The Writer’s Circle #10 – Phil’s Baby

Well, as the whole of the evening’s session resulted from a stupid, slack-mouthed, off-the-cuff suggestion made by Phil, he felt obliged to make the first contribution. “Perhaps,” he had said a couple of weeks ago, “we should all have a go at writing in one another’s genre. It will help us to understand…” He could recall exactly how his voice had trailed away as he realised that everybody else actually saw this as a good idea. He had meant it to stir up disagreement: something to spice up the last few minutes of a drab meeting, but it had been met with universal approval. Deidre had drawn up a list on the spot, they had all chosen a random number and Phil had chosen ‘Play’; the knot in the pit of his stomach tightening immediately with the realisation that Billy would become his main critic. Anyway, the die was cast so, despite the attraction of wanting to hear what Penny would make of the ‘Horror’ ticket she had drawn, Phil offered to go first – it was, after all, his baby. Such was the general enthusiasm that they all agreed to make it a monthly diversion and gave Phil two weeks to make his ‘pitch’. Two weeks can pass so quickly…

“Right,” Phil started, sounding very much more at ease than he felt. He had worked very hard on this. He actually thought he was onto something, but that was the last thing he wanted any of the others to know – especially Billy. He had pages of dialogue at home: he couldn’t quiet the voices in his head; they kept him awake at night. He felt that what he had was good, but it was much too close to him to let the others hear much of it yet. He pulled half a dozen neatly typed, but deliberately ‘distressed’ sheets of foolscap from his pocket. “This is what I’ve got… It’s probably not very good,” he continued in a voice that even Terry recognised as insincere. “The scene is simple: a single park bench facing the audience. The setting is a graveyard and the cast is three old men discussing life and death, and the inconsequential nature of everything between the start of one and the end of the other. It will be wordy, because there is no action and each of the characters each have monologues to deliver to the audience through the progress of the conversation. I guess it would make them tough roles to learn – but it would be very cheap to stage.” He paused for a moment expecting to hear Billy’s voice questioning whether it would be ‘real’, but it never came. ‘Give him a little more rope…’ was what was dancing around Billy’s brain.

Silence can be good, but, in truth, it seldom is. Phil decided it would be the right course of action to fill it.

“OK,” he continued. “It starts like this…

(As the lights come up on stage a three seat bench is centre stage facing the audience. Behind the bench, his hands resting on it’s back, stands Frank)

FRANK It never seems quite right – a funeral on a sunny day. You’re looking for gloom aren’t you? Cold. A chance to wear one of those long black coats like they do on the telly. A bit of rain would be good; a swirling wind perhaps. Maybe you could hold a big black umbrella over the grieving widow’s head. Lift your collar. Watch the rain drops collect on the coffin lid… Funerals should all be in the winter. Everybody should die in the winter, when the weather is right for funerals. Not like today. The world should be a drab place on the day that you’re buried, like one of those old newsreel films of the miners leaving the pits after a day’s shift; young men trudging off to fight in the war; the same men, now old men, trudging back, empty-eyed, from the war – the world should be monochrome on the day that you’re buried: dank and dark and cold for everybody else, like it is for you…

But look at this. Bright sunshine. Nobody wants to be buried in bright sunshine. Unseasonally warm the weather man said. Spring flowers pushing through the grass. A world alive with daffodils and discarded ice-cream wrappers; confetti from yesterday’s wedding; birds singing in the trees, fighting and mating, scrabbling round in the newly-dug graves, searching for worms in the freshly turned soil. You should go away little bird, come back in a couple of years when the worms are big and fat. They say that we share 99 per cent of our DNA with worms. It’s no surprise, is it? I wonder what the other one percent is? God perhaps. Do we all contain one percent of the almighty? Like the one percent of pork in a pork sausage – are we all God? Is that what the Church means when it says that God is in us all? God is all around us? We are all minutely God?

(He walks around the bench and sits in the centre)

I read once that when bodies are exhumed, they find evidence that most of them were not actually dead when they were buried. All those people asking to be interred with their precious possessions, when really they’d have been better off with a Black & Decker or a Walkie Talkie. You’d at least want a neat little flat screen telly in the coffin lid. Or a torch and a good book. Imagine waking up and expecting a little bit of comfort in your plush silk lining only to find your stingy bloody kids had buried you in a cardboard box. Eco-friendly. Laid to rest like a Shredded Wheat. I suppose, ultimately, we’re all recyclable aren’t we…

(He takes a piece of paper out of his jacket pocket and looks at it briefly)

One side of A5, that’s what your life boils down to isn’t it? One side of A5. Two prayers, a hymn and a eulogy from a vicar who can’t even remember your name.

