It was the morning of Fabergé’s wedding to Claudio. Her mother and father were beside themselves with excitement – so much so that, as soon as they had left their respective lover’s bed (they shared the same one) they sat together for breakfast, she toying with the carving knife and he wondering whether he could asphyxiate her by filling her nose with peanut butter. Fabergé was also beside herself (that’s part of the problem with split-personality) but Claudio was somewhere else entirely. Claudio’s mother did not approve of Fabergé or her step-foster parents (Derek and Doreen Clench) because she felt they were beneath her family (as they lived in the coal cellar) but Claudio loved Fab (as he called her – which really annoyed her mother who much preferred ‘Ergé’) and would do anything for her, other than change his name to Ethel.
It was ‘The Wedding of the Year’ on The Close (Formerly Archibald’s Close before it was discovered that Lord Archibald had once shared a bed with a yak and Royal Mail had objected to the fact that he was not, in fact, close) and the street was festooned with brightly coloured bunting and light emitting festive orbs (formally known as Fairy Lights, until the council decided the term was offensive). Everyone was in a state of high excitement and good will abounded. Nobody had been pushed up a wall and threatened for hours. Dave’s ‘Sausage In A Bap’ van (formerly Hot Dog van before somebody pointed out that it didn’t serve dogs and what it did serve was at best lukewarm) was parked up in front of the local pub and ready to go. Surely there could be no problem associated with a van containing two ersatz propane tanks, each having cheap Taiwanese fittings, twenty gallons of cooking fat and a fuel tank filled with something made from reclaimed vegetable oil, bath-tub gin and illegally imported nail-varnish remover being positioned exactly where everybody threw their fag-ends.
Fabergé looked at the photograph of her Equally Viable and Non-Dependent Other-to-be (formerly fiancé before somebody decided that owing to discriminatory spelling the word was demeaning) and sighed. She would tell him about the sex-change at the reception. Mo Cringe, mother of Derek, step-foster grandmother of Fabergé, secret lover of Claudio and family matriarch, was trying on her hat. “Do you think that black is really the right colour grandma?” said Dirk, her youngest half-step grandson-in-law. “It’s a dark day,” she said with her now familiar perma-scowl. “Why?” asked Dirk. “I think it’s something to do with the cloud cover,” she said. “Is she ready yet?” “Fabergé?” “Who else?” Dirk swallowed slightly. “Erm, nearly,” he said. “She’s having a bit of trouble fastening her dress. She bought it before she… you know…” “…Got herself pregnant with that brush salesman’s lovechild.” she said. “But,” asked Dirk “isn’t it Claudio’s baby?” Mo laughed out loud and catapulted her dentures across the room. “Him? He can’t have children. Not since the incident with the Hen Party from Grimsby and the over-inflated sheep.” “Does Fab know?” “He might have mentioned it to her during the course of ante-natal classes…”
One by one the residents of The Crescent readied themselves for The Wedding of the Year (which, by The Close tradition, generally took place about three weeks before the Acrimonious Divorce of the Year) finalising their plans to use this best of opportunities to settle past scores with neighbours, friends and family. Claudio climbed out of bed and having woken both of the bridesmaids, sent them home to get their dresses on, smiling evilly as he watched them scurry away. But not as evilly as the maid of honour for whom the antibiotics had still not worked…
It was one of those days when I went from the garden to the shed about a hundred times and remembered why I was there about twice. The sun was shining and it was time to set about the Spring gardening tasks. It went like this: I’ll cut the grass. I’ll need the lawnmower. The lawnmower is in the shed. Why did I come into the shed? I’ve no idea. Oh well, there’s a spade over there, I’ll take that back out with me. Mm, why have I got this spade? Was I going to dig that old bush up? I think I ought to mow the lawns first. I’ll need the lawnmower. The lawnmower is in the shed etc etc etc… If I’m honest, I don’t need to mow it now as I have worn most of it away tramping backwards and forwards to the shed.
Somehow I did manage to get a handful of jobs done, but I have no idea whether they were the jobs I set out to do. I refilled the water-feature, rewired it and stacked up the pebbles around it with no greater injury than a split fingernail. I turned it on. The water tinkled, the lights twinkled and, amazingly, nothing blew up in the house: there was no bang, there was no smoke. I re-grouted the slabs on the patio successfully and without incident, and I patched up the broken concrete on the drive – although it being by then in full sun, the patches have already started to crack like the ‘Do Not Microwave’ dish I used to heat up the yesterday’s dinner. Oh, and somehow I split my fingernail.
