The Obstacle Race

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I presume that I am not alone in assuming that life is just an obstacle race in which I have been given the bum lane, where the hurdles are both insufficiently spaced and incomprehensibly high. I know that it is seldom the severity of the hurdles that causes me to baulk, as much as the regularity of them. The incessant thud, thud, thud of shin on barrier, forehead on lintel, or ego on life is what truly impedes evolution: the offside law as interpreted by VAR; the Chinese Puzzle of tangled metalwork in the unopenable cutlery drawer; the Gordian Knot in the Hoover cable. The main obstacle to the progress of life itself is the very challenge of existence; the twisted coil in the Slinky of being. I fail, therefore I am.

They say that what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger, but it doesn’t does it? Slothing the day away in front of the TV will not kill you – at least, not in the short term – but it’s hardly going to qualify you as an Olympic weightlifter either. The truth is that what doesn’t kill you, doesn’t kill you – which, although not terribly profound, does at least have the benefit of leaving you somewhat more vital than dead. There are (many) times when there is nothing better in this world than a large glass of red, a huge slab of chocolate and a couple of hours slumped in front of Midsomer Murders, and I have little doubt in my mind that I am quite safe in their hands. If I want to find something that might kill me, I will look for a gun, or a knife, or a blunt instrument (or, if I’m still in Midsomer mode, I will smear myself in truffle oil and search for a wild boar). Given sufficient time, I guess that most things can kill you. I’m not aware of anybody ever being killed by celery, but it doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened. I seem to recall being told that the calories used to eat celery are in excess of those that you gain by eating it. Is it possible to chew yourself into starvation? If it didn’t kill you, would it actually make you stronger? I wonder how much celery has ever been consumed by Arnold Schwarzenegger?

I don’t suppose that life is straightforward for anybody all of the time, and I’m not certain that I would want to live such a life anyway. Life is a trifle crammed full of petty annoyances and tiny triumphs, but garnished with moments of despair and overwhelming joy. Both (like Ant & Dec) make the other bearable. Is it even possible, I wonder, to experience joy if you have never suffered pain? Does chocolate not give such pleasure to someone who has never tasted okra? Do you have to experience Starbuck’s coffee before you can appreciate a good malt whisky? (If you want my advice, avoid the Starbuck’s and hope for the best.)

Some people, of course, are unhappy all of the time (they are called Belgians) but most manage to find some degree of happiness even in the most difficult of circumstances: the macabre East End Humour of the blitz; the ironic cheers of losing football fans; the audience at a Roy ‘Chubby’ Brown concert. We all have bouts of self-pity, but they tend to grind to a halt when you catch a proper look at yourself and realise how pathetic you appear. It’s not easy, after all, to take yourself too seriously when nobody else does.

And I know that you understand by now the way that my brain works, and I swear that I can hear you thinking (a useful addition to my armoury, as my ears are increasingly reluctant to hear actual noise) “So, what’s your point?” or, probably more appositely, “What’s your problem?” and, if I’m honest, if you had asked me that five hundred words ago, I probably wouldn’t have known. That’s the way it works: I start to write and about mid-way through my allotted thousand words, I begin to realise exactly what it is that I am writing about. (Not always though. As you are fully aware, I am perfectly capable of making it right to the end without ever properly understanding what it is, exactly, that I’m writing about.) Well, some of you – those who have been ‘fortunate’ enough to have suffered the horrors of School Sports Day – will understand the main problem with obstacle races: when you’re on a flat bit, you lose all perspective. When you’re between obstacles, all that you can actually concentrate on is the hessian sack/bean-bag/hula-hoop/despotic whistle-bound deputy head teacher torture that lies ahead. Anticipation of challenge (and, per se if you’re me, humiliation) to come, swamps all notion of well-being.

You begin to imagine that the only rationale for experiencing peaks is to make the troughs look deeper. When you’re at the top of the hill, all that you can think about is the inevitability of falling to the bottom. When you’re at the bottom, then all you can think about is the pain of hauling yourself back to the top. Age is erosion: it eats away at the sharpest pinnacles and dumps the bits it has chewed off at the bottom of the troughs. With the apex flattened, you get to maintain balance there for much longer. When you plunge to the bottom, you find that it is not as deep as it used to be and that it is full of the echoes of the peak before.

Life is an obstacle race in which everyone has been given the bum lane. However much you are dreading hauling yourself into the vacant potato sack, those either side of you are dreading it just as much. Should you be lucky enough to emerge as last person standing, then your only responsibility is to help everybody else to get back to get back in the sack.

Weak orange squash in a coloured plastic beaker and home for tea.

Ah life…

Pompous quote of the week: ‘I’m indifferent to puddings because I’m no longer a child’ (David Nicholls – author). Just remember guys, if ever you fancy a tiramisu at your favourite Italian restaurant, you’re just being immature.

A Little Fiction – Conversations with the Bearded Man (part 6) – Newark

I had never actually tried to seek him out before, he had always found me, and if I’m honest, I had no real idea of where to start. I wandered the streets for days, sat on buses, drank in pubs. I retrieved his petrol can from the back of the shed, but it held no clues: it was rusty and the last few drops of the petrol it had once housed had long-since absorbed into the softly rotting floor. I couldn’t remember the last time I had even seen a metal petrol can. ‘Only him,’ I thought. There would be a reason for it of course, some kind of message about strength and fragility. I would ask him – if ever I found him.

More than a year had passed since the last time we spoke and much had changed – and yet it was the same. I had made contact with my soon-to-be ex-wife and we had spoken, almost exclusively without rancour. Well, she at least, had spoken without rancour: I had been my usual petulant self, but against all odds we had managed to remain in one another’s company for more than an hour without once resorting to violence and name-calling. It had not physically changed anything: she was still well on the way towards becoming my very ‘ex’, but the absence of desire to kill after our encounter was exactly the kind of progress I thought that I should report.

Also, I now had friends – even if I wouldn’t want to be seen out with them in daylight. We went out together, or more precisely, we met up at the same place every Friday night in the bar of The Harrows for a few pints, a volcanically microwaved prehistoric meat pie and a quiz. We never won, but we always got through the evening without major ructions and, as loathe as I was to admit it, I looked forward to the occasion, even if the quiz master did insist on calling us ‘the sad bleeders in the corner’, when our actual name “Archimedes’ Crew”, was quite clearly written at the top of our answer sheet. More progress to report. My life had become, if not exactly good, then at least bearable at times. Never-the-less I knew that there were still pieces of the jigsaw missing and, instinctively, I felt that he had them.

