The Running Man – Bangers

My life is to a large extent ruled by music.  I listen to music all the time.  As I write this piece I am listening to music (currently Phaedra by Tangerine Dream, as you ask, with Rush’s Clockwork Angels to follow).  Music is in the background of everything I do.  Music accompanies me every time I run.  My tastes are eclectic – there is little I do not like* – but my choices are limited for my running playlists as the tracks have to accommodate my need to plod**.  Never-the-less I change the songs on the playlist every couple of weeks – I always forget that I have done it and I am subsequently taken by surprise each time I run – although I have noticed there are a handful of songs that never seem to drop off the phone.  I don’t know why; it is not a conscious thing and, undoubtedly, of no interest whatsoever to anyone else – which is why I intend to tell you about it…

Many years ago on a family holiday to Fuerteventura we encountered a guitarist/singer who inhabited a ‘pitch’ every evening in the local village square.  This man (I want to call him Kevin Wilson, but I have no idea why) was simply superb: he played Pink Floyd, he played a version of Still Got the Blues for You which could well have been better than Gary Moore’s own version and he played Cocaine with the kind of protracted solo that Mr Clapton can only have dreamt of.  My daughters loved him and, consequently, we had to go to see him every night, except one evening, when he was not there.  We had a subdued dinner with much in the way of bottom lip quivering and had began to walk back ‘home’ when we heard a familiar voice in the distance, which we tracked down to a nearby restaurant, where Kevin was playing what I can only describe as ‘wedding songs’ to togged-up holidaymakers.  Before we could stop her my daughter charged in, her T-shirt bedecked with the requisite amount of dinner for a six-year old, shouting ‘Kevin, Kevin, I want Cocaine!’ to the consternation of all present, except for Kevin, who just chuckled, said ‘I think you might be a little young for that’ and played it anyway.  What a man!  Cocaine by Eric Clapton never leaves my running playlist.

Even more years ago than that holiday, my wife and I went to see Roxy Music who were in their full early pomp at, I think, the De Montfort Hall in Leicester.  It was an all-standing affair and we were late.  I am not tall (five foot eight’ish most of the time unless somebody bothers to measure me, when it is five foot seven) but my wife is substantially below five feet even on tip-toes.  Roxy Music were great, but my wife saw nothing other than, she thinks, a glimpse of Bryan Ferry’s foot during Do the Strand – and very happy she was with the whole experience.  Roxy Music and, latterly, Mr Ferry have been one of my very guiltiest pleasures since their first appearance on The Old Grey Whistle Test way, way back in the day.  Avonmore is the title track of a 2014 Ferry album which proves that despite the occasional detours into As Time Goes By and a peculiar interregnum during which he attempted to be the lead singer in some kind of a Bob Dylan cover’s band, Ferry is still very good at being Ferry when he chooses to be.  It never leaves the list.

Bowie has been the musical love of my life and, if I was forced to make a choice, Heroes may well be my favourite song of all time.  The song has an incredible habit of bursting out of my headphones at the moments when I think I might just have to give in – but you really can’t stop when that song is playing, can you?  I have a particular aversion to the butchered and truncated ‘single’ version of the song and so it is the full album version that has become a fixture on my running playlist.  Definitely the most uplifting song on there.

Most surprising song is probably Check Out Time 11am by Sparks which was recorded in 2017 (long after even people of my age thought they no longer existed) for a 7” vinyl single-only release and tucked away at the end of their three-album ‘Best Of’ set.  A great song, perfect for running; it always makes me smile – although if I’m passing by, it might look like a grimace.

The rest of my unshakeable running ‘bangers’ are I Feel Free by Cream, which is just a wonderful song that buries into your head fifty five years (yup, 55 years!) after its release; Don’t Fear the Reaper by Blue Oyster Cult which is my ‘funeral song’ – so I thought it would be handy to have it playing if the paramedics have to come and find me;  Freedom Calling by Colin Hay – a perfect running beat for me and the only ‘cool’ song to my knowledge to feature bagpipes; Personal Jesus by Depeche Mode, which again has the right beat for me and is, despite the fact that it really should not be, a great song; Shout by Tears For Fears, again a brilliant tempo for my limping running gait with a drum line that you only ever seem to pick up on headphones and finally the greatest rock ‘n’ roll song of all time, aptly called Rock and Roll*** by Led Zeppelin which just means that wherever I am on my run, I have to summon up just that little bit of extra energy required for air guitar.

I would be lying if I said this was anything close to a list of my favourite songs – although that list would be very long and would contain some of these – but clearly they share something that makes them indispensable to me when I run.  At any one time, my running playlist contains about 40 songs, which I update fortnightly and, as far as I can see, these are the only songs that have never left it.  I have no idea why.  Perhaps it is a comfort thing.

N.B. I have made no attempt to provide links to any of these songs as it would certainly end in tears.  You will all be far more proficient than I at finding them should you choose to.  If I might suggest anything, try I Feel Free by Cream, in order to experience what the world could sound like in 1966.