(He folds the paper and puts it back in his jacket)

Sometimes you do have to wonder if you’re at the right funeral. The person that they’re all talking about, it’s never the person you knew. Nobody ever mentions that he stole from the tea fund; dropped old buttons in the charity collection; fed all fifty seven of the gerbil’s offspring to next-door’s boa constrictor… Always the friend you could rely upon – always the rock in everybody else’s storm.

Everybody who ever died was a wonderful parent: I wonder what happens to all the crap ones. Maybe they never die. Maybe they live forever. Strange thing to have as the key to immortality – ‘Are you a bad parent? Yes? Then don’t bother taking out life insurance, you’re here forever baby…’ You wouldn’t even have to worry about what the kids might say about you at your funeral : no-one would ever know that you’d never read them a bedside story; that you’d never sat with them when they were ill; that you never put actual English currency into their piggy banks on their birthdays. You’re never going to die – you’ll never have a funeral – you don’t even have to worry about the ancient photographs of you with long hair and a kipper-tie being passed around the wake.

I wonder why people have such a compulsion to embarrass you after you’ve died. ‘Look, here’s a picture of him with a really stupid haircut. And here’s one when he had that really silly ginger moustache, do you remember that? Ooh and look, he’d had far too much to drink on this one. Wasn’t he funny? Such a shame he’s dead. Do you want another sherry?’…

Well, that’s all I’ve got really. I know I’ll never make a playwright…” He folded up his papers and forced them back into his top pocket. “But it has made me think

about how these things are plotted. I’m sure Billy will have a few pointers for me.”

As one, the Circle turned to Billy, who even now was toying with his own draw: ‘Detective Novel’. “Right, well,” he gathered himself. “Very good – for a non-playwright – although I can see many pitfalls ‘construction-wise’ and I think what we really need to ask ourselves is, ‘Is it real?’”

“Or is it a play?” asked Frankie.

Phil grinned broadly. As far as he was concerned, the reaction had already been worth the effort and, truth be told, what had set off in his head as a means of laughing at Billy had become a project that he was now determined to pursue. Meanwhile, the heated discussion he had hoped for had started, although Billy, whose thoughts were now fully occupied elsewhere – how would it be possible to kill someone without ever being caught – was strangely quiet…

‘The Writer’s Circle #1 – Penny’s Poem’ is here.
‘The Writer’s Circle #9 – The New Chapter’ is here.
‘The Writer’s Circle #11 – Ulysses’ is here.

The Running Man on the Go

Gradually, I have started to run a little further. Metre by metre I eke out my runs. I have no intention of joining James in attempting to run a half marathon – whatever the time-scale. I am quite close enough to the grave already. Nor do I have any intention of ever taking part in any kind of organised run. I run a little, and I know how boring I can be about it. Imagine an hour spent with people that run a lot. Or possibly two hours in my case. Also, the thought of the toilet arrangements haunts me. I’m ok when I’m at home and close to a lavatory that I am familiar with at the start and at the end of a run, but just imagine travelling any distance before a run and then joining a queue to use the portaloo! I am no stranger to the portaloo. I have queued for many hours to gain access to these reverse Tardis of hell. Nothing inside is anything like as big as it should be. It’s impossible to be inside one without touching something. Whichever way you turn, something pokes you in the back. Can you ever be fully sure that the lock is on? Who could possibly wee in those circumstances? Well, not me. Usually I wait for what I imagine is a reasonable amount of time: enough to have a (theoretical) wee, but not long enough to give the impression that I have had to deal with even more pressing problems involving – gulp – sitting down in there, before I wash my hands and leave – walking straight to the back of a different queue and hoping for better luck next time. I am not good with public amenities.

Imagine having to use one (and I most surely would) before setting off for a run. I would almost certainly have to loiter at the back of the field at the start so that I could nip back to the loos after everybody had gone (and there is little worse in this world than being the last person to use a portaloo). As my chances of subsequently catching anybody would then be very slim indeed, it would turn into a wholly ignominious run for me; lurching over the finishing line long after the last of the Zimmers, such self-esteem as I could muster trailing behind me like a two-legged dog. It’s really not an option.