So it became my habit whenever I had the opportunity to sit for a while, empty my brain (a frighteningly simple exercise) and then just see where my legs might take me. I did things. I did theatres, museums, football matches, bus trips, weekends away – all alone, all in the hope of being found, and as each day, week and month ticked away I became increasingly convinced that my final meeting with Lorelei was already in the past. The little diversions became a way of life – just something I did – but as they became more and more habitual, the feeling of emptiness and disaffection began, once more, to chip away at my soul…

…The rain, although not heavy, was as persistent as a text-message reminder from the dentist and more than a match for my cheap, Ebay kagoule. I couldn’t tell you why I had chosen Newark to visit: it was easy to get to on the train and it had a castle and a river, but as the icy cold precipitation soaked through every one of my manifold, yet inadequate, layers of clothing forming a puddle in my crotch that, despite its location, still succeeded in being a good ten degrees colder than the surrounding temperature, I couldn’t think of anywhere else that I less wanted to be. I picked my way across the market place, along the glistening cobbles, sensing the slick, unsteady surface through the wafer-thin soles of my saturated Converse, towards the dim yellow light that beckoned me from the windows of the pub in the corner, when I became aware of a small crowd gathered around a figure on the floor. Instinctively I pushed my way in, feeling the burning imperative of the recently acquired St John’s First Aid badge in my pocket and found myself looking down on a familiar, bearded face. He looked up and beamed a greeting smile. “I knew it would be you,” he said. “Thank you everybody. I know this man. He has training. He’ll help me across to a seat in the café there. I’m sure I’ll be fine after a few minutes in a chair. I’m so very grateful for your help. Thank you.” And all I could do was wonder why on earth he wanted to recover in the café instead of the pub.

I helped him to his feet. “How?” I asked.
“I just slipped on the cobbles.”
“I mean,” I said, “how did you know it would be me?”
“Well I don’t know anybody else here,” he said.
“But how did you know that I’d be here?”
“I didn’t… Did I?” He looked confused. Painfully aware that the pub was just next door, I led him into the café and sat him at a vacant table. The waitress was with us almost at once. She was all concern and fret.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” she asked. My companion assured her that he was. “Okay,” she said, finally content, “As long as you’re sure. I’ll get your tea. What would you like love?”
“Coffee please.” The waitress bustled away. “Do you come in here often?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever been here before.”
“So how did she know you wanted tea?”
“I always have tea. Now,” he said, “why did you want me?”
“I didn’t! Well, I did, but…”
He was looking around the room, breathing in his surroundings, reading the walls like he was in a museum. “It’s so important to be open to the new, don’t you think?”
“Yes,” I cast my own narrowed eyes around the twee yellow chintz palace, “but ‘the new’ can be pretty boring as well, can’t it?”
“I suppose so. I always think about see-saws. You want excitement on one end, then you’ve got to put excited on the other. If you want to sit at the bottom end just staring up at nothing happening, then it’s best just to stare. If you’ve got nothing to contribute then you can bounce as hard as you like, you’re always going to end up on the ground with the business end wedged under your chin.”
“So you’re telling me that I can only get out of life what I can put into it, right?”
“Am I? Oh…”
The drinks arrived at the table and, having poured Lorelei’s tea – milk first, one sugar – the waitress fussed away to her romantic novel behind the till.
I sipped at my coffee, which smelled great but tasted like it was a virtual stranger to the coffee bean. “I don’t think I always try very hard.”
“I don’t think you have to try too hard,” he said. “Just try.”
We drank in silence. Somewhere unseen a cuckoo clock marked the hour and, instinctively, the waitress, Lorelei and I all looked at our watches.
“Well, I suppose I’d better get going,” said my companion, rising slowly to his feet. I noticed, for the first time the bruise on his head.
“Are you sure you’re ok?”
“I think so,” he said. “But it wouldn’t hurt to check on me now and again, would it?”
“How?”
“Oh, don’t worry, it’s easy enough. You can let me have my petrol can back some time.”
“It’s rusted.”
“I know…”

In case you want to catch up on the rest of this tale, the first Conversation with the Bearded Man is here.

The previous conversation to this (#5) can be found here.

Episode 7 is now here: A Little Fiction – Conversations with a Bearded Man (part 7) – Helpline

Food for Thought

I eat when I’m stressed. I eat when I am unhappy, I eat when I am unwell, and I eat when I am agitated. Unfortunately, I also eat when I am happy, I eat when I am well, and I eat when I am calm. I have what I believe is known as an unhealthy relationship with food, which, in my case, means that absolutely everything I would choose to eat, is unhealthy – especially in the quantities in which I eat it.

Now, I don’t want you to think that everything I eat is unhealthy; it isn’t. I eat loads of healthy shit, but given the choice I probably wouldn’t. If I could find a way to persuade myself that a diet of chocolate and peanuts would get me past my next birthday, I would go for it. Who on this earth would choose to eat broccoli if it wasn’t good for them? Analyse it: is it pleasant to put into your mouth? No. Does it taste good? No. If it was bad for you, would you still eat it? No, no, no.

This is what chefs do: take a bunch of stuff that you wouldn’t normally put anywhere near your mouth and mix it together in such a way that you think, “Well, that looks almost good enough to eat.” So you do. There is a whole tranche of TV cooks – ok, there’s Nigella Lawson – for whom the whole process of preparing a dish is to make the final shot of her eating it as close to oral sex as possible: “Right Nigella, we’re doing courgettes et poivrons dans une sauce tomate et vin rouge au basilica, so how would you like us to prepare the vegetables?”
“Oh sod that, just give me the courgette. I’ll eat it whole. You’ll need lots of cameras…”

This, I suddenly realise, is the true essence of modern cookery: take something that is basically inedible, but good for you (this is, of course, a constantly shifting page) and mix it up with something – anything – that will tempt you to put it in your mouth, and with this fleeting realisation comes the hint of a way ahead for me. A pathway. Here’s the plan…

Make a list of things that are beneficial to your health, but are basically not anything that you would ever want to swallow – okra, calabrese, swede, kale, an insurance salesman’s promises.
Make a list of things that you can’t stop eating, despite the knowledge that (until general medical opinion changes – e.g. next Wednesday) they will almost certainly kill you – chocolate, butter, cream, fudge and obfuscation.
Devise manifold ways of covering various items from list one with those from list two.
Make a TV show and publish a lavishly illustrated book.
Wonder about how you are ever going to spend all that money.