*I always say that I struggle with Reggae, but I love Bob Marley; I do not understand Rap, but I can always listen to Eminem; Grime has come along 50 years too late for me, but Stormzy is phenomenal.  Perhaps the only genre I truly can’t listen to is Country & Western – except, of course, for Johnny Cash…

**As a fan of many ‘Prog’ rock ensembles, I could not envision running to any of them without the risk of dislocating something.

***Although forever known as Been A Long Time by my eldest daughter.

My first ‘running’ post, ‘Couch to 5k’ is here.
Last week’s running post, ‘Twelve Months of Becoming Er…’ is here.
Next week’s little outing, ‘A Very Hot Business’ is here
There are many ‘running’ post in between the two which are all linked, should they be your own particular cup of tea.

Zoo #37 – Meerkat

In terms of still observance,
The meerkat’s sheer endurance
Is matched by no insurgents –
They also sell insurance.

Well, this is the way that things work out.  I was quietly patting myself on the back for the above, when suddenly it dawned on me that most of my readers would have not the faintest idea of what I was banging on about.  I will therefore explain.  Some time ago the advertising agency employed by the price comparison website Compare the Market* came up with the slogan Compare the Meerkat and a series of ads based around an anthropomorphic animated family of the aforementioned critters.  The meerkats have gone on to be far more famous than the product they advertise but, crucially – according to Wikipedia – only in the UK and Australia: two places from which the majority of my followers do not come.  Hence the four lines at the head of this post will make sense only to about three of you.  I cannot make any sense of the fact that the catchphrase of ‘Simples’ has seeped into general usage nor why a ‘free’ cuddly toy of a meerkat dressed in a velour smoking jacket would persuade you to change your insurance provider, but that is the way it is with mass hysteria sometimes.  You pays your money and you takes their pick…

*In the interests of sanity I actually prefer to think that this was not the work of the entire agency, but someone they keep locked up in the cellar, fed on raw meat and Guinness.

Anyway, in order to balance out this reckless oversight, here is a poem about an animal much more widely recognised the world over – at least if young men are to be believed**. 

Cougar

The cougar likes to hunt alone,
Drawn to its prey by constant hunger;
The older female, always prone
To search for males forever younger.

**Generally speaking, they are not.

I Am Magneto Man

I am searching for space ships.

I have had my second dose of vaccine and I am now, by all accounts, magnetic.  I have seen the videos of people with magnetic arms – absolutely conclusive obviously – and I can’t wait to start attracting fridge magnets.  I have already noticed how easy it is to open the fridge door when there is beer in it.  I don’t eat meat, so I hope that I do not start attracting liver*: I have no desire to become an irresistible target for the lights of some unfortunate ex-creature.  I do eat spinach** but I have yet to find it flying across the kitchen towards my arm.

In fact, upon a second viewing, it would appear that my fear of being attacked by metallic objects is slightly erroneous: as a twice vaccinated person, it would appear that I am magnetic but, crucially, not a magnet: I remain deeply unattractive, yet strangely drawn towards all manner of hi-fi speakers and credit cards.  It would appear that I am now choc-full of computer chip and that is what is attracting the attention of all things magnetic.  Bill Gates, I am told, is hoping to monitor my movements 24/7.  I can only wish him luck.  If I do anything at all exciting, perhaps he would be good enough to wake me up and tell me about it.  As we are all aware, Mr Gates is actually responsible for all of the evil in the world and, therefore, it stands to reason that he is able to access the entire world’s stockpile of vaccine in order to place an invisible chip into every phial.  It is not far-fetched at all.  For a man who cannot get my laptop to update without crashing, it all seems perfectly feasible.

It also makes perfect sense for us all to be Bluetooth enabled – apparently if you check your phone after vaccination, you will appear on the list of available devices – as we can then all fail to connect to the matrix by which we are all being subsumed.  This is not such a big deal as – if we set aside the obvious fact that Covid does not actually exist but is merely a rumour spread about by the erstwhile Mr Gates in order to render all of the world’s arms available for chipping – we are all set to become 5G phone masts.  What we are actually catching is not a virus, but a phone signal***.  Every time that we cough, some poor, unfortunate tele-sales operative is cut off.  (There, that makes it all worthwhile, doesn’t it?)  Think of the brain-freeze that you experience from time to time as buffering and you will realise that 5G may not be all that it is cracked up to be.  Just in case you are tempted not to be convinced by the 5G theory, let me tell you that it is expounded by none other than the human fountain of truth that is David Icke and, well, I bet you feel a bit silly for not believing it now, don’t you?