So, what I am trying to do is to slowly lengthen my runs up to 10k. I don’t know if I will see it through. I don’t really know why I have decided to do it. Another little challenge I suppose. Having attained some kind of comfort over the last six months with my thrice-weekly 5k (occasionally 6k if I’m feeling good or there are chores to be done) it would be very easy to settle into that routine. I think I need to unsettle myself a little. I will push it on. 10k is a far-off target that I would like to reach over the summer, in the balmy evenings. It is quite a long way. At the pace that I run, it will take quite a long time to get there and I know what that means, but I live in the countryside; wherever I go it will take me past trees and hedges. You don’t have to be a contortionist to wee behind a hedge, and I’ve never had to queue for a tree…

The previous episode of the Running Man Saga ‘… On The Path’ is here.
The next episode of the Running Man Shenanigans ‘…on Stopping’ is here.
The very first time I ventured out to begin the ‘Couch to 5k’ nonsense is here.

Zoo #26 – Pangolin

I write these little rhymes in batches simply because when I start one, the opening couplet to another unfailingly pops into my head – annoyingly distracting me from the original which can then take some time to finish. (Limited space in my brain, only room for one rhyme at a time in there.) Originally I thought that I might do a dozen, but it has stretched now to 26* – half a year’s worth – so I thought that I might go for the full year. Who knows, by the time I get there, fifty-two may well be the number of animals in the world that have not yet made it onto the WWF Red List. I have to remind myself from time to time that these rhymes are not meant to be ‘clever’ they are meant to be silly. I’m not really made for ‘clever’. My attempts at ‘clever’ usually emerge as ‘pompous’, so by and large I leave that to other people. Childish is much more my cup of tea. On a scale of Stephen Fry to Charlie Cairoli, I come in somewhere adjacent to the Chuckle Brothers. Pomposity appears to me to be the domain of the politician. I would never make a politician. I do not have the necessary conviction that I know best and I have a face that even my grandchildren cannot take seriously, but if I do sound like a bit of a dick from time to time, I rely on you to tell me. If I sound like a dick all of the time, then I apologise, but would suggest that you and I are probably not suited as companions going forward.

I know just what a panda is,
I know the panther too.
The parrot is well known to me,
I’ve seen one in the zoo.

We all know how a penguin looks
And pigs are nothing new,
But what a pangolin is like
I haven’t got a clue.

It could be that it’s tangerine,
It could be that it’s blue…
I thought I’d try and draw one
And this is what I drew.

It isn’t great – I know that’s true,
I’m sure it could be neater,
But have you ever tried to draw
A shy, scaly anteater?

Could Have Been Worse

The three most scary words my wife ever utters? ‘…I’ve been thinking…’ Three little words that translate as, “You are about to be coerced into something – possibly electrical, certainly difficult, probably dangerous to the uninitiated, and definitely something that you will find right at the very top of your ‘Things I really don’t want to be doing’ list” – a catalogue of all the tasks for which I am uniquely ill-equipped. I am fully aware that it would be considered churlish to respond to “I only want you to paint one wall” in any negative way, whilst being similarly well-acquainted with the fact that one wall will inevitably lead to all walls, all curtains, all carpets, all doors and all electrical fittings. It is, of course, quite illogical that I should kick-back against what I am assured will be “a two-minute job” even though I carry the certain knowledge that it will escalate into something that will consume at least six months of my life and involve God-knows how many trips to A&E, not to mention innumerable three-figure invoices from the qualified tradesmen we are forced to employ in order to ‘put it right again.’

The room that is currently chalked up for the lick of paint is the hall/stairs and landing combo and it fills my heart with dread. It has 9 doors and two windows – so I can, at least, take comfort from the fact that I am not being asked to wallpaper – as well as a virtually inaccessible stair-head which I can only reach from an improvised scaffold made from 3 ladders, part of an old kitchen cabinet door and several rolls of gaffer tape (“So, you might as well do the ceilings whilst you’re up there.”) I will fall – of this you can be certain – the only question is whether I will land on the stairs and stop where I land, or whether I will barrel-roll to the bottom in order to be in exactly the right position to receive the ‘scaffold’ as it follows me in my downward trajectory.