Simple.

Let us consider the humble potato. Potatoes are eaten in a number of ways: they might be baked and served with lashings of butter, mashed with lashings of butter, roasted in something rendered off an unfortunate goose, or cut into small batons and fried. Without the application of fat, potatoes are seldom eaten.

Now, I must admit that, to date, my early attempts at food fusions have not been wholly successful. The Okra in Chocolate Sauce, for instance, was not terribly palatable initially and, after I experimented with the addition of peanut butter, had a most unfortunate colour and texture, reminiscent of slugs in gravel. I still remain uncertain what to do with the broccoli, but I’m thinking that salted caramel might be the way forward – it’s trendy, it’s salty, and it looks like the middle layer of a Mars Bar: what’s not to love? As long as there’s enough of the sauce to mask all traces of that flaccid dendroidal brassica’s malevolent tang (Hint: there is never enough of anything to mask its malevolent tang) then I must be on to a winner. N.B. broccoli is actually slightly less loathsome when uncooked and even more so when uneaten. I have tried everything I can think of with kale (up to, and including, Walnut Whip) and I have discovered that there is absolutely no way of making it even mildly pleasurable to eat. The nearest I have got is by sautéing it lightly in butter with garlic and white wine, before throwing the whole lot straight into the bin.

For many people, taste is a visual thing: if it looks good, they will eat it. These people have never eaten a whelk. Specialist food photographer’s have many tricks to make food look appetising on the page, from spraying with water to dousing in oil. For myself, I cannot think of a single foodstuff that doesn’t look better with a glace cherry on top. If God had not made apples look so alluring, we might still be residing in the Garden of Eden. Mind you, I can’t help but feeling that long, long ago, a million-times removed antecedent of today’s oyster must have looked at itself sans shell and thought, ‘well, nobody’s ever going to want to eat me,’ but people do – generally overweight business men attempting to seduce a much younger and terminally disinterested secretary with a plate of half-dead molluscs and a plastic cupful of warm champagne, before going home to a wife who does not understand him* and children who view him only as a peripatetic wallet. I have looked a shucked oyster in the face before now and, I promise you, the last thing it made me think about was sex. The first thing it made me think about was where I could hide it that wouldn’t stain the carpet and smell strongly of dead bi-valve the next time the central heating was turned on. Evolution gave oysters the protection of looking as though they had already been eaten – and that they didn’t agree with whatever did it. If only God had made apples look like oysters and taste like okra, we’d all be in a better place.

And if he’d made chocolate healthy, I wouldn’t have been so stressed in the first place.

*She does. That is why she has just spent the afternoon in the company of the vet’s de-worming assistant, hake and chips in the gazebo and PG Tips for two under the duvet.

A Little Fiction – Ancient Greeks (The Meaning of Life #3)

The man in the lovat Cavalry Tweed suit drained the last of his pint, loudly belched a beery fug laced with peanuts and bumptious pontification, and turned expectantly towards the man in the moleskin waistcoat who had barley sucked the froth from his own drink. “Your round, squire, I think,” he said.
“Bloody hell,” said Moleskin. “You got a shift on didn’t you?”
“Yes, well, as Archimedes pointed out, a man is only as heavy as the amount he can drink. You, my friend, are bordering upon reedy.”
“Eureka!” said the man in the Meerkat T-shirt as he painstakingly attempted to remove shards of Cavalry Tweed’s eructation from the head of his stout.
“What does?” said CT, tapping his glass impatiently.
“Eureka. It’s what Archimedes said after he sloshed his bath water all over the bath rug.”
“No, you my friend are mixing him up with Aristotle when he discovered logic: my glass is empty, therefore it needs filling. ‘I think, therefore I am.’”
“Descartes,” muttered moleskin, gathering up the glasses and heading, reluctantly to the bar. “It was Descartes who said that – ‘cogito, ergo sum’- not Aristotle.”
CT chuckled loudly. “Cogito, ergo sum,” he said, means ‘like clockwork’. It is actually the motto of Wolverhampton Wanderers Football Club. Didn’t they teach you nothing up that posh boys school of yours?”
Moleskin bridled. The hairs on the back of his neck rose in a villus concert. “I did not go to a posh boys school. I went to a state grammar school.”
“Of course,” said CT. “I forgot. So,” he continued, “how many girls were there?”
Moleskin passed a twenty pound note over to the barman. “My point,” he said, quietly contained, “is that it was not a posh boys school. It was simply a boys school.” He placed the three glasses onto the table a little more heavily than was strictly necessary. “You did not need to be posh to go there, you simply needed to be able to demonstrate a certain level of education…”
“…Attainable only to those who did not have to be up at sparrow’s fart to do their paper round and thus supplement the family income,” sneered CT.
“You never had a paper round!”
“Not for the want of trying, sunbeam. They were all taken up by you posh boys whose dad’s took them round in the family Volvo. My battered old hand-me-down bike did not conform to the corporate image.”
“Corporate image? It was a local paper shop. Mr and Mrs Singh would not have cared if you went round on a pogo stick as long as you got the papers delivered. You never got a round because you were bolshie even then.”
“Didn’t he have a principle of some kind?” asked Meerkat.
“Mr Singh? What kind of principle?”
“No, Archimedes. Didn’t he have a principal? Something about a solid object displacing its own weight in water…”
“Common mistake,” said CT. “Firstly, what Archimedes invented was the screw – everything was nailed before he came along – and secondly, when you put something in water, what it actually displaces is its own volume in water e.g. drop an elephant in your average bath and you’re going to wind up with suds on the downstairs carpet.”
“Unless the object was absorbent, I suppose.”
“Not many absorbent elephants around though,” chuckled Moleskin.
“That,” said CT, “is where you are mistaken. All elephants are absorbent due to where they live in the desert. It’s why they have humps…”
The man in the moleskin waistcoat opened his mouth to object, but his attention was taken by the man in the Meerkat T-shirt who was taking peanuts from the packet and dropping them into his pint, where they floated on the, as yet, untroubled head. “How come,” he said, as he tried to get the last few peanut shards from the packet “those huge boats don’t push all the water out of the sea?”
“Well, they do, in a manner of speaking,” said CT. “They cause the tides, don’t they.”
“No they don’t,” said Moleskin. “That’s the moon.”
“The moon?” laughed CT. “The moon? Have you gone mad? Might cause a bit of sloshing around, I’ll give you that, as the Earth goes around it every day, but not the tides. Have you ever been stood there when a big boat goes by? That’s where your waves come from sunshine. That’s the tides.”
Meerkat looked on solemnly as the salt slowly flattened his beer and the disappearing head lost its grip on the nuts which sank to the bottom of the glass. “I don’t think I fancy a cruise,” he said.
“I must admit,” said Moleskin, “I never quite understand why they don’t turn over, those big liners. There’s so much more above the water than below it.”
“Kaleidoscopes,” said CT.
“Kaleidoscopes?”
“You must have seen them. Set ‘em spinning and they’ll balance on anything. Send them scuttling along a piece of string or whatever. They never fall off.”
“Do you mean a gyroscope?” asked Moleskin.
“Or a cat,” suggested Meerkat.
“A cat?”
“They don’t fall off things, do they? And…” continued Meerkat, his face suffused with triumph, “…and they always land on their feet.”
“Are you suggesting that ships have feet?”
“No. Don’t be stupid. What I’m suggesting is that if you filled ships with cats, they’d never fall over. Man’s best friend and all that…”
“That’s a dog, surely.”
“Dog’s don’t always land on their feet,” said Meerkat after a short pause for thought. “Also, only one life. Cats are nine times more cost-effective. You don’t have to keep replacing cats.”
Cavalry Twill and Moleskin lifted their glasses in unison and drank in quiet contemplation as Meerkat tried to retrieve the peanuts from the base of his glass with a knife.
“Where would you put the passengers?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, if you filled the ship with cats, where would you put the passengers?”
“They would have to share.”
“Except for those who are scared of them, of course” sneered CT, staring directly at Moleskin.
“I am not scared of cats,” he replied. “I am allergic to them. They affect my breathing.”
“Yes, it’s always difficult to control your breathing when you’re terrified.”
Moleskin drained the beer from his glass and thumped it down on the table in front of CT. “Like when it’s your round,” he said.
The man in the Cavalry Twill glanced casually at his watch, drained his own glass and rose to his feet. “Good Lord,” he said. “Is that the time? Must get on. Carpe Diem, and all that” he said. “God is a fish…”