It seems to me obvious that there is actually just one evil genius behind this entire pandemic and that is Stan Lee – rumoured to have died in 2018, but be honest, have any of you actually seen his body?  There can be little doubt that what he is trying to do to us through this false pandemic/vaccine regime is to create a planet full of magnetic beings with modified DNA, able to both transmit and receive messages and video (without adverts for an additional fee) to and from every other similarly modified living being, through the matrix of all things to which we have been joined.  (I am currently trying, not entirely successfully, to persuade my washing machine to undertake the laundry for me, simply through the power of thought, although it is currently refusing to pick up my pants if I have not put them in the basket.)  We have all become members of The Avengers and, with a planet full of magnets, we should not be surprised if we soon begin to attract all kinds of interplanetary craft.

I am ready for them…

*Offal is, apparently, incredibly high in iron.  I guess that also means that my own liver (the poor, beleaguered beast) is similarly high in the kind of metal that will ensure that it is desperate to be in intimate contact with my forearm – obviously full justification for the claim that Pfizer makes you ‘walk funny’.

** Similarly high in iron – although nothing explains why a three hundred weight sack of spinach reduces down to one teaspoonful of emerald mush plus a bathful of green water when cooked.  However, I have seen how Popeye attracts ships’ anchors after eating it so, you know…

***I have also just read, on a very reliable source (the internet) that the Spanish Flu was not actually responsible for the deaths of over 50 million people in the years following the First World War.  That extraordinary number of people did die, but they were actually killed by the vaccine which was developed by who-knows-who and despite the fact that nobody realised that they were attempting to treat a virus, which didn’t even exist!!  Let’s face it, it is entirely plausible that the entire global conflict was just a rumour, put about by a proto-Bill Gates, in order to cover up this entire, dastardly anti-vax farrago.  No wonder everyone was given a gas mask for the second lot: who knows what they might have tried to cure by then?

N.B.  Just in case anybody is in any doubt, THIS IS A SPOOF!  I have had both doses of my vaccine and I urge you to do the same.  The only change in me is that I feel happier that we may be moving towards an end to all of this and that the world may, one day, return to normal – although, if I’m honest, that entire concept is far more likely to be a figment of somebody’s imagination…

The Writer’s Circle #20 – The Lounge Bar in The Steam Hammer

Jeff had read about the Circle in the local online ‘newspaper’ and had actually been to the pub twice already without finding the courage to join the others.  On the first occasion he did not even enter the pub, on the second he followed what he assumed was a member into the Lounge, but left without ordering a drink as soon as he realised that there were more than a dozen members there already and he would have to introduce himself to them all en masse.  He vowed to return at an earlier hour the following week, giving himself the opportunity to introduce himself to one or two members at a time.  Much less daunting.  Much more manageable…

So, here he was, a week later, alone in the velour-seated splendour of the Lounge Bar of the Steam Hammer, hovering between door and bar, and truth be told, on the point of leaving again before any of the members arrived when the landlord peered around the partition wall between the Lounge and the bar and smiled.  Well, sort of smiled.  It looked a little like a smile, although there were definitely some slightly disturbing elements to it.
“You’re here for the Writer’s Circle,” he said.
“Well I…” stuttered Jeff, once again on the point of fleeing.  “That is I…”
“You came last week, I saw you, but you left as soon as you saw them.  They don’t bite you know.  You’ve no need to worry about them, they’re a total bunch of losers.  You can’t be any worse than they are.”  Jeff could feel the pressure of the prized manuscript rolled up in his breast pocket.  He could almost smell the mediocrity of every single word leaching out into the air around him.  “Go and sit in the corner over there; that’s where they congregate when they first come in.  I’ll let them know that you’ve come to join.  They’ll make you welcome.  They’re always after new members.  I thought of joining myself once.”
“Really?”
“No.  Are you mad?  I told you, they’re all losers – no offence – they all lack friends.  They just come here for the company and to feed their egos.”
“You don’t like having them around?”
“I love having them around.  Have you looked through into my bar?  If I didn’t get this bunch in every week I’d come nowhere close to hitting my gin target.  My only regret is that the licence doesn’t allow them to drink upstairs.  Besides,” he continued, “it makes a change from having to spend my entire evening looking at the mis-spellings on the faces of the cretins in there.”  He indicated that Jeff should look into the bar, which he leant forward to do.  “Easy,” warned the landlord.  “Don’t let them see that you’re looking.  They wouldn’t like that.”  Jeff sprang back with all the nonchalance of a chicken at a fox’s birthday party.  “See the fella in the beanie hat?”  Jeff nodded.  “Got ‘LOVE’ and ‘HAT’ tattooed on his knuckles, on account of losing a pinkie while trying to break into a safe with a Stihl saw.  The other bloke with him, Lucky we call him, the bloke with one arm, he was holding the safe.”  Jeff made a gallant attempt to swallow his own Adam’s apple, but it wasn’t going down.  “See the group around the pool table?  They’ve all got teardrops tattooed on their cheeks.  S’posed to signify that they’ve killed someone in prison, but most of them have never been inside.  They got them done when George Michael died.”
“Really, I…”
“You didn’t hear that from me though, and I’d advise you to keep it to yourself.  It’s easy to unwittingly stir up trouble, if you catch my drift.  Besides, they’re good lads, they spend a fortune on pickled eggs.  What’ll it be?”
“I’m sorry?”
“To drink.  This is a pub.  What do you want to drink?  I’m guessing you’re a red wine man, am I right?”
“Well, I do like red wine, but I thought I’d have a pint, if that’s ok.”
“Of course.  What do you want?  Lager?  Guinness?”
“Do you have any real ale?”
The landlord looked, just for a second, as though he was going to take offence, but then his face softened.  “I’ve got Newcastle Brown in bottles,” he said.
“I’ll have red wine,” said Jeff.
“I’ll go and get it,” nodded the landlord.  “I keep it upstairs.  If I keep it down here, the locals interfere with it when I’m not looking.”  He moved his own heavily tattooed frame towards the doorway before turning back.  “By the way,” he said, “the lav over there is broken.  If you want to go you can either go into the bar or hold onto it.”  He looked Jeff up and down.  “I’d hold onto it if I were you.”
Jeff was now uncertain whether to linger by the bar – he felt fairly certain that the landlord was unlikely to offer table service – or to head for the corner table so, eventually, he opted for loitering self-consciously, mid-way between the two.