It is odd to look out on our little ocean of green, fenced off from the Somme-like scenery that borders us and the muck and racket makes the toil of preserving our own quiet little corner even more onerous to me (the rabid non-gardener) than ever. It is hard to maintain enthusiasm for the upkeep of our mini-oasis when a yellow-hatted man in a machine that dwarfs our house is staring down whilst picking his nose and scoop by scoop turning our green and pleasant view into mulch. The house building has now reached our very fence and the footings are dug in preparation for building the properties that will eventually be occupied by our new neighbours. Yesterday the digger hit the concrete floor of the old farm buildings that our houses are built on and nearly turned itself over. When I think back to the battles I have had with the bloody thing armed just with a spade, it somehow made me feel better to know that it proved a match for the giant JCB. It has taken me four decades to dig up the segment that lies under my garden lump by lump, and I now quite enjoy the fact that almost every single chunk of it has been dumped exactly where the digger is now toiling. Take that progress!
I love the garden, whilst my wife loves to garden. She is happy to toil away her days clipping, pruning, digging and weeding whilst I am happy to sit in it and drink gin. Perhaps by next summer we will have returned to the quiet, peaceful existence we have known for the last four decades – even if the trees in the distance will be hidden by walls and roofs – and I almost certainly will have fully retired from work, so I will be able to spend more of my time out there – even if I’ve no idea why…
I wandered onto the page today with absolutely no idea of what I was going to prattle-on about. Many of my ‘blog buddies’ publish ‘random thoughts’ posts at such times, but I fear that, should I attempt a similar feat myself, I would find only a void where the thoughts should be. I am used to my own version of ‘random’ running not quite adjacent to everybody else’s, but to be honest, I do have a habit of ‘stewing over things’ a little more than is entirely healthy and so I fear that after the first ‘random’ thought, the rest of such a whinge might become somewhat less arbitrary than intended. If the first thing to cross my mind also gets under my skin (I’m now fixated on ringworm!) who knows, you may well spend the next five minutes of your life listening to an incoherent rant about nothing much at all. Ah…
Anyway… I always write with music playing and lo and behold, as I sat to write about ‘who-knows-what?’ (who-knows-why?) the phrase ‘…it’s written in the stars…’ tumbled out of the speakers and my mind started to whirr because it occurred to me that, should you view it so, everything can be written in the stars. There are so many of them. Take a look at the Constellations: who on earth saw pictures in those? Proof, if ever it was needed, that the recreational use of hallucinogenic drugs did not begin in the summer of 1967. The Great Bear? Really? Sagittarius? Half man/half horse? Do you think, perhaps, that some of the stars might have moved? Oh yes, of course I can see a man firing a bow and arrow over there, right by the USS Enterprise… It’s like being given a Dot-to-Dot with only two dots and the leeway to draw whatever you fancy in between.
I suppose that it’s the way that the human brain works, by taking a random mess that it does not understand and turning it into something familiar. It’s like watching a Quentin Tarrantino film: everything makes just as much sense as everything else. The good news is that you can’t be wrong! In an infinite Cosmos of random chaos, everything is right – except, perhaps, for men in dinner suits and Roman sandals. It is possible to believe in anything. It is possible to believe in God, or not to believe in God (whatever his/her form or name) and both are valid points of view, worthy of respect because both, along with everything else, are equally illogical. In order to believe in God, you have to accept that he/she has always been there which is all well and good, but how did he get there? In order to not believe in God you have to accept that the Universe has not always been there, in which case who, or what, started it? (And don’t try to confuse me with all that Big Bang nonsense, we all know that is just a prank by the intelligentsia designed to remind the rest of us of how stupid we really are).
The truth is that absolutely nothing is written in the stars – not even your future or your disposition: even those who make a living from astrological predictions do so now with tongue firmly in cheek (often their own) – they are merely a skyful of suns, many of which – due to the constraints of the Speed of Light – no longer even exist. There is no order to them. They just sort of bob there in the sky – although why they don’t all just fall to the bottom I have no idea – and make the infinity of space look pretty.