The Meaning of Life #1 can be found here.

The Meaning of Life #2 is here.

Driving On

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When I was a kid, I wanted to be older… This is not what I expected. (Anon)

If I’m honest, I expected to feel a lot older than I do by now. Most of the time I feel exactly as I have for years. One of the few times when I can really put my finger on a creeping sense of age is when I am faced with a long drive, particularly at night, or ‘in weather’. As a young man I vividly remember listening to old people talking about the difficulties of driving at night and thinking ‘Get a grip! You’ve got headlights,’ but now I see headlights – other vehicle’s headlights – as the enemy. I am absolutely fine driving in the dark – as long as I am in the only vehicle doing so – although there is a creeping sense of shame nagging away at the back of my mind that I might be allowing the rationale of ‘Oh, there’s somebody coming towards me: I’ll just slow down a little bit,’ to take hold. So far, I steadfastly refuse to be cowed by the inability to see, but I can feel my confidence ebbing away along with my ability to chew toffee or to open a packet of peanuts without spilling the entire contents all over the floor.

I’m not certain whether it is a change in the nature of headlights or of my eyes, but the glare of an approaching vehicle – particularly in the rain – seems to flood my entire field of vision. It is like that moment of alien abduction in Close Encounters of the Third Kind (I sense that I might just have lost everybody under 50 years of age with that reference. It’s a film. Look it up!): everything else is engulfed in the blazing white glare that consumes all notion of light and shade. All that remains is a blinding light and the faint suspicion that Twinkle is playing on the radio…

My whole being is absorbed in the battle to stop myself from joining the ranks of elderly yo-yo drivers who speed up (sometimes to over thirty miles per hour) every time the road is clear and stamp on the brake every time there is something (anything) coming towards them. I have a nagging suspicion that it might be a battle I am losing.

How do I tackle it? Well, like all cowards, I turn my back on it. It is so much easier to face things when you don’t acknowledge them. It is so much easier to tackle a problem by avoiding it than facing it. I would sooner sleep on a park bench than tackle unfamiliar roads in the dark of night and I would, almost certainly choose to walk rather than drive like an old man.

I must admit at this point, that I have never really been a ‘car person’. A car, to me, has always been a means of getting from A to B (via Z if my wife is navigating), but never the reason for it. I cannot conceive of ever deriving any pleasure from ‘going for a drive’. I drive only when I’ve got somewhere to go: somewhere I need to be. When arriving at my destination is all that matters. If I want to enjoy ‘getting there’, I go by bike, or I walk. Age does preclude me from roller-skating, scootering, pogo-sticking and skipping, but it should not. I aim to address this – and I will – just as soon as the weather improves. My grandson does not approve of my using his skateboard or scooter. He thinks I might break. He could just be right – we’ll see.

I appreciate the car whenever the weather is… well, British. Rain, wind, hail, sleet, snow – all far better viewed from the driver’s seat than the bicycle seat.

And I look after the car because I dread the thought of breaking down. (I mean, of course, I dread the thought of the car breaking down. Although now I come to think of it…) To sit and wait for several hours until an overalled somebody turns up in a little green van, covered in reflective stripes, with the sole intention of making me feel inadequate by starting the car within seconds using nothing but a ‘surely you knew how to do that’ shrug… I have never felt ‘as one’ with a car (It’s a bloody car!) but I do, generally, know when it is not running properly, and I know the basics of what to do in those circumstances. (Phone somebody who is at one with the car.) I could not tell you if the engine sounds anything but normal, because I never hear it. I never travel anywhere without music playing. Whenever I hear the car engine, all that goes through my mind is ‘What’s wrong with the radio?’

I have fully embraced SatNav – it doesn’t seem to stop me getting lost, but it does at least give me some idea of where I did it and, occasionally, it helps me get back to where I should have been before I wasn’t (Huh?) – and I have now partially accepted hands-free, although, generally, I have to stop the car to do it. Whilst the internal combustion engine is a complete mystery to me, I am pretty much au fait with the inner-machinations of my brain and so I tend to ignore most other ‘driver aids’ which, in my own instance, would generally result in nothing other than tempting me to let my mind wander further than it really should – look! Rabbits! I cannot adopt the automatic gearbox as I know that it would thrust my brain into neutral. I have no need for parking aids as I never leave the car in a space that could not fit the QEII.