Phil was the first member of the Circle to enter the room.  Jeff felt the cold rush of air as the door opened just as he heard the landlord coming back down the stairs.  Both men appeared at the same moment.  “I’ll bring it over,” the landlord shouted into the otherwise empty lounge.
“Right,” both customers answered simultaneously.
Jeff moved over towards the corner table where Phil was already placing his coat over the back of a seat.  “Can I join you?” he asked.
“Are you here for the Circle?” asked Phil.  “I hope so; we could do with some new faces.”
“Yes,” answered Jeff, looking over his shoulder, still uncertain whether he should go over to collect his drink or wait where he was, but before he had the opportunity to reach a conclusion, the barman appeared carrying a pint of Best Bitter for Phil and a tumbler full of red wine with a cocktail umbrella in it, spearing a glacé cherry.  Jeff looked at his red wine, the barman and then at Phil, who held out a hand to shake.  “Phil,” he said.
“Jeff.”
“Erm, I hope you don’t mind me asking Jeff, but you look a bit uncomfortable.  Are you ok?”
“Ok?  Oh yes.  Yes, fine.  It’s just a little bit…  Well…”  Absent-mindedly he picked the umbrella from his drink and ate the cherry.  “It just seems like a strange place to hold a literary meeting.  Here, I mean.”
“Why?”
“Well, it’s just…”
Phil looked over Jeff’s shoulder and caught the unmistakable silhouette of the landlord convulsed in laughter.  He looked at Jeff’s red wine.  “What’s he told you?” he asked.
“Who?”
“Kenny.”
“Kenny?”
“Kenny.  The landlord.”  Phil sighed.  “What’s he told you?”
“Well, nothing really.  Much.  He just… have you seen that lot in the other room?  They look like a load of mobsters.”
“Ah… Well they are, sort of…” said Phil, light slowly dawning.  “The Sharks and the Jets: local am-dram production of West Side Story.  They rehearse in the room upstairs before us.”
“And Kenny?  Is he really the landlord?”
“Oh yes, he’s the landlord, but he’s in play as well.  He’s playing Tony, although, truth be told, he would probably have preferred Maria…”
 

This story started its life as a simple conversation with the landlord at the end of which Jeff once again bailed out before the Circle members arrived, but just as I was writing the final sentences, the absurd possibility of West Side Story occurred to me.  So, having written the new ending, I had to go back to the beginning and rewrite the whole thing.  I wish I was more organised…

The first story from the Writer’s Circle, ‘Penny’s Poem’ is here.
Last week’s story ‘Natalie’ is here.
Episode 21 ‘Smile’ is here.

The Running Man – Twelve Months of Becoming Er…

A year has now passed since I first downloaded the Couch to 5k app, chose to be accompanied by the dulcet tones of Jo Whiley and launched myself on the village roads, a lumbering, perspiring, gasping mess.  I have no doubt that not even the effervescent Ms Whiley, soothingly urging me on through my headphones, had any idea quite what she was taking on at that (or any other) stage.  If I’m honest, I am quite proud of myself for persevering through the program, and not a little surprised that I managed to find the determination to do so.  I’m sure that the circumstances of Lockdown must have helped in that respect: the streets were largely empty even though, I seem to recall, the sun shone a lot.  I seldom ‘bumped into’ anyone that I knew and Lockdown restrictions meant that, when I did, they could legitimately move as far away as possible from me without embarrassment.  This was a period when we were all too scared to share a pavement with anyone – especially if their breathing came in the kind of wheeze normally associated with the elephant’s graveyard – and crossing the road to avoid your neighbour became the norm.  This was the time when the whole country’s social calendar revolved about banging saucepan lids at 8pm every Thursday.  Like Global Conflict, we just referred to it as The Lockdown at the time, not realising that it would too soon become The First Lockdown when the second one started.