It has been a few hours now since the coat of paint was first mentioned and the discussion has already passed through paint shades, new sockets and switches, new door furniture and new light fittings. It will eventually encompass new carpets and flooring after I hit the deck with a five litre can of emulsion in hand. The total rewire the house will need after I have fused the entire National Grid will, of course, be something we should have thought about anyway – not to mention the complete redecoration that will have to follow. And so it goes…

I have grown used to the exponential growth in the magnitude of disaster that pursues me in any practical task: a kind of incremental plunge into the abyss. There are many contributory factors that have a role to play in the remorseless collapse into pain and chaos; the universal one being me: the tool on the end of the tool. I am a gift to authors who can spare only a single word in describing a character’s (in)competence in all things: inept. From all manner of human interaction through to hammering a nail in without hitting a thumb, pipe or wire: inept. Like a cockle* in a rockpool, I yo-yo wildly between out of my depth and beached, despite the instinctual knowledge that the tide is always coming: closed tight when I should be open, gaping when the seagulls arrive.

Now, I realise that this magnitude of whining does not make me sound like the world’s most enticing man. I’m sure that I must have some redeeming features (Please God, let me have some redeeming features!) but none of them appear to be based anywhere within the scope of ‘practical’ for any mildly proficient person.

I feel as though I should list some of my positive attributes: I am honest, loyal and affectionate (and all of the above without being a dog). I think that I am reasonable company – when I’m not decorating – and I’m a wiz in a pub-quiz. (I sense that I’m beginning to lose you.) I laugh easily and I find joy in the smallest of things. I am always in possession of chocolate and wine. I figure that by constantly fearing the worst I, by and large, preclude the possibility of reality slumping below my expectations – so that, generally, I am relatively satisfied with the way in which things turn out. I think that ‘Could have been worse’ may well be my epitaph.

Anyway, I have already placed myself in the hands of the Gods and assembled my scaffold and minced the length of the plank of wood that I have laid across it. It is just long enough and it bends under my weight only slightly, so it should be ok if I keep to the ends. I have moved the telephone table from the foot of the stairs because it does not look ideally suited to fall-breaking (although, ironically, it does appear to be supremely well assembled in order to facilitate leg breaking) and given full consideration to how I intend to fill the holes I have made in the wall when the scaffolding is down (I am considering the possibility of lengthening two of the four legs on a kitchen chair so that I can balance it on the stairs and, if necessary pile books on top in order to achieve the required altitude). I’m quite proud of that plan – and we all know where pride comes…

A man, he’s like a rusty wheel
On a rusty cart
He sings his song as he rattles along
And then he falls apart…
We’ll sing Hallelujah – Richard Thompson

*I think that this might, to many of you, be ‘clam’ but, be honest, cockle is definitely funnier.

The Writer’s Circle #9 – The New Chapter

Elizabeth Walton knew that time spent in regret and recrimination was always wasted. It achieved nothing positive. It merely deepened disillusionment – and bitterness was so ageing. She had been lucky enough to spend twenty years of her life with the man that she loved, and she was grateful for that. It had been a happy marriage; not blissful, but normally happy. There had been times when she wished him dead and times when he had wished the same for her, but there had also been times when she felt truly contented – and those were the times that she chose to remember. She remembered the day he had died – had been killed – of course, but not with any detail. She remembered it as one remembers a taste or a smell. The loss was a sensation to which there was no detail. It was emptiness. It is not possible to recall emptiness, only to experience it, and emptiness is what she experienced, day after day until one morning, several months after he husband’s death, Elizabeth awoke with the realisation that she had experienced quite enough of it and so she packed it carefully away – she had to know that it was still there if ever she needed it – and closed the cover on it, like a precious flower pressed between the pages of a favourite book, never forgotten, but seldom recalled.

Joining the Writer’s circle was the first conscious move that Elizabeth had made towards opening a new chapter in her life; she felt it apposite. She had seen the leaflet in the library and, despite never having written a word in her life, she went along at the first opportunity, because she knew that if she left it to the second, it would never come. In the event, it had been a very easy introduction. A local history writer – a professor from the local university with a bad wig and, from the look of it, only one good shirt – had agreed to read them a short section from his new book, so apart from introducing herself briefly she had little to do for the first hour. When the professor had finished his reading to polite applause on the hour mark, Deidre had suggested that it would be a convenient time to take ‘tea’ and everybody went down into the bar below. She noticed that most of the group drank happily together whilst two men – whom she later got to know as Billy and Terry – tended to hang around the fringes, unwilling or unable to properly join in. It didn’t take her long to realise that backs bridled whenever they came close enough to join in the conversation. She also was aware of the smartly dressed man with the boxer’s brow who stood alone, occasionally shooting his cuffs, and constantly looking over his shoulder. She felt that he did not belong. Fortunately she retained sufficient intuition not to approach him – although she was intrigued by the bulge on his ankle.