I suppose that once you can grasp the whole concept of being such a miniscule part of a vast random chaos, it makes your sock drawer less of a worry.
I wonder if I’ve ever written a post about socks?…
*”…an exquisite distillation out of random patterns – endless queues of happenstance meeting at this nexus.” – Frank Herbert
Should this not be sufficient for you, you can find links to my first glimpse into the universe below: ‘To Infinity and Beyond’ (part one) and (part two) Oh, and I also found ‘Odds and Sods – One of my Socks is Missing’, which sadly does not actually live up to its promise of featuring socks.
Should you not know why this is here (and who could blame you) you will find an explanation in my last post, The List Thing.
10. I Didn’t Know You Cared – Written by Peter Tinniswood and based on a trilogy of his own novels, this is the story of a permanently morose, extended Yorkshire family, to which little happens, and always slowly. As with almost all great comedy – and certainly the majority on this list – there is a sizeable dollop of pathos which heightens the humour. The main character (Carter Brandon) spends most of his time simultaneously appeasing and resisting his mega-aspirational wife, whilst the languidly depressive Uncle Mort steals every episode with his bleakly existential view of life. The series did offer a ‘catchphrase’, uttered by the slightly senile Uncle Staveley (who was always seen carrying the ashes of his World War One comrade in a cardboard box): ‘I heard that! Pardon?’ which, when you think about it, doesn’t quite have the glint of comedy gold, does it? Perhaps you had to be there.
9. Game On by Andrew and Bernadette Davies. Ran for three series. No plot really and just a single ‘situation’. A slight change of cast and character after series one, by which time three school friends (two males: one delusional, aggressive agoraphobic, one hapless, passive ginger – yup, always wildly funny that one – and one sex-addicted female with a super-high IQ, but an empty head) shared a flat and… well, that was about it really. It was weirdly fixated on sex and innuendo, spiky and yet, at times, clichéd, but none-the-less brilliant. Please don’t ask me to explain, because I don’t believe I can.
8. Still Game written by and starring Ford Kiernan and Greg Hemphill. A superb insight into the joys and struggles of growing old (almost Getting On in sit-com form) based around the lives of two ageing pals, Jack and Victor – pretty much the blueprint for my own Frankie & Benny – and their neighbourhood friends. The show ran for 9 series over 17 years, with a break of over 9 years in the middle and is a rare example of a comedy coming back better than ever. Like others in this list the comedy became heightened – as did the pathos – as you got to ‘know’ the characters. It is impossible not to become invested in the lives of this little community and the final episode of series 9 may well be the greatest ‘last episode’ of a comedy series ever. Beautifully written and played.
7. Father Ted by Graham Linehan and Arthur Matthews. The frankly barking mad mis-adventures of three catholic priests and their housekeeper on Craggy Island. A relatively small audience due to being broadcast on Channel 4 in the UK – a channel which seldom drew in enough viewers to constitute a milk round – this show is none-the-less loved and revered by all sit-com fans. Too many brilliant set-pieces to mention although everyone remembers ‘My Lovely Horse’ and Ted getting trapped in the lingerie department of a big-town store. It is a legal requirement to be told ‘Ah you will, you will, you will…’ in a Mrs Doyle voice, if you ever say you won’t have a cup of tea. Pick any episode you can find, it doesn’t matter, I guarantee that you will laugh.
6. Early Doors by Craig Cash and Phil Mealey, who also starred. A pub, populated by the kind of boring people we all know – and possibly are – doing nothing at all. Craig Cash continued to successfully pull off the amazing feat of wringing comedy out of the totally banal, as he had (co)-done in ‘The Royle Family’. A joy of a comedy with just the right amount of tragedy to make it work.
5. Marion and Geoff – Written by Rob Brydon and Hugo Blick. A series of monologues delivered by Brydon who plays a cuckolded taxi driver whose wife, Marion, is divorcing him after having a long-term affair with her workmate, Geoff (neither of whom appear in the series). Unbearably sad at times, this is a true tragi-comedy, relying solely on the naïve innocence of the non-titular character, Keith Barrett, which generally left you feeling guilty for having laughed. I felt guilty from beginning to end.