In the past twelve months I can definitely claim to have become more ‘er’: I am definitely not quick, but I am quicker; I am not fit, but I am fitter; I am by no means thin, but I am thinner.  Ask me why I still do it and I most certainly will say, ‘Er…’.  I can’t actually remember what prompted me to do it at the time, but I was one of many.  The streets were full of people following the run/walk/run regime.  We began to recognise one another, to wave, but most of the Lockdown Runners appear to have stopped now.  Far more people are running these days, but I don’t seem to recognise any of them.  Nobody appears to be quite as past it as I: they are all younger, fitter and altogether better dressed for the occasion.  Some of them even chat as they run.  I have to devote my entire attention to breathing without inhaling wildlife.  There is nothing less conducive to a steady pace than trying to cough up a wasp.

What I most recall about the early runs is the sense of dread that hung about me as I prepared to set off; particularly on the final run of each week when I stupidly allowed myself to look at what the following week’s stepped-up regime was to demand of me.  The joyous sensation of hearing the half way bell ring, meaning that I could turn around, was spoiled only by the knowledge that I now had to try and get back home without attracting the attention of a Coroner’s vehicle.  I have kept myself going by setting targets.  My early thirty minute runs were nowhere near 5km in length (they still are not) but I set myself a 5k course and I started to run it, trying to speed up week on week until I realised that I had peaked at a speed which would have shamed an end-of-round electric milk float, so instead I started to go further.  These days I do not set goals – reaching them is such a disappointment when you realise that all you can then do is to set a new one – so I rely solely on the grim determination I have to keep going.  The determination comes from the knowledge that someday, sooner or later, my body, the doctor or friendly paramedic will tell me that I have to stop and I will be able to say that the decision to stop was not my own.  I will never be a good runner, but I am dogged and, for good or bad, it is now twelve months since I first found I had something to be dogged about.  My anniversary run was the same as all of the others: breathless, hot and plodding, but I did it and, in a year’s time I will… er… do it all again.

My original post about starting to run, ‘Couch to 5k’ is here.
Last week’s running post, ‘Getting on with It’ is here
The next ‘Running Man’ installment, ‘Bangers’ is here.
And there are many branch-line stops on the uneven path between then and now that you can visit if you choose – just follow the links.

Zoo # 36 – Lynx

Despite what he thinks
The smell of a lynx
Is really not very alluring.
I’d wager my hat
To smell like a cat
Is something you won’t find assuring.

I’d probably say,
If someone should spray
You over with ‘eau de la feline’
As odd as it seems
The girl of your dreams
Towards you will not make a beeline.

I think it’s a fact
If you hope to attract
A lover, then don’t be too free
With a spray that is meant
To give you the scent
That a bobcat might spray up a tree.

Everywhere I go, I smell Africa – not the country, but the body spray.  It is the smell, not of a generation, but of a decade.  An across-the-board odour of what a boy believes a girl believes a boy should smell like.  In truth, it’s not a horrible smell it’s just… well, how do you know whether the man has made an effort or the restroom smells clean?  (Men’s ‘conveniences’ smell the same the world over, just some of them more so.)  Also, Africa is a wonderful continent, full of all manner of things that it would be great to be associated with, but I am sure, like everywhere else, it has places that you do not want your armpits to smell of.  It’s a very big place.  Surely the makers could be a little more specific: a picturesque area of Tanzania that always smells of lotus blossom; a small town in Mozambique that always reminds me of rose buds.  Also, the pedant in me keeps banging on about the fact that there are no Lynxes in Africa.  Lynx Iberia has a ring to it – it doesn’t, unless it has one of those dinky little collars that people put around their moggy’s neck in order to announce its presence to birds – Lynx Eurasia sounds faintly exotic; Lynx Canada might well appeal to the kind of man who likes to smell of wood, leather and elk, but I think they’d need some special kind of advertising agency to successfully push a scent called Bobcat Musk – unless it was to another bobcat… 

Another Bobcat

The Heart Grown Fonder

Photo by Green Chameleon on Unsplash

The pen is mightier than the sword, said someone who had clearly never been faced by a rapier-bearing maniac whilst brandishing only a Bic rollerball, but I get the drift.  A few well-chosen words can change the course of history providing, of course, that you don’t get skewered before you can write them.  There are times when an épée with ink might come in handy.  When words fail you, silence can be the most potent weapon of all.  We all understand the power of the non-speaking partner – especially after a night out.  When you feel so passionate about something that you lose control of your tongue, the best advice is to hold it.  If you say nothing in the heat of the moment, you seldom live to regret it later.  (Unless, of course, it was not telling Aunty Thelma that there was a runaway bus heading towards her.)  There are times when you have nothing to say; when you are literally unable to add anything to the conversation.  I find myself out of my depth more often than a toddler in the deep end of a swimming pool, but in my case any willing hands that may appear are more likely to try to push me under than haul me out.  Why do people react so badly to ‘I don’t know’?  Whenever I am asked a question to which I do not have the answer, I say ‘I don’t know’ and it enrages people.  They believe that I am either disinterested or that I am fence-sitting.  Frankly, there are times when the fence is the only safe place to be; when you can see both sides of the argument whilst the protagonists can see nothing of value on the other side.  The grass might grow greener, but if you can’t see it, it doesn’t matter.  What is the point of a point-of-view if you can’t make everybody else accept it as the one absolute truth?