I think, If I’m honest, I would be perfectly comfortable as the passenger in a self-driving car – I have been married for forty years: I have no illusions about being in charge of anything – and it’s actually quite comforting to think that in the event of an accident, the two vehicles involved could haggle over blame whilst I sit serenely taking in the scenery. I suppose that this is one thing that old age does prepare you for: being a better passenger. In life, sooner or later, everyone becomes a bit of a passenger and, in the end, we all just go along for the ride.

Life is like a helicopter. I don’t know how to operate a helicopter. (Anon)

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

COMMUNISM Doctrine that all goods, means of production &c. should be the property of the community. What a wicked system! Communism is currently frowned upon by most countries of the world, particularly the communist ones. It strikes me that the most obvious problem with the communist system is the confusion engendered by the paradox that those who are most doggedly communistic and therefore ardently opposed to all change and liberalisation, both socially and economically, are known as ‘conservatives’ and… actually, now I see that written down, it isn’t actually paradoxical at all, is it?

Most subversives are, nominally at least, Socialist¹ – except when it actually comes down to the principal of sharing things. The average subversive is more comfortable with a more theoretical observance of Socialist principals, whilst maintaining their shares in BT and the little nest egg in Zimbabwean diamonds.

A sort of user-friendly Communism, once much-vaunted in democratic societies, but now largely discarded in favour of personal advancement, capitalist expansionism and unparalleled levels of shoe ownership. Socialist principles in the UK have been progressively watered down since the Second World War, through the Worker’s Party, The Labour Party, New Labour, New New Labour, and Sir Kier Starmer.

CONFLICT Struggle, trial of strength. Oh dear me, no. No sensible subversive ever gets involved in such a thing: he/she is seldom well enough. I, myself, have been almost exclusively mentally subversive for six months, due to a heavy cold. Struggle is a very physical process and, should it become absolutely unavoidable, best left to somebody considerably fitter than yourself.

CONSCIENCE The complex of ethical and moral principles that controls or inhibits the actions or thoughts of an individual. E.G. ‘Am I likely to get caught?’

CONSERVATIVE In politics, one who desires to preserve institutions of his country against change and innovation. What a wonderful concept. In Britain, we have a whole party opposed to change and innovation. The only problem is that, these days, nobody is quite sure which one it is. Generally, in politics, innovations, such as everybody getting a fair and equal chance in life, are frowned upon.

CONSPIRACY An evil, unlawful, treacherous, or surreptitious plan formulated in secret by two or more persons. The most widely known conspiracy in the UK is almost certainly The Gunpowder Plot of 1605. The conspiracy was to blow up James I and the English parliament on its opening day, November 5^th, in the hope of prompting a great Catholic uprising. The brother-in-law of Francis Tresham (one of the conspirators) was warned not to attend the ceremony and the plot was subsequently exposed. Guy Fawkes, a paid mercenary, was captured, tortured and killed, as were most of his co-plotters¹. The plot back-fired as harsh anti-catholic laws were passed by the shocked establishment and November 5^th became widely known as Guy Fawkes Night (as it had a better ring than Thomas Catesby Night) and the tradition of scaring the living daylights out of the elderly and setting fire to half the neighbourhood, nightly from October 1^st to November 30^th, began.

Robert Catesby, John Wright and Thomas Winter originated the plot and, when Guy Fawkes was captured, they fled to Holbeach House in Staffordshire, where they were killed during a gunfight with the local sheriff and his deputies the very next day, having accidentally ignited their own gunpowder. Instant karma.

CORRUPT Make rotten, pervert, make evil. A common aim of all subversion and politics. Calling a Right Honourable Member a corrupt politician is a double damnation similar to evil devil, violent war and Michael Gove. If you believe that two wrongs can make a right, you may feel able to trust a corrupt politician. I do not, but then I don’t trust Dettol.

How To Corrupt a Politician: Elect him.

COSH A bludgeon. The subversive’s most subtle weapon.

CRISIS Turning point or decisive moment. I’m not certain that my interpretation of crisis is quite the same as my Dictionary. A subversive’s definition of crisis requires just one word – ‘Life’. Life is crisis, crisis is life. If I have a crisis it is seldom, if ever, a turning point, it is usually a rabid fear of being found out.

CRUCIFIXION A form of execution by being nailed or tied to a cross. Although the Romans did not originate crucifixion, they did use it widely, generally on slaves and despised malefactors. It would appear that Jesus of Nazareth, who could almost certainly be described as an early subversive were it not for the fact that both his motives and his methods were honest and virtuous, was killed in such a manner, with the intention that his importance was seen to be diminished to that of a common slave – well, that worked didn’t it…

In order to speed up death, which could be slow and tortuous, the crucified party often had his legs broken. This was considered merciful by the kind of person who regarded nailing an innocent man to a tree as justice.

As a subversive, you will have little time for religion, but you will have plenty of time to consider whether you are sufficiently committed to your own cause to run the risk of such punishment¹.

The answer is ‘No’.

HOMEWORK.

1. Describe in detail, the differences between Capitulate & Collaborate, Chaos & Crisis, Corrupt & Castrate, Capitalist, Communist & Conservative
Or
2. Don’t bother.

N.B. I had intended to see this guide through to Z, but as my already meagre readership appears to have voted with its feet on this particular little strand and headed off into the sunset, The Subversive A-Z will now take what might well become a very protracted break.

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

CABAL Secret plot. Most of your D.I.Y plots will be extremely secret: you will probably be the only person ever to know anything about them. If you feel that you are perhaps getting too much of a good thing, tell your wife¹, but expect to be held up for ridicule.

Subversion is a notoriously sexist occupation and ‘partner’ still sounds a little too ‘woolly hat and lentils’ for many ‘traditional’ subversives. If you are the wife, then tell your husband and expect the same result. If you are single, then tell anyone you can think of and expect total apathy. If you have a friend, then you are not a subversive.

CANT Hypocritical speech. This is not the word I thought it was and it doesn’t mean anything like the same, however, no turning back, and it is quite an appropriate word for our guide. Being hypocritical is one of the most essential subversive skills. Without it, you may end up saying what you really mean. Fatal. Never fall into the truth trap. Truth is a four-letter word to the subversive¹. Lie at all times.

Inevitable, as most of them cannot count beyond three.

CAPITALIST Owner of capital. Think of everything nasty, everything evil, everything you most covet – that is capital. Think of the owner of the capital – that is a capitalist – and sheer, naked envy will make him your sworn enemy. He has it and you don’t. Now, how can that be fair? Being fair is all about you having the capital and the capitalist slaving away in an attempt to get you some more. Life, of course, is seldom fair.