4. Just Good Friends – superlative comedy written by John Sullivan (The Two Ronnies, Citizen Smith, Only Fools and Horses, Dear John, and Roger Roger) in which the chemistry between the two leads – each knowingly smart yet vulnerable – is brilliantly exploited. Simply very, very funny with few (although haunting) trips into pathos. Everybody who watched it invested in the fate of Vince and Penny. If I’m honest, this actually was a UK mega-hit at the time, but it’s time was concurrent with ‘Only Fools and Horses’ and nobody ever thinks about it as being on the same level. In my opinion it is John Sullivan’s very best writing.
3. Rev – written by Tom Hollander and James Wood and starring Tom Hollander and Olivia Coleman – explores the problems of a small town vicar dropped into a big city parish. A superbly acted, bitter-sweet comedy (you’re beginning to see the common denominator aren’t you) that considered the problems facing a good (but fallible) man in the modern world and discovered that, quite often, he was overwhelmed by them. I’m never quite sure of where the laughs came from, but they never clashed with the story. Quite brilliant.
2. Mum – written by Stefan Golaszewski and starring Lesley Manville and Peter Mullan – is without question my favourite comedy – if not my favourite everything – of recent years. A single story, told over three series, of a woman overcoming grief and finding love despite the combined efforts of her close family. Like a number of these favourites the laughs come from the absurdity of actions set against a wholly unhappy situation. Lesley Manville is flawless in the title role, as the mouse who eventually roars, and the moment in the very final episode where her character tells the overbearing sister-in-law, Pauline, to ‘Go fuck yourself’ had both my wife and I up on our feet and cheering. Perhaps, again, you had to be there, but if you weren’t, then you really should do something about it. This is a true gem. Watch from beginning to end – it starts well and gets consistently better by the episode. Make a weekend of it. Absolutely flawless.
1. Dinnerladies – written by and starring the wonderful Victoria Wood at the heart of a proper ensemble cast – is the whopping great diamond in the crown of British sit-com. This is without doubt (and I include all of the mega-hits) the greatest sit-com of all time – I will brook no argument. A poignant central relationship between Bren and Tony that you really care about, underlined by loneliness but counterpointed by true affection and dialogue that sparkled with more brilliant comedy lines than you could shake a slapstick at. Wood fretted over every single word and, boy, was it worth it. Pure comedy genius.
There you go. If you can sample any of these (should you not have seen them before) I could not recommend doing so more highly. Oddly I have just realised how much each of these series (with the possible exception of Father Ted which is just funny for funny’s sake) relies on a developing relationship between viewer and character to really work, so give them some time, watch them in order if you can. I did exactly that with all 62 episodes of Still Game during lockdown. I’d watched them all before, but watching them like that heightened the comedy – and deepened the sense of loss when it stopped. I suppose that’s another thing none of these series did: went on too long. I realise that most of you, unlike me, have a life and the opportunities offered by Covid19 have passed, so watching hundreds of hours of TV is not on the agenda, but if you’re going to give it a go, you might as well know what to try…
I realise that this is not my usual fare, and so I have decided to publish it over two days. It’s written, what harm can it do? I don’t usually do The List Thing – if I’m honest, there aren’t many jokes in doing so, and those that there are tend to get nine very swift repeats – but a recent day-time diversion into the world of never-before-seen TV channels led me onto a treasured episode of a long-dead sit-com and I decided there and then, for no other reason than my tea was too hot to drink and the bin men had yet to tip the recycling all over the front drive, to make a list of my top ten British sit-coms of all time which very quickly blossomed into something approaching a Top 50, until I started watching some of them only to discover that the ‘attitudes of the day’ were so jarring that they loosened the fillings in my teeth. So the list quickly contracted down to accommodate only those that, if broadcast today, would not see the writers facing ten years in secure accomodation.