She’d had two gins – the first of which was bought by a man who introduced himself as Phil and said that he was pleased to see ‘new blood’ in the group. The second she bought for herself and had to finish somewhat hurriedly when Phil told her that they were not allowed to take the drinks upstairs with them when they returned to the Circle. Thus it was that, when she was asked to better introduce herself to the group, she did so fully and, briefly, tearfully. She was a little ashamed of herself but, if she was honest, it felt liberating to be able to unburden herself in such a way in front of strangers – like taking her bra off in a restaurant. (It was only the once, you understand, and she’d put her blouse back on before she came out of the ladies. She’d only done it to see if her husband would notice. He didn’t, but the waiter who found the bra under her chair did.) Anyway, it was done; there was no way of turning back. In her mind she had decided that it didn’t matter because she would never return here, but then everybody had been so nice about it, not condescending, just nice. Phil and Frankie had made her laugh, Penny had offered her a tissue and Louise had passed her a little mirror saying, ‘You might like to take a little glance in there,’ which was very nice of her because nobody likes snot trails do they?

Anyway, long story short and all of that, the rest of the session really became just a little bit of a chat, mostly about books: they asked what kind of books she read, which authors she enjoyed, all the kinds of things that she’d anticipated and rehearsed and then Deidre asked her what kind of books she wrote. Elizabeth had been prepared to obfuscate a little on this point – not really wanting to own up to getting little further than a shopping list – but the question was so direct and the manner in which it was asked allowed so little room for equivocation that Elizabeth panicked. She closed her eyes and visualised the library shelves. “Family saga,” she said. “Oh good,” said Deidre, “We haven’t got one of those,” and the die was cast. It seemed to satisfy everyone. Well, almost everyone.
“What are you working on at the moment?” asked Penny.
“Well…” she looked at Penny and smiled. Penny seemed very nice really and Elizabeth was sure that she would grow to like her, if she could just get over the current urge to strangle her.
“Maybe you could read for us sometime.”
“That would be nice,” said Elizabeth, painfully aware that ‘nice’ was a word she was going to have to try and eradicate from her vocabulary if she stood any chance of perpetuating the fiction of herself as an author that she was in the process of creating. “It’s all a little bit fragmented at the moment, but I’m sure in a week or two…”
“That would be lovely,” said Penny, genuinely pleased. “To hear something new. Lovely.”
“Well, I’m really not sure how good it will be,” said Elizabeth, realising that if she was to come back again she would, almost certainly have to write something – and that was the second positive thing she did since opening the new chapter…

‘The Writer’s Circle #1 – Penny’s Poem’ is here.
‘The Writer’s Circle #8 – Ovinaphobia’ is here.
‘The Writer’s Circle #10 – Phil’s Baby’ is here.

The Running Man on the Path

I would choose, if it was safe, to run on the roads rather than the paths. The paths around here are very much the second choice for running. For a start they would appear never to have recovered from being bombed in the war: it would be uncharitable to call the craters that litter them ‘potholes’ – I think ‘fox-holes’ would be more appropriate: they are wide enough to defy hurdling and deep enough to conceal ancient Japanese soldiers who still do not know that the war is over. Dodging them pretty much doubles the distance of a run. Then, where there are no potholes, there are drives. For some reason this village specialises in driveways that merge with the road via something with sides that appear to have fallen off a rift valley. Those that do not treat you to an up and down of about six feet over a car’s width, indulge you, instead, in a headlong dive either into the road or somebody’s garden, as the whim takes them. After a ‘path run’ my knees feel like they have just done ten minutes on a bouncy castle with my grandkids – the most strenuous exercise known to man. And finally, of course, the paths have dog walkers…

I know, I know, I have been here before, but really! What is it all about? Normally if I am running in the road, providing I stick to the gutter – that’s quite enough of that, thank you – approaching cars ease out a little to give me room. I always acknowledge them. Everyone is happy. If I am on the path and have to pass anyone – a novelty for someone who runs at a speed somewhat short of walking pace – I move into the road if I can, or cross to the other side. None of this is possible when the rain means that the road is as slippery as a greased eel. I stick to the path and gauge my speed, the best I can, to pass walkers at a convenient point, causing both of us the minimum inconvenience and allowing the maximum distance. Now, I am a walker too. I do realise that walkers do not want a shagged-out senior citizen panting all over them at close quarters. It’s easily sorted. We all move a little and everyone is happy. Normally pleasantries are exchanged and the world carries on turning. Unless the walkers are attached by a leash to a dog, in which case the path becomes a kingdom to be defended. None shall pass. A laird whose territory extends exactly to the end of the pooch’s lead.