Every now and then I feel the desire to stop writing, but I never do: it just gives me something else to harp on about in the end.  What I should do at such times is stop, put down the pen (or sabre, depending upon company) and pick up a book.  I love to read, but seldom do.  My wife has an unrivalled range of ‘Have you really got nothing better to do?’ looks for such occasions.  In truth, other than checking the unrolled cardboard tubes from toilet rolls for secret messages from zombie workers and my wife’s magazines for grammatical errors*, I have read very little of late, although by next week I could well find myself unable to get my nose out of a book – the penalty for letting the grandkids loose with the superglue.

Anyway, most of the time I write: it is a constant thing for me and you’d think that after all these years I’d start to show some improvement.  I have a very tenuous grip on grammar and I have never lost the tendency to prattle on for far too long.  It takes as long as it takes for me to tell a story.  Jeffrey Archer does it in about two hundred and fifty thousand words (or perhaps it just seems that long), whilst I tend to stall at about a thousand.  Language is a precious gift; it seems a shame to be cavalier with it.  And yet I have the ‘gift’ of couching a six word story in multiple layers of marshmallow.  I should be concise, but that would involve me in the kind of methodical thinking of which I am totally incapable**  My style (forgive me, I still work on the assumption that I have one) is conversational and my humour (forgive me, I still work on the assumption that I have some) lies in the minutiae, so it is natural for me to waffle on far too long about things that do not matter; that reside in Cul de sacs and back alleys away from the paths that I should be following, covered in broken fencing and bicycle parts.  I may be going from A to B, but sometimes I find the diversion around the hidden ‘T’ junction beguiling.  I constantly promise myself that in the future I will try to be more succinct.  I strive to be very careful with words: I always try to make proper use of them, but maybe I should, like George Orwell, remove a whole raft of them from my dictionary or adopt a more economical style, reminiscent of Orwell himself, or Hemingway.  (Although the result is likely to be that I will simply end up sounding like a local politician, with the vocabulary of a two year old and the narrative thrust of Roger Hargreaves.)  Introspection is all very well when you’ve got something to look in on, but most of my time is just spent staring into the vacuum between my ears and wondering why fat-free mayonnaise leaves a greasy stain on everything it touches.

Anyway, this started out as a means of explaining my absence from the platform today – the lack of anything to say – but as soon as I started to write it down I realised that I never have anything to say, but that never actually stops me from saying it.  And if you want to know why, I don’t know…

*I pass many a happy hour in this fashion, such magazines as currently survive are apparently put together by monkeys who failed to produce Shakespeare when given typewriters and are therefore very cheap to employ.

**If I’m honest, in most of what I write it is not even necessary to read the words in the right order.

The Writer’s Circle #19 – Natalie

Natalie had never been a member of The Circle, but she was known to them all.  She was an ever-present on ‘Club Nights’ in the Lounge Bar of The Steam Hammer, always happy and welcomed to join in the mid-session conversations that took place.  Bright and witty, if at times a little too lugubrious, she was a welcome addition to every discussion.  All the members of The Circle felt that they knew her, but only for this thirty minute spell each week.  When the circle reassembled upstairs she melted away and was never present when they came back into the lounge later in the evening.  She was not known to any one of them in any other circumstance and, consequently, became a bit of a mystery woman, and the only topic of conversation on the rare occasions on which she did not appear.