It is, I must admit, a very (e.g. totally) Brit-centric list because a) it is what I watch and b) I am just a teeny-weeny little bit ashamed to admit that I often don’t ‘get’ a lot of American Sit-Com’s. In truth, almost all of my American comedy loves – M*A*S*H, Taxi, The Odd Couple, The Mary Tyler-Moore Show, Rhoda, Bewitched (Come on, I was a boy!) – are pretty much the same vintage as me and whilst I do, like everybody else, occasionally find time in my life for the slick dialogue of Frazier, Friends and The Big Bang Theory, I miss the rough edges, the knocked-off corners and the heart of Brit-com. I’m sorry. I do realise just how few British readers I have, but I can only ask the rest of you to forgive me for this little transgression. If I can persuade you of nothing more than to find any of these little gems – most particularly, I suppose, the top three – I will be happy. If you hate them well, ‘nothing ventured…’ etc etc. Let me know about it. Try suggesting something to me (oh come now, that’s not necessary) I would be more than happy to hear of any shows, from wherever you are, that I should try. I will definitely attempt to do so.
In compiling my list, I decided to exclude what I would call the mega-hits¹: I do not intend to demean them, they were all brilliant, but there is so little to say about them, because everybody already knows it. Everyone has seen Del-Boy fall through the hatch a thousand times, everybody has seen Basil Fawlty goose-step around the dining room, everybody knows ‘Don’t tell him Pike!’ and if you don’t, well you could do much worse than look those up too. My list features more in the way of under-the-radar as well as one or two decidedly over-the-hill (which, hopefully, time has not treated so badly) and, if you haven’t previously encountered them, I can only suggest you try to. I’m pretty certain that anybody interested could find these little gems on YouTube (except, perhaps, in China or Russia where you will, I am sure, probably be able to find something educational instead – probably involving a tractor and a man in a fur hat waving a stoat) and I can only recommend giving them a go. Anyone with an ounce of tech-savvy can find them quickly and easily (simply ask the grandkids). As with all such lists, I think of something new by the minute, but as it stands, my current Top Ten will follow tomorrow, after a short commercial break, during which you can brew the tea, break out the Hobnobs and find the big tartan blanket for your knees…
¹For the record these mega-hits (on a UK scale) include (in no particular order) Dad’s Army, Porridge, Blackadder, The Vicar of Dibley, Absolutely Fabulous, The Royle Family, Last of the Summer Wine (younger viewers who saw only the later episodes will not recall how good this show once was), Steptoe and Son, Fawlty Towers, Gavin and Stacey, The Office (Ricky Gervais original), Extras, Only Fools and Horses, Steptoe and Son, The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, The Good Life (which, incidentally, had the greatest Christmas Special of all time – Fact) Open All Hours, Yes Minister and Some Mother’s Do Have ‘Em – although the list gets longer each time I think about it… I’m sure you can remind me of many I have missed which I can use in the future to make a new list, the ‘Not the Mega-Hits and not the Top Ten, but still better than anything that’s on today’ list…
“Why would you even say such a thing?” I said. “You always sing The Hokey Cokey while cooking okra.” “So?” “You don’t know the words – or the tune – and neither of us eats okra. We have to give it to the cat.” “We don’t have a cat.” “I know,” she smiled in triumph. “Even your leftovers are illusionary.” “I thought you liked my singing.” “I can just about bear your singing,” she said, “but not your voice. You sound like Ted Ray.” “Who?” “You don’t know him. I often see him at the fishmongers.” “So why is he singing? Does he work there?” “No, he gives CPR to the sea bass. He told me that if it ever works, they will marry.” “And you say I’m mad!” “No, I said you were stupid. Ted is mad, but he’s not stupid. He doesn’t wear a bow tie for a start.” “Well neither do I.” “No, but you’d like to.” She had me there. I had been looking at one that spun round and sprayed water at anyone who came within range, but I decided against it because I couldn’t find a shirt to match. “Anyway,” I continued, painfully aware that I was sounding pathetically defensive, “what has wearing a bow tie got to do with being stupid?” “How stupid do you have to be to think that it could possibly be a good idea?” “Didn’t Albert Einstein wear a bow tie? I’m sure I’ve seen photos of Einstein in a bow tie. Are you suggesting that he was stupid?” “Sorry, I might have misheard you there, but are you comparing yourself with Einstein?” “No, but…” “Good, because that would be really stupid.” “I’m just suggesting that as an indicator of stupidity, the bow tie is not the most reliable.” “Say’s the man who only just realised that the moon doesn’t follow him when he’s driving in the car.” “Yes, well I’m still not fully convinced about that…” “It’s a celestial body. It’s huge! What makes you think it would follow you?” “Ok, Mrs Clever, why doesn’t it get smaller when I drive away from it then?” “It’s a quarter of a million miles away. Travelling the length of our street is hardly likely to make much difference is it?” “The house looks a lot smaller from over there.” “The house is not two hundred and thirty odd thousand miles away.” “Exactly! It would look even smaller if it was.” “I suppose you think that that the moon has gone out when you can’t see it, don’t you.” “You have another explanation?” “Cloud?” “Not possible. You can’t see cloud when it’s dark, so there’s no way it could hide the moon.” “…Do you believe in fairies!” “No!” “Are you sure?” “Well… somebody took my teeth when I was younger.” “You don’t think it might have been your parents?” “What would they want them for?” “Ok. I agree, bow ties are not the official test of stupidity.” “Brilliant! I win! …What is then?” “Marrying you!”