Most of what passes for rational thought when I am running, is expended on where I should be in order to cause the minimum inconvenience to other path and road users: on plotting a path that keeps everybody as safe as possible and, if possible, avoids the necessity for a trip to A&E with my leg in a makeshift splint, cunningly fashioned from pieces of the larchlap fence I have just crashed through. A walker, on seeing a runner approaching, will normally move to one side, the runner to the other and it is very easy to manufacture a point of crossing that coincides with a driveway. Two metres is an easy distance to gauge: imagine falling over; would you crack your head on the path or on the other person’s toe-cap? A walker with a dog, however, will glare and stop, with great deliberation, between driveways before moving to the very centre of the path, giving you the simple choice: go ‘dog-side’ and risk a trip through somebody’s hedge, or go ‘idiot-side’ and risk a high-wire act along the kerb whilst they glare at you and defy you to breathe their air. With the road out of bounds, the ‘full stop’ is the only way out, whilst they walk by at their leisure, snorting gently from the nose. I was actually asked today whether I was ‘allowed to be doing that’. ‘Lockdown,’ apparently, ‘is not over yet.’ I was about four hundred yards from home. I did not recognise my interrogators – who were even more ancient than me – but I’m guessing they were probably not from the village, that they drove here to walk the pooch – doubtless because they have run out of places to dump their plastic wrapped bundles of faeces closer to home.

I could have stopped to argue, but, to be quite frank, it’s such a battle to gain momentum that, once I’ve got it, I don’t want to let it go. I could have said something caustic en passant, but I’m not certain that my breathing was up to it; I could have given them a withering look, but I fear they may have thought I was having a stroke, so I settled for a cheery ‘And a good morning to you too.’ They didn’t see the irony. I must be slipping.

The whole running saga started here with ‘Couch to 5k’
Last week’s bulletin ‘The Running Man on Reasons to be Cheerful’ is here.
The next Running Man bulletin ‘…On the Go’ is here.

Zoo # 25 – Lion Fish

As a boy I was very taken with the ‘Little Willy’ poems. Sadly, I have absolutely no recollection of who they were written by, nor where I read them, but I do remember that the form of these little rhymes never varied. I can remember two of them today – over fifty years on:

Little Willy with a shout
Gouged the baby’s eyeballs out;
Stamped on them to make them ‘Pop!’ –
Mother cried, ‘Now William stop!’

And…

Little William with a roar
Nailed the baby to the door.
Mother cried, with humour quaint,
‘Careful Will, you’ll mar the paint.’

A have absolutely no idea why they appealed to me so greatly, but I thought it was about time that I allowed myself to take inspiration from them. I hope that whoever wrote the originals will forgive me…

Little Willy, with a yen,
Threw baby in the lion’s den.
Mother seemed to be quite happy –
‘It was almost time to change his nappy.’

Sadly, it was at this point that I realised that at least fifty percent of my readers (‘Hello’ to both of you) will not know what a nappy is (actually the diminutive of napkin I believe – although how it came to be wrapped about a baby’s nethers I am not sure). I understand that American babies have diapers (the etymology of which completely escapes me) and I couldn’t make that rhyme in any sensible way, so I tried again.

Little Willy with a yell
Dropped the baby down a well
Filled up with piranha fish –
Mother whispered ‘Make a wish.’

Which, in the end, I’m probably happier with…

The ‘Mistake’ Rack (part two)

The main thing about the ‘mistake’ rack is that albums do not make their way onto it over a period of time: they do not move there because I have grown bored of them over the years, or because I seldom play them any more – I have many, many CD’s and some of them get played very rarely, but when they do, I still love them. ‘Mistake’ rack albums are different. They are destined to be there. Back in the days of Andy’s Records they would have had appropriate labels on them: ‘This album may not be anything like as good as you think it is going to be.’ Sometimes I have been given them, sometimes I have bought them on the strength of one great track, sometimes I was just looking for something new. However they came into my possession, I just knew that we were not meant for one another. I am not saying that they are, necessarily, bad albums – just that, all in all, they would have been better not to have been made…

So, having paused only for fortification in a glass of 40% proof, I continue my trawl through ‘The Shelf with No Name’. Next in line, and the most recent album on the shelf is ‘Amulet’ by Circa Survive (2017). I was led to this partly by a brilliant Roger Dean-esque cover, which is every bit as good as Alisha’s Attic (part one) is bad. The album is very polished, but so soulless that not even the devil would want it. This is a band that very badly wants to be Rush, but sadly seldom gets past amble, playing the kind of music you would expect to hear piped into the toilets at a prog-rock convention. It came off the shelf only very briefly. It is back there now.