“…I just asked the barman,” said Frankie, passing a glass to Phil as he rejoined the small knot of members in the corner of the room.  “He says he doesn’t ever see her other than on Circle nights.”
“I always thought she was a regular.”
“Apparently not.  Only ever appears when we’re here.”
“I wonder why she’s never actually joined us upstairs?”
“A bit too far away from the bar, I think.”
A smile filtered its way around the group.  She clearly liked ‘a wee one’ did Natalie.  None of them could ever remember seeing her without the customary gin and lime in her hand: ‘No ice dear – they do something to it under the bar, to make it freeze more easily I think, probably to save money – It gives me a headache.’
“I wonder what she does for the rest of the week?”
“I think we all know what she does, the question is where does she do it?”
“She told me,” started Elizabeth, pausing only to help herself to Frankie’s Cheese & Onion, “that her great grandmother was the baby daughter of Tsar Nicholas and the Empress Alexandra, snuck out of the cellar by a soft-hearted Bolshevik guard and smuggled into Britain on a coal barge.  She said that she is the rightful heir to the Russian throne, but that she can’t go back because she doesn’t like beetroot.  Apparently it is all that stands between her and her birthright.”
“And Putin?”
“Well, yes, and Putin.  Beetroot and Putin.  Plus, she told me, she can’t drink vodka.  It gives her hives – she would show me if I bought her one…  She said that she was once invitied to the Russian Embassy, so she went – to show that there were no ill-feelings – but they plied her with borscht and vodka and she woke up in the park next to a man with a rolled up copy of Pravda under his arm.  She was eventually led to safety by a man from the Salvation Army. ”
“She told me that she was on the run from Mrs Thatcher,” said Billy.
“Ah well, I don’t suppose that’s much of a worry for her now.”
“Well, apparently once you’re on the MI6 hit list, you are never taken off it.  You die on it – one way or another.”
“Isn’t it MI5, the Security Services?  MI6 is foreign spies and all that isn’t it?”
“The CIA according to Natalie.  Apparently Mrs Thatcher took charge of the CIA during one of Ronald Regan’s lost weekends – ‘Nobody knew about them, dear.  They were never made general knowledge.  There are still no official records.  If anyone ever asks you about it, deny all knowledge.  Say you’ve never met me.  It’s for the best.  I have grown used to being persona non grata, even in the Co-op.’ – and she never gave it back.”
“So why was Mrs Thatcher after Natalie then?”
“Poll tax, apparently.  Natalie was the leader of the main organised opposition to it.”
“Really?”
“Only you never saw her face.  She said that she was undercover and always wore a cap in public: she gave up all property ownership in the struggle and she handed in her Tesco Clubcard.  She became a marked woman.  She was ‘Most Wanted’ in every one of the World’s nuclear powers, including Lichtenstein – ‘It’s not common knowledge, dear, so don’t go bandying it about in conversation.’”
“I only met her last week,” said Tom.  “She told me that she was an incognito literary agent keeping tabs on local talent; looking for the next big thing.  I asked her who she was looking at here?”
“What did she say?”
“She said that she couldn’t possibly tell me.  Mind you, if we were to have a quiet chat over a nice double gin and lime I might find out something to my advantage.”
“And did you?”
“I found out never to put ice in a gin and lime, and also that a gentleman always buys a lady peanuts with her drink.”
“I wonder where she is?”
“I wouldn’t worry,” said Deidre, glancing at her watch.  “This isn’t the first time she’s missed a week.  You might remember that the last time she was absent, she reappeared the following week with cuts and bruises all over her, but she wouldn’t tell anyone what had happened; said it was best for our families’ sakes that we never knew.”
“Best not mentioned, dear,” mimicked Phil.  “And ask the bar man for a slice of lime, but watch that he cuts a fresh one.  He fishes them out of other people’s glasses if you don’t watch him.  I always suck mine so he can’t re-use them.”
Even Deidre’s face softened into something approaching a smile.  “I’m sure she’ll be back next week.  Shall we go back upstairs?”
One by one the writers of the Circle drained their glasses and joined the little knot of fellow authors as it made its way up the narrow staircase and into the meeting room, where it stopped as a single entity, host to a collective breathlessness: eleven faces, twenty two eyes turned in a single direction.

There, sitting primly on a chair within the circle, dressed head to toe in ill-fitting tweed, hands folded neatly across her knees was Natalie.  She looked nervous, but she wore a determined smile.  She barely acknowledged the club members as they slowly, silently, made their way back to their seats.  Natalie did not move, although her eyes flitted from person to person, watching them all as they settled.  Nervously they looked from Natalie to Deidre and hoped, for once, that Deidre would take charge of the situation, but she was just as non-plussed as the rest of the group.  Of course they were all happy that Natalie was there; had, presumably, decided to join the meetings on a more formal basis, but they were thrown by the manner in which she had chosen to do it.  So they sat and they waited for Natalie to make the first move.  Silence hung like a pall around her until, with a nervous cough and something that could have been a sigh, Natalie rose to her feet.  She cast her eyes around the circle and then, fleetingly down at the ground, before raising her head and, staring resolutely forward.
“My name is Natalie,” she said “and I am an alcoholic…”

The first story from the Writer’s Club “Penny’s Poem” is here.
Last week’s story “As It Is” is here.
Episode 20 ‘The Lounge Bar at the Steamhammer’ is here.

The Running Man – Getting On With It

I started to run during the first Lockdown because I was getting fat, I was getting creaky and, because of the restrictions, I needed an excuse to get out of the house.  I continue to run, but unfortunately, I also continue to be fat and creaky.  I get out of the house, but I am surrounded by a cocoon of music and perspiration which ensures that I interact with no-one, save those kindly souls who enquire about my wellbeing.  I cannot speed up somehow and I cannot run further.  Not even a cycle-borne outrider carrying chocolate could spur me on.  I am at ‘Max’.  It’s not much of a max, but I dare not creep into the red band now.