So, answer me this Einstein: when Dick had to successfully get himself miles ahead of the race in order to set his Dastardly traps, why didn’t he just keep going? If he hadn’t spent hours buggering about with huge canvases, gallons of paint, several tonnes of TNT and a single ten-second fuse, he would have won anyway. Of course such a cheat should never prosper, but in truth he only fails because despite possessing the low cunning of a sackful of weasels, he has the IQ of a whelk.
If my life (and, of course, my country of birth) has taught me anything at all, it is how to lose with dignity. I’m a Black Belt at it. No-one has ever been more adept at snatching abject failure from the very jaws of victory. In the marathon of life I am a pacesetter: bedecked in a T-shirt that pronounces I am not quite part of the crowd; running ahead of the pack until the very moment it starts to matter, at which point I not only fade, but accidentally trip the favourite, need a wee at the drinks station and eventually drop into a corner burger-bar for a doughnut and a milkshake. I would love to know, what stops these people from just shaking their heads, setting their jaws and charging on towards the end. Would there ever be a bigger cheer than for the pacesetter who just kept going? I would be willing to pay just to see the look on the face of the Olympian who had employed somebody else to do all of the hard work and then had the temerity to claim the glory too.
Of course in life’s race, most of us fail to get very much above ‘saunter’ and whilst we might all be capable of an uncharacteristic spurt every now and then, very few of us are destined to maintain it past adolescence, hormones and discovering something far more interesting than a cigarette behind the bike shed. By mid-life we have passed on the baton to our children (if we have them) or dropped it into the hedonistic pond of used-to-be’s that is the super-enhanced recall we all succumb to when real memory is challenged. Does anybody know anyone who couldn’t have been a professional footballer if it wasn’t for a freak teenage accident with a ping-pong ball; who didn’t consistently finish above Stella McCartney in ‘textiles’ at secondary school; who wasn’t the real inventor of the Rubik Cube but left the blueprint in the back of a cab on the way to the patent office?
By the time you get to this point in your life (not quite dead, but well on the way to being forgotten) nobody wants to touch your baton anyway. Your grandchildren are preoccupied with trying to usurp their parents: tell them you were a personal friend of Nelson Mandela and they will just say ‘Who?’; tell them you were the first man ever to score a hundred at Trent Bridge against the Aussies and they will ask ‘A hundred what?’; tell them you once trekked right across the Hindu Kush in your flip-flops and they will assume you were looking for the toilet in your favourite Indian Restaurant.
They realise, of course, that you were never destined to lead the race. They will be on the cusp of realising that neither were their parents. And then, one day, it will dawn on them that neither were they…
I’m not sure why, but after saving this post to my documents, I stumbled onto ‘The Clarifying Clause’ and I found it helped…
In which I attempt to answer some of the questions asked by my grandchildren…
Are Unicorns real? – “Yes, of course Unicorns are real. You would cry if I said ‘No’ wouldn’t you?” “Yes.” “Fine. Unicorns are real.”