If you can imagine cutting and pasting little bits from every great rock album by every great rock act into a single album and still ending up with something interminably boring, well, that brings me onto the next album on the shelf, because that is exactly what Thirty Seconds to Mars managed to do with ‘A Beautiful Lie’ (2005). It is an album that is far, far less than the sum of its parts. Waiting for one track to end, knowing that there is another one to follow is actually painful: not so much a question of where one tracks ends and the next one starts as why they bothered? It is like throwing every fruit you have ever liked into a liquidizer and switching it on only to end up with a brown, tasteless sludge. Every little bit of this album detracts from every other bit. The album sold by the bucket-load (the bucket, in my opinion, is where it should have stayed) and won plaudits galore as well as awards, which just shows what I know. Like deliberately banging your head on the wall, the only fun to be had from this album is when it stops. Back on the shelf.

Next in line is The Flaming Lips ‘Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots’ (2002), an album that I really feel I should like, but I’ve tried and I can’t. It doesn’t help that the melody from track one (Fight Test) is lifted straight from Cat Steven’s ‘Father to Son’. It bothers me. I have checked the cover to see whether it is credited, but it is one of those bloody awful booklets that is either designed to confound all attempts at reading it, or very shoddily printed. The cover is littered with critical praise and five star reviews, yet the record is nothing like as good as it thinks it is. This is the class swot. This is the album that stands in front of the class and says, ‘Look at me’. This is the record that your parents point out is so much better than you. I don’t know who Yoshimi is, but I’m pretty sure I’d like to flick him/her with a wet towel. I played this CD all the way through to give it the chance to change my mind. It didn’t. Back on the shelf.

Kula Shaker’s ‘K’ definitely has moments, notably in the singles (a common theme) ‘Hey Dude’, ‘Govinda’ and ‘Tattva’, but the rest of it sounds uncomfortably like a bunch of middle class public school boys who want to be The Stone Roses. It’s ok for a little while, but then… actually, it’s not ok for a little while. It’s dispiritingly tedious. The overall sound is of a band whose independent financial means ensured that the music didn’t really matter. It’s a bit of an ‘in-joke’. On the ladder of aptitude, they are many, many rungs above me, but, if I’m honest, that’s nothing like enough and, sadly, I can still hear them. Rather than a ‘Curate’s Egg’, this is an Easter egg of an album: cool cover, plenty of glitter, but, ultimately, hollow. It’s back on the shelf.

Finally, we come to an album that it kills me to see there: Iggy and the Stooges ‘Raw Power’. I know, I know, please let me explain. I am a life-long Bowie fan. This album was released in 1973, having been rescued from the record company bins and cleaned up by Bowie at the mixing desk*. Along with The Sex Pistol’s ‘Never Mind the Bollocks’ it is the very best of punk. Over the years I have played the grooves off the vinyl twice and so eventually decided to buy the re-issued CD, which was re-mixed by Bruce Dickinson and Iggy himself, who did not like the buffed-up edges on Bowie’s mix. Fair enough, except in re-mixing, they merely seem to have returned it to the kind of sound that nearly blocked its release in the first place. It sounds as though the whole thing is being played through a child’s megaphone with a sock in it. They have maxed out everything available to them. They have borrowed an amp from Spinal Tap and turned it up to 12. Everything is buried in a fuzzy, messy growl of tinny electrical noise that drives me mad. There is rough, and there is rough. I love this album, but the CD has gone on the shelf because every time I think about playing it, I just go downstairs instead and play the worn-out vinyl. Age has made that a little fuzzy too, but I remember how it used to sound before Iggy tried to force it through a tin box filled with horse-hair and feedback and so, as long as I still have the old vinyl, the CD stays on the shelf with all of its friends…

Once again, I must point out that the opinions expressed above are all etc etc etc. Before you are tempted to be upset by anything I might say, just remember how worthless my opinion is. If you feel that you can give me the key to unlock the joy in any of these albums (or indeed those by The Levellers, ARZ or Ben Harper that I never quite got round to mentioning) I would be delighted to hear from you.

*Whilst transposing these two posts onto WordPress (yes, I do still write with a pen on paper) I played Bowie’s three great career-rescuing productions of the 70’s: Lou Reed’s ‘Viscous’, Iggy’s ‘The Idiot’ and Mott the Hoople’s ‘All The Young Dudes’ and the world became a better place. Now, where did I put those glittery flares?…

The Mistake Rack (part one) is here.

The Writer’s Circle #8 – Ovinaphobia

Jane Herbert smiled nervously as she looked around the Circle. “I don’t have anything to read to you,” she said. “But I have an idea I want to pitch.” None of the other group members really knew much about Jane. She was an ever-present, always pleasant company but certainly no open book. It always appeared that whatever small revelation she was prepared to make had been well thought-through beforehand. She played her life like a poker hand. The others knew that she wrote horror stories, she had described herself on one occasion as ‘Stephen King in a frock’, but other than the little insights she chose to impart in and around the bar, little was known about her or her writing. “The tale starts with the discovery of a dismembered cat in field near a farm. Nothing unusual in that; must happen all the time – foxes, stray dogs, drunken youths… Nobody pays much attention, even when other mutilated small creatures start appearing – rats, rabbits, one or two more cats – nobody really bothers, until that is, the first of the brutally dismembered larger animals appears and it gradually becomes clear that nothing is safe any longer: dogs, foxes, badgers, deer are found – all horribly killed and half-eaten by who knows what?…”

“My God!” whispered Frankie. “That’s like no Tale of the Riverbank I’ve ever seen.” Jane Smiled, she was happy with the reaction.

“The killings become more regular; more brutal with each passing day,” she continued. “The local people begin to discuss the possibility of some slavering mythical beast. The national tabloids catch wind of the story and they descend on the village: farm animals are locked away at nights, watched over by reporters, farmhands and CCTV cameras, all hoping to uncover the truth of the Beast of Westhall, but the killings stop as suddenly as they began, interest wanes and the farms slowly return to the mores of normal rural existence. It is widely believed that it has all been some kind of morbid publicity stunt, or even, perhaps, some kind of arcane sacrificial ritual. Over time, as things return to normal, only one reporter remains, an atypically thorough journalistic investigator, determined to uncover the truth. It is he who finds the first human victim, stripped of flesh and clothing, and huddled under a hawthorn hedge surrounded by nothing more than a bloodied muddy lake, fringed by ungulate footprints and wisps of wool fluttering in the breeze where it has snagged on the barbed wire fence…”

“What’s an ungulate?” asked Phil after a pause that was just long enough to make him feel that he was the only one who didn’t know.
“I think it’s an animal with a cloven foot, isn’t it?” said Frankie. Jane smiled at him once again.
Phil turned to Frankie and mouthed the words, “Teacher’s Pet.” They both grinned.
“So, is that what’s doing the killing then?” Phil persevered, aware that he may still have been the only one of them in the dark. “Something or other with a clover foot?”
“Cloven,” corrected Deidre, who was never one to turn up such a chance.
“Well,” answered a thoughtful Jane. “It’s likely, isn’t it? Although it’s even more likely that the ungulates, whatever they may be, could just have been curious bystanders. They are, after all, herbivores.”
“What about pigs? Are they ungulates? My grandad had a pig during the war – it ate anything.”
“But did it kill anything?”
“I’m not sure, could have done. I’ve never trusted pigs since they sent Boxer off to the knacker’s yard.”
“What about the wool on the barbed wire?” asked Penny. “…Unless that’s a red herring.”
“Do herring have wool?” asked Phil, ashamed of himself almost immediately as Penny flushed instantly crimson.
“Well, they are weird, aren’t they, sheep?” chipped in Louise. “Evil little eyes.”
“They don’t kill though, do they,” said Terry. “At least, not in real life.”
“They have plenty of motive to start killing humans, I’d say,” countered Vanessa. “I agree with Louise, evil little eyes. Although Penny’s right,” she cast a glance at Phil, “the wool could just be a red herring.”
“Why do we count sheep do you think?” asked Frankie. “When we want to go to sleep, I mean. Why sheep? Why not rabbits, or kittens, or koalas, they’re far more restful… Maybe sloths would be even better. Counting sloths – how peaceful can you get?”
“They are sinister, aren’t they, sheep? Lambs are cute, like baby hyena, but by the time they’re adult and they’ve seen most of their contemporaries carted off to the abattoir, they definitely give the impression of an animal with a grudge.”
“Killer sheep