I am of an age when there is precious little to do other than to worry about the age I am: when I see news stories about amazing, ‘with it’ centurions and think ‘Wow!  That’s incredible,’ before realising that it is only just around the corner for me, and my marbles are already slipping from my enfeebled grasp and rolling under the sofa, just out of reach; when every malady from which I suffer (or believe I suffer) is associated with old age; when my back tightens in direct inverse ratio to my bladder and my feet ache permanently, on the simple basis that they have to prop up the rest of me.  I find myself constantly excusing my inadequacies by saying, ‘Well, I am sixty-two you know.’  I can still do everything I did twenty years ago – only not as well.  My mind remains open to new experiences – it’s just that I forget what they are before I get the chance to try them.

I am fortunate – although I would never admit it: it does not pay to give Fate a target – that my brain still works relatively quickly and my humour is, broadly speaking, still in nappies.  Occasionally I think that I might be developing a mature, sophisticated sense of humour, but then I realise that such a thing does not exist: nobody laughs at ‘clever’.  Sophistication is just an excuse for jokes that fail to make people laugh, despite mentioning Kant.  I can ‘turn a phrase’ from time to time, but I still laugh at the skirt inadvertently tucked into the knickers.

Perhaps if growing older serves any purpose whatsoever it is in allowing you to give yourself a break every now and then.  My expectations have not been lowered, but I realise that I can no longer reach them without a ladder.  My chances of attaining fame, fortune and an illicit liaison with Sandra Bullock are exactly as far away as they have always been, but my ability to cross the divide is now hampered by knees, bladder and a recently developed ‘What the fuck’ attitude which means that I am reappraising the desirability of everything from money to chocolate, love to whisky, and sex on the beach to nine holes on the putting green.  There remains a tiny piece of me that believes I may still be ‘discovered’, but a much larger piece that questions ‘For what?’

What age does bring is the realisation that, outside of a very small number of family members, nobody actually believes that you are in any way ‘special’, nor that the world in general will be in any particular way poorer for your absence from it (although, in my case, there may be a distiller or two in Scotland willing to disagree).  In short, age tells you that what is gone is gone and what is left doesn’t really add up to much, so make the most of it while you can and if that means you have to run about a bit every now and then, well, you might as well just get on with it.

My last ‘Running’ post, ‘…on the Running Man’ is here.
My first ‘Running’ post ‘Couch to 5k’ is here.
The next ‘Running’ post ‘Twelve Months to Become Er…’ is here.

Zoo #35 – Somali Wild Ass

Forlorn Somali Wild Ass –
A kind of mini-horse –
Critically endangered,
So in the zoo, of course.

A diet of leaves and grasses,
They barely need to drink,
If they weren’t so bloody tasty
There’d be many more, I think.

So very few are out there,
The African plains bereft,
The humans in the neighbourhood
Eat all that there are left.

They haunt the arid desert,
A landscape filled with rocks;
They look just like a donkey,
But they wear a zebra’s socks.

No longer will you find them
Out in the wild for sure:
They still remain a wild ass,
But Somalian no more.

A new reader to this fol-de-rol (also friend and employer – I know, a charmed life) suggested this particular animal for a rhyme and I said ‘Sure’, without actually knowing anything about them at all.  As usual, Google (after an unproductive, but diverting few minutes on ‘Images’) came to my rescue.  Somali Wild Ass are, as the poem says, critically endangered, with just a few hundred left in the wild, spread, in fact, across Somalia, Eritrea and Ethiopia.  As far as I can see, their only predator is man.  They are to all intents and purposes a donkey; in fact, according to what I read, all Italian donkeys are descended from them.  (I have to own up here, I had no idea that Italy was a hotbed of donkey eugenics, nor that its donkey population had been kept distinct from that in the rest of Europe; to be honest, I’m surprised the EU even allows it.  Surely there must be some kind of a Euro-donkey edict out there somewhere.  I can only imagine that the Franco/German donkeys are in some way superior – at least, I’m sure they believe they are.)  They are amazing creatures that are supremely adapted to conserve water.  The females maintain a higher temperature than the males so that they sweat less – a trait only otherwise seen in Gwyneth Paltrow.  Visually Somali Wild Ass differ from other donkeys only in that they appear to be wearing pyjama trousers – a throwback to the zebras with which they are closely related.  Presumably where they come from they didn’t need to camouflage anything above grass level.  I will have to research if the lions are particularly tiny in Somalia (if, indeed, they have them*).  They do, of course, have humans and they are extremely unlikely to be deceived by the fact that the Sunday roast is tottering about on invisible legs.  One way or another, it would appear that the Somali Wild Ass has reached a population in the wild, so badly denuded as to be unsustainable and, as such, probably something that your children will be able to see only in the zoo, whilst Wild Ass burger fans will have to be content with the farmed stuff…

*They do.  Also cheetahs and hyenas – so why evolution decided to protect the Wild Ass from the knees down only I have no idea.