CAPITULATE Surrender on terms, give in. This is something the good, honest, decent subversive will never do – unless it is to his advantage. Surrender traditionally requires either the hoisting of a white flag or a good foreknowledge of the safe word. Capitulation is, in fact, the greater part of subversive valour¹ and very rarely results in bruising other than to the ego – which does not hurt anything like as much.

Oxymoron of the day.

CASTRATE Remove testicles. Not particularly effective as a political ploy, but great fun in the right company.

CEMENT Fine mortar. A fine, grey powder which, when mixed with sand and water, has many applications in building and construction work. Mainly employed by the D.I.Y subversive in the construction of concrete boots:

Place victim’s feet into two medium-sized plastic buckets¹.
Three quarters fill with suitable cement mixture.
Allow concrete² to set (usually 3 to 7 days, depending on conditions).
Throw victim in river or lake.

It is wise to take a few precautions before employing such conglomerate footwear:

Spread plenty of plastic around before mixing the concrete – splashes can be very difficult to remove from light-coloured carpets.
Ensure that the concrete is correctly mixed. Incomplete mixing could lead to surface cracking and eventually to the re-floatation of the corpse. Whilst this may be acceptable in the large marine environment, it can be unsightly in the home pond or swimming pool.
Ensure that the water depth is sufficient to cover the victim. Throwing a six-foot victim into a five-foot garden pond is never going to work³; the weight of the concrete will ensure that the victim remains upright and, even allowing for a certain amount of settlement, his nose is unlikely to sink below the surface. If you are not properly prepared, you may be forced to haul your victim from the water. Beware – wet concrete is even heavier than dry concrete. If you are unable to remove him from the water, try putting a small fishing rod in his hands or, alternatively, decorate his head to resemble a buoy.

Alternative Procedure: 3,000 tonnes of concrete spread evenly across the bridge of the nose will silence even the most stubborn of dissenters.

Traditionally, the wearer of concrete wellies will be dead. If this is not the case, you may need some help in holding their feet still while the concrete sets.
Mixture of sand, cement and water is known by builders as ‘gobbo’ and is used in building walls – concrete (below) actually relies upon the addition of a harsher ‘ballast’ – usually pebbles or grit – in precise ratio. It is a well-known fact that these ratios are never actually precise enough and the resulting mix is either too dry to lay, or so wet that next-door’s cat is consumed by it three weeks later.
This is especially relevant if you are trying to submerge a living victim. There is a very useful technique for ascertaining the vitality of your victim involving a small hand mirror, but I don’t know what it is. Perhaps it would be best to gag the victim whether alive or dead, but not with the monogrammed handkerchiefs that Aunty Sheila has bought you every Christmas for the last twenty years

CHAOS Disorder, confusion. The ultimate aim of the subversive group is to spread disorder and confusion throughout society. The ultimate dénouement is usually the spreading of disorder and confusion amongst the subversive group itself.

COLLABORATE Aid an enemy in occupation of one’s own country. To vote Conservative. In a war (subversives are always engaged in a war – even if it’s only with the car) collaboration is perfectly acceptable, providing you do it with the winners. In the Second World War, the French collaborators made three basic mistakes:

1. Collaborating with a party that offered little in return.
2. Collaborating with the losers.
3. Being French.

In order to make a real success of collaboration, you will first have to persuade somebody to occupy your country. If you are American, Chinese or Russian, I think you might as well give it up as a bad idea straight away. If, however, you live in Lichtenstein, you have a fighting chance¹. Your first step is to talk to someone with a larger army and persuade them to invade. Negotiating with a foreign power is not always easy:

HOW TO TEMPT THEM.

Advise them of the richness of your natural resources.

Offer them money.

Ask very, very politely.

HOW TO DEAL WITH THEM.

Be certain of their aims.

Be certain of your aims.

Get everything in writing.

IS IT WORTH IT?

No.

Although the non-fighting chance is always the preferred option.

The Beginner’s A-Z of D.I.Y Subversion Index is here.

