ‘open’ and ‘closed’ beds. On the open beds men (predominantly) were having their bumps felt, whilst on the closed beds other ills (I presume) were being cured by masseuse who were chosen on entry. I wondered if they had loyalty cards, like Costa’s. The ‘Weed Shops’ all had queues but, oddly, no smell of weed. I know what customers thought they were buying, but I couldn’t help but wonder what they actually got. Possibly actual grass from the (lack of) smell. I wasn’t tempted. I could smoke the lawn back at the hotel if the whim took me. There were also a number of pharmacies, all of which – I am sure – had a cream for it. There was little else. Nobody smiled.

I presume that I am either forty years too old for it – or not yet desperate enough – but I could not get away from it quickly enough. On the bus back to our hotel, less than an hour later, there were no absentees. I counted them all out and I counted them all back in. An hour was more than enough…

N.B. In fairness, I should probably say that later in the holiday we met a couple who had spent three days in Patong, staying close by Bangla Road, and they loved it, but this is my blog and if I never go there again (and I won’t) I will still consider that I wasted two hours of my life doing so in the first place…

A ladykiller, regulation tattoo
Silver spurs on his heels
Says ‘What can I tell you, as I’m standing next to you
She threw herself under my wheels’… One Every Street – Dire Straits (Knopfler)

Here in Heaven

We are (or, by now, were) in Thailand. A three-stop trip: a beautiful, tranquil hotel in a ‘jungle’ surrounding; a very plush tent out in the actual jungle, and finally a traditional beach-front hotel – although itself no less peaceful and beautiful. The first thing that you notice when you arrive here is that the people are incredibly patient, helpful and friendly. I’m sure that they must, as all nations do, have their grouches, but I have yet to meet them – even amongst their taxi drivers, who in most countries, are obliged to take a course in ‘Surly’ before getting the badge. The women are incredibly beautiful (as, indeed, are some of the men, but that is a whole different story) and everyone appears genuinely quick to laughter. What could possibly be wrong with that?

Generally on holidays I am unbothered by mosquito bites, but I have discovered that Thai mosquitoes are quite another story. They are Ninja beasties, completely unaffected, it appears, by DEET and they laugh in the face of a citronella candle. The only real answer is a very cheap repellent sold in every shop here. What is in it, I have no idea – and I care even less – because the mozzies definitely do not like it. My poor, ravaged legs, initially a mass of angry, raised red lumps are now a series of deep purple blotches and, thanks to the locally recommended white tiger-balm, the itching appears to have subsided substantially – thankfully before I have scratched all of my skin off, although it has been a close run thing…

The wildlife is stunning and a trek through the jungle reveals a breathtaking array of 2,4,6 and 8-legged creatures, as well as a goodly number (best avoided) of beasts that do not require limbs to get around – but do require large anti-venom centres for you to attend if you should catch one unaware. The native fauna all seems to co-exist (eat one another) quite happily, and being woken in the early morning by a troupe of gibbons overhead is a gift I never anticipated receiving.

On a more prosaic note, the toilets here are beyond reproach – far cleaner, certainly, than almost any Public Convenience you might encounter in the UK – although they do have a tendency to attract the kind of wasps that look as though they might be perfectly capable of carrying off an average-sized toddler. There are so many hungry lizards around here – from tiny geckos to massive Water Monitors – that they must present some kind of restraining challenge to insect numbers. Serves the buggers right, I say.

Always a disciple of the local beers I have, a little disappointingly, discovered only two so far – probably tourist brews – with Singha far more to my own taste than Chang (and I have discovered that Thai whisky is far from the worst thing I have ever had in my mouth). As a veggie I am always offered Thai Green Curry and fortunately it is delightful. I could (and actually pretty much have) live on it for weeks – and if you like Mangoes, a word of caution, they are everywhere and they come sharp if they fall on your head. They are not the greatest threat to life here, but almost certainly the sweetest….

Here, there are lots of things to do
And a panoramic view
Of the Universe completely surrounding you… Here In Heaven – Sparks (Mael)