Are there monsters under the bed? – “That depends on whether you intend to tell nana about the big bowl of trifle you saw me with earlier today…”
How do escalators work? – “A perfectly logical question to which, amazingly, I know the answer. Escalators are really just like a single band spinning around fixed points at the base and at the top.” “So the steps are underneath as well?” “Yes, they are.” “Why don’t the people fall off them?” “There are no people underneath them, everyone is on top.” “Even in Australia?” “Even in Australia.” “Maybe the people in Australia fall off the top…” I find this difficult to contest as I, myself, am not certain why the entire population Down Under is not prone to dizzy spells due to all the blood rushing to their heads. Also, if the water spins in the opposite direction before going down a plughole, does that mean that the bottom half of the world is spinning the other way? If that is so, how do ships ever cross the equator?
Are there rainbows in space? – “I don’t think so. There has to be rain for there to be a rainbow and there’s no rain in space…” “But Unicorns need rainbows to run along.” “I see. And you would be very sad if the Unicorns (the existence of which I have just confirmed) did not have rainbows to run along? Yes, well, of course, I overlooked the fact that science knows nothing. Of course there are rainbows in space… Yes, and princesses in glittery cloaks…”
Why is the sky blue? – “Because Mrs God wanted it to be a nice sunny yellow, but God found a job lot of (what later became) Sky Blue going cheap at the paint merchants and a man who was prepared to slap on a single coat for next to nothing.”
Why have we stopped? – “Because all the cars ahead of us have stopped.” “Why?” “Because the traffic lights are red.” “Why?” “Because we have to let some other cars out.” “Why?” “Because it is their turn.” “Why?” “Because their traffic light is green.” “Why?” “Because that’s how traffic lights work.” “Why?” “To stop us all from crashing into one another.” “Why?” “Honestly, I don’t know. I wish really that I hadn’t bothered and just crashed into the car in front, impaling myself on the steering column and… Oh look, the lights are green, we can go now.” “Why?”
Why do you grunt when you get out of the car? – “Because I am old and my muscles ache sometimes.” “Pigs grunt.” “Maybe their muscles ache too.”
Why are you so old? – “Because I was born a long, long time ago.” “Before mummy was born?” “Yes, before mummy was born. I am her daddy.” “Are you daddy’s daddy too?” “No darling, we don’t live in Caistor*.” “What’s Caistor?” “It’s a place where people live.” “Like France?” “Almost exactly like France, yes.”
When are you going to die? – “Not too soon I hope.” “Old people die don’t they?” “Well, yes, but I’m not going to die for a while. Don’t worry.” “Who will take me to school when you die?” “I hope you will be finished school before I die. I hope that you will be all grown up. Maybe you will have children yourself.” “Can I have a biscuit?” “Yes, you can have a biscuit.”
Why? – “Because…”
*A local village, famous for it.
N.B. It wasn’t until I had finished this post that I realised I had used the title ‘Why?’ before, prompted, I think, by somebody who is no longer four-years old. That is why I have changed the title of this piece to ‘Why? Again’. If you wish to read the fiirst ‘Why?’, you can find it here…
“I think therefore I am.” – René Descartes. “You never think.” – His wife.
I started to think about philosophy. Why? I’m not sure. An over-strong curry the night before perhaps, too much time on my hands, nothing much on the TV… who knows? (If, indeed, it is capable of being known.) Anyway, whatever the cause, I concluded that the most important thing about philosophy is that you should have one. (If you fear that you do not, you can join me and a few close friends in the bus shelter where we will be discussing matchsticks with particular emphasis on who has the biggest.) Philosophy is how we view life, how we make sense of it, and once you realise that, you can relax, because then you know that there is no sense to any of it. Life is merely the interval between birth and death. By and large, it is the best bit, if only because babies and corpses are not allowed alcohol.
We can consider the philosophical theory that we are all figments of our own imaginations. I’m not certain how much I would trust my own imagination in such a circumstance as it tends to spend most of its time imagining members of the opposite sex either unclothed or inventing chocolate flavoured whisky (often both) and I’m really not at all certain anyway how that could work for everybody. I have friends who, if they gave their imagination completely free reign, would still be able to find it without ever leaving the house. If they were figments of them, they would probably be best advised to stay inside with the curtains closed and order in a lifetime’s supply of ‘Verruca Fanciers Monthly’.
Another thread of philosophical thought suggests that we are all the product of somebody else’s imagination but, as this merely makes us characters in somebody else’s novel – almost certainly unpublished knowing my luck – it is largely discounted. My own theory is that we are probably real rather than imagined, although almost certainly after a bedtime cheese and pickle bagel.