A Little Fiction – Frankie & Benny

“…So, you know what it’s like, you’re well into discussing the state of your underwear when you realise that the person you are talking to is not the person you thought you were talking to, but you can’t stop now, can you, without drawing attention to it? Without, as it were, looking an even bigger pranny than you already do.”
“Perhaps it would be wiser to keep the on-going condition of your undercrackers out of the conversation until you had a little more time in which to ensure clarity, viz a viz the ‘who am I talking to’ conundrum, in future.”
“What?”
“You do tend to introduce your grundies into the chat rather more early than is altogether seemly, if you want my opinion Benny.”
“I don’t!”
“Fine, that’s fine then… So, who were you chatting to in the end, anyway?”
“Turns out she was from the council. She’d come to discuss the complaint I’d put in about the smell.”
“And you thought it was the ideal time to introduce your trolleys into the conflab?”
“I thought it was a long-lost aunty or somesuch. I’d even offered her a Yo-Yo.”
“Mint or toffee?”
“Mint.”
“Classy.”
“Well, I thought she might have turned up out of the blue to tell me that I’d inherited some money or something. You can’t go offering Rich Tea in those circumstances, can you? That’s a Penguin conversation at least.”
“I have Viscount myself. Superior quality of tin-foil on a Viscount I find: stay fresh for week’s they do.”
“Yes, well, we’re not all superannuated you know.”
“Right, well, I can see why you got the Yo-Yo’s out Benny, need to make the right impression in such a circumstance, but what drew your shitty pants into the discourse?”
“She mentioned the smell.”
“From the yard?”
“Of course, that’s why I’d rung the council in the first place – not, of course, that I realised that she was from the council at that stage – but I thought that, if she was indeed a solicitor or somesuch, planning to make me the sort of offer that could see me as the proud owner of an automatic washing machine or an induction hob et cetera, then I needed to make her au fait with the fact that, whilst the money to make my laundry days a little less time consuming than my current trip to the laundrette in Morrison’s carpark would be most welcome, those same arrangements were not the cause of the unpleasant odour at that time permeating my whole flat and, to that effect, I thought it legitimate to mention that my pants were clean on last Thursday.”
“That being?”
“Monday. So a good few days left in them at that point.”
“And how did she react?”
“Well, that’s when I began to suspect that all might not be as it seemed, Frankie, that things were, indeed, somewhat at odds with my expectations.”
“Go on.”
“‘The Council is not in the habit of handing out loans to those who are – for whatever reason – unable to stop themselves from being the source of unpleasant odours,’ she said. ‘We do not, in short, expect to be called out to the properties of unsavoury old men in order to experience for ourselves the smell that they give off due to not being able to keep themselves clean. I bid you good day,’ she said, and made to leave. ‘Now just you wait on,’ I said, but she was ready for me. ‘If you think,’ she said, ‘that you can threaten me, Mr Anderson, you’d better think again,’ and she scooped up her Yo-Yo and left without a by-your-leave.”
“Oh dear. So what will you do now?”
“Well, we need to get out there and find out where the smell is actually coming from.”
“We?”
“I’m an old man, Frankie, you wouldn’t have me out there on my own would you? ‘Now, what’s causing that smell? Oh my God, look at that! It’s a…’ Exit Benny, gripping chest in agony. Alone and friendless in a smelly backyard.”
“Alright, point made. You are certain of your underwear situation, aren’t you?”
“Would you like to take alook for yourself?”
“No, no, definitely no. Ok, I’ll accompany you onto the patio. I’m not touching anything, mind.”
“Right, let’s go to it then: strike while the iron’s hot. I want to find out what’s causing the stink and rub that old luxury biscuit thief’s nose in it.”
“Ok. How do we get in there?”
“Where?”
“The backyard. How do we get in there? The door’s always locked, but I’ve never seen a key for it. Who’s got the key?”
“Ah, I’d never thought of that. I bet it’s that bloody TFW on the ground floor. I’m not knocking on his door to ask for it.”
“I’m not sure he’s even in. There’s an old lavvy outside his front door and about three week’s milk.”
“He took the lavvy out himself – with his head. It was annoying him, apparently, but the milk… You don’t suppose he’s dead do you? It would explain the smell.”
“I’m not sure that he could smell any worse dead than he did alive, my old chum. He had what I believe the BBC would term an ‘uneasy relationship’ with soap. Ten years I’ve been coming to your flat Benny, and other than the day of the gravy incident, I’ve never seen him change his clothes. I hear that David Attenborough is preparing to do a whole series on the life contained within his jogging bottoms… You want to get rid of the smell, you need to get out of this flat my friend.”
“But what if he’s dead?”
“Does he have any cats?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Nobody to eat him then. He could lay there decomposing for months. They say that you can never remove the smell of a dead body.”
“Particularly one that is welded to his clothes. I’ll phone the council again. I’ll say I can’t manage the stairs… Have you still got that spare room, Frankie? Just as a stopgap I mean. Just short term. Until they sort me out with a new flat. There are some empty near you aren’t there?”
“There are, yes. They are constantly becoming vacant, in fact there is a permanent hearse on standby at the end of the block. We used to run a sweepstake on who would be next, but there’s not enough of us left now. There’s more chipboard around me now than a kebab shop. Come on, let’s not bother phoning, we’ll just wander round and see them. Get your stick. Put a marble in your shoe, that’ll help.”
“Ok, I will… Shall we just have a cup of tea before we go?”
“Ay, why not. Don’t suppose you’ve got any of those Yo-Yos left, have you?””
“No.”

I decided to revisit some old ‘Little Fiction’ friends and whilst I was doing so, I met these new ones… N.B. my thanks to Billy Connolly for ‘TFW’ – Tattooed Fuck-Wit.

Frankie and Benny reappear here: A Little Fiction – Goodbyes (Frankie & Benny #2)

A Trickle of Spring

Having spoken to an ex-lawyer in the pub, and in line with disclaimers carried on all TV and Radio output at the moment, I have decided to include the following warning: This item may contain jokes that some people do not find funny.

The Spring has sprung, the grass has ris,
I wonder where the birdies is.
Some people say the bird is on the wing, but that’s absurd
For I would say the wing was on the bird. (Traditional)

The air still carries the chill bite of winter, even while the sun shines down through the transient, undiluted diorama of crystal blue skies. Birds squabble over the last few hips and berries of autumn past: males puff out painted chests whilst females – avifaunally plainer – spring clean homes of yore, or gather material with which to pitch new tents, cosy enough to raise a new generation. One by one the new year’s flowers bloom: snowdrops, aconites, crocus, daffodils, dandelions, something sharp and spiky that lodges under the fingernail and refuses to be removed until it has had the opportunity to throb with an intensity only otherwise felt with the death of a star. The world is suddenly abloom and there is nowhere to tread in the garden that is not ‘the wrong place’; nowhere to stand that is not on something only just emerged, or in something more recently – although insufficiently – buried.

Tiny pricks of green emerge in trees and bushes even as much bigger pricks emerge in white vans bearing aerosoled signage – D. O’Brien, Qualified tree surjon. Hedges clipt. All clipping’s removed and ecologically burned. Dogs groomed – and start door-knocking and leafleting anyone who might not have seen them coming. Now is the time to assure all of these peripatetic Samaritans that you do not need your gutters cleaning, your drive tarmacking, nor your valuables independently assessing. Now is the time to resist the siren call of all of those who can do everything that you do not want doing, better than you cannot be bothered to do yourself.

Spring is the time when everything is on the rise (Oh, come on!) and atop the list of ‘rising things’ is the word ‘ladder’ (or, more precisely, in my case, the words ‘next-door’s ladder’, as I have studiously avoided any temptation to own my own for forty years and more now.) Ladders are for reaching up and washing down, painting over, cleaning out and falling off. Ladders have tiny steps only to facilitate ease of falling. It is impossible to remain steady on these slender rungs without cramp setting in within thirty seconds. I am master of the knock-kneed teeter, the over-stretched swipe and the grip of steel around something that should not be, but almost certainly is, moving. Ladders are an inescapable fact of Spring and my only advice to anyone preparing to climb one in an amateur capacity is ‘don’t’: employ a professional; someone who is competent in ladder-usage and not so apt to find themselves doing it on their back from the ground with a twig up the nostril, a paint brush in the ear and a hole in the conservatory roof. It is an unwritten Rule of Spring that wherever you land following an uncontrolled ladder descent will be in ‘full spike’. Spring landings are never things of fragrant bud and luscious foliage, but are inevitably spiky and underpinned by cat shit. Winter-softened flesh is easily breached.