Given these possibilities, it occurs to me that Descartes’ famous epithet should probably be more properly expressed as “I think therefore I think I am” and if I were a mathematician, I believe I would reduce that by the two “I think”s on either side of the equation, leaving just the “therefore I am,” which just goes to show. (What it goes to show, I am not sure. I am a worse mathematician than philosopher.) Certainly it is difficult to envision imagination without being, although I have written scripts that appear to give some credence to the notion.
And if I am a figment of my own imagination, then surely I should be able to grant myself wishes. There’s a thought. Why would I load myself with work and debt when I could go instead for a lifetime of Seychelles beaches and the sexual magnetism of a very hot black hole (although now I’ve actually seen that written down…) How would I decide what to wish for if, however exotic I imagined it, in reality it was nothing more than banal normality? It would drive me mad. Perhaps true madness is nothing more than knowledge of this truth. Or maybe my imagination is just running away with me…
“There is no opinion so absurd that some philosopher will not express it.” – Cicero.
“Reality is a collective hunch.” – Lily Tomlin.
“I have a new philosophy. I’m going to dread one day at a time.” – Charles M. Schultz.
‘“If you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.” Do you know which philosopher said that? Dolly Parton. And people say she’s just a big pair of tits.’ – David Brent (The Office).
I drew a grin on my chin with a magic marker. It made me laugh so much that I now can’t wipe the smile from my face… – Me
The funeral was of a lady in her mid-nineties who had been in good health prior to her unfortunate demise which happened peacefully as she slept in her own bed. In as much as there is an ideal way to go, this must surely be it. The service was thoughtful, devoid of ostentatious displays of anguish, full of quiet, affectionate reflection and surprisingly comforting. I would love to be able to tell you that, because of this, I did not find it sombre and disconcerting, but I cannot.
In general I find funerals ever more difficult to cope with. Homogenized and formulaic, they are so seldom like the deceased. I find them dispiriting, not only because the person has gone, but also because the celebration of their life (they call it a celebration, but nobody ever appreciates a party-popper) is so… lifeless. When it comes along, I think I would like my funeral to be a little more representative of the man in the coffin. Perhaps I might write my own eulogy, maybe even record a video for the occasion. (Actually, I have read of people doing exactly this and, I must admit, I think it would probably freak me out. The one thing you do expect from the dead is silence.) I suppose that’s what funerals are intended to impress upon us: ‘it may well be the last thing you’re ever going to do, but there’s little point in making a song and dance about it…’
Age is not all about loss of course, but a lot of it is: it is about losing people and it is about losing faculties. It goes without saying that the loss of people – friends, relations, heroes, loved ones – is hard to cope with. These losses become more common, increasingly regular until, at the end of it all, you realise that ‘loss of self’ will become the hardest thing to face, particularly if you were looking forward to ice cream and a fleeting ‘go’ on the grandkids’ skateboard.
Amongst a million other things that you lose as you get older is the ability to realise that you’ve told the same joke to the same person at least a thousand times before; the ability to remember anything that you need to recollect; the ability to forget anything that you need to forget, and the ability to look at anything bright, new and shiny without questioning whether you really need it.
Age heralds the loss of body tone and memory, but also the acquisition of the ability to say ‘Yes’ to things you want to do and ‘No’ to those you don’t. Age will tell you that it is better to use the Slow Cooker whilst simulataneously reminding you that time is the one thing that you quite definitely have little of. It should be advising you to use the microwave: it should be saying ‘boil the kettle, have a Pot Noodle’, it should be telling you that whilst slow & steady often wins the race, nobody’s at all certain of what race that is, except that it is almost certainly not the one with Usain Bolt in it. Age may give you the belief that this really is all there is, but it also gives you the incentive to enjoy as much of it as you can. One thing you have to do with time is treat it with respect. You don’t want to go upsetting something that is in such short supply. Death is all part of ‘the process’ and although you might have never knowingly signed up for it, somehow or another you’re going to have to see it through. My best advice is ‘don’t go quietly’.
“Tune in, turn on and smash it all up because nothing really matters like you think it does anyway…” – ‘Give Up Your Day Job’ (Francis Dunnery)
Getting On 