There is an old country saying: ‘When the first cat of spring leaves a semi-digested mouse on your doorstep, it is time to remove your lawnmower from the shed and discover that plastic can actually rust – or at least look like it.’ Spring’s first cut is an unavoidable trial – you might as well get it over with whilst it is still possible to blame something else for the carnage you are about to wreak. Step one is to open the shed door. All shed doors exist simultaneously in both of the two possible states: a) Shrunken so far that mice, rats and, at times cats, can sneak through the gaps without touching either side and b) swollen to such an extent that it is impossible to open. It is widely known that all shed doors exist only in the latter stage whenever you want to open them. This is the point at which the door knob falls off. Entrance is usually gained by forcing the door with a garden spade. The garden spade is in the shed. Do not worry, in this post-winter season you will be able to enter through the gap where the roof used to be before it made its way onto the floor of next-door’s ex-conservatory along with several desiccated panels of larchlap fencing and what might quite possibly once have been a stoat.

The rutted, sub-Passchendaele expanse of lawn will, by now, be covered in patches of frost-hardened corrugation and swamps of recently thawed gloop, and the winter-dried and rusted drive shaft of your ancient electric mower will ensure that the freshly trimmed lawn will resemble the very worst of your lockdown haircuts, but it doesn’t really matter because, as the mower will have blown every fuse in the neighbourhood and welded your consumer unit to the garage wall, nobody can see it after dark. Although, of course, the cover of night is decreasing: daylight expands to cover a greater percentage of the grey and drizzled day. March winds and April showers punctuate the meteorological lope towards summer. Spring in the UK is a time when the clouds leave the sky and descend to earth, breaking just long enough to reveal the steely blue of tomorrow’s sky: to let the sunshine in; to allow the unexpected cold snap full access to buds and nethers. Spring is the promise of tomorrow. It is never to be trusted. The icy-white blush of sun in an acid-clear sky is not a promise. It is an aspiration. It is what the world would like to be. Each little snowdrop, crocus, aconite and daffodil is an illustration of what the world hopes to become – just as soon as the first trickle of spring finds its way to summer and the full panoply of opportunity to self-harm in the pursuit of the perfect garden is laid before me.

I can’t wait.

Oh hang on – yes I can…

Ivan

Photo by Kostiantyn Stupak on Pexels.com

Ivan, Crown Emperor of all Delusia, scratched nervously at the arm of his ermine throne. His petulance had risen to such a degree that he was on the very cusp of calling upon his Royal Foot Stamper to make the point for him. He could feel the hair prickling on the back of his neck. Perspiration began to collect in the folds of skin under his once-muscled chest. The girdle made him look so much better, but my word it was warm. He had tasked the whole might of his entire scientific community on finding a solution, but all they had come up with was ‘cutting holes in it’. He felt like he was wearing a peep-hole bra. When he took his shirt off in front of his Dresser, she had laughed. Once. Replacing a Royal Dresser was such a fuss. He could not believe how much he had to pay the Impreial Dresser Finder to identify the right replacement, nor why they would even want their own Caribbean island in the first place. Still, the job was done and the new Dresser was perfect. She never smirked; she never cupped his sagging man-breasts and whispered ‘Phwoar!’; she never questioned his choices and she always found ways to fit a new row of medals onto his jackets, to co-ordinate a new band of ribbons. She had sewn epaulettes onto everything he owned.

He cast his mind back to the days of his physical prime – in his late fifties. The days of bare-back horse riding, black belt karate battles and river swimming were all behind him now. His greatest servant was Adobe Photoshop. Obviously he had found new and discreet ways of ensuring the respect of his people. They were called Gulags. He actively encouraged free speech and dissention – without them his security forces would have had too much time on their hands. There are only so many teenagers you can club before boredom starts to kick in. Shoot enough people and it starts to lose some of its appeal. They needed a new challenge.

Like all mortal souls – it was proving very difficult, even for him, to change sufficient rules to evade Death itself, but he was working on it – he lived with doubt: could any one person be right about everything? Well, only one person could, obviously, and his burden was that it was him. Being right all the time isn’t easy, but dealing with all those who could not see that he was… well, that was a doddle: just make them realise how wrong they had ever been to doubt it.

The main problem about being the absolute ruler of anywhere is that you always want to be the absolute ruler of somewhere else as well: somewhere bigger; somewhere richer; somewhere the people know instinctively how to obey. Successfully smack the arse of somebody outside your own kingdom and the respect of your own people will grow and, after all, respect is your absolute right. Those who do not respect the Emperor do not respect life. Well, certainly not their own.

Is absolute power wrong? Well, Ivan had never met anyone who was prepared to say so. He had also never met anyone prepared to say ‘No’. He no longer had a physique that inspired obeisance, but he was surrounded by many, many people who did. Nobody would believe now that he could climb Everest bare-chested, without the need for oxygen – if he was honest, he feared that half an hour out in the cold without his vest could have severe consequences for his nipples. Three times now the state surgeon had honed and tightened his re-muscled chest for him and three times it had fallen straight back to where it was. (So that’s three times he had to replace the state surgeon.) God-alone-knows where his nipples might be now were it not for the surgeon’s knife. Maybe stitched to his knees. Not even the most enfeebled of his karate opponents could any longer fall convincingly at his chop. His eyes had been lazered, his ears aided, his prostate removed and given a stern talking to. He could not deny that his body was beginning to fail – almost as if he really was mortal – but at least his brain remained razor-sharp. He could still beat anyone at chess simply by warning them of the consequences of an Imperial loss. He could still complete the crossword in record time, in the certain knowledge that any questions over the veracity of any of his answers could easily be countered by having the compilers ears nailed to the ceiling. He could still remember his own name, address and age, providing somebody wrote it down for him in large letters on a piece of paper. Those who claimed that he was not as sharp as he had once been need only ask those around him. He was as sharp as a… what are those sharp things? If ever he needed to justify his actions he could easily demonstrate that they were simply a defensive reply to those who wished him harm. There was absolutely nothing to gain by allowing people to think otherwise. He had checked with the goblins and he most certainly was not delusional.

The Crown Emperor of all Delusia scratched nervously at the arms of his ermine throne. He felt boxed in. He was alone and afraid. Paranoia had led him to exclude all of his closest confidantes whose repeated assurances of his infallibility had helped him to be certain that there was really no point in worrying about whether people might disobey him. Why would they? He tried to think his way out of his current situation; he tried to consider what to do next and eventually the solution came to him. He did not need to consult anybody else on the way ahead, because everyone that mattered to him had always assured him that that was so.

Ivan’s eyes flicked around the room even as he felt the very last vestiges of rationality gurgle down the pan. Now, where had he put that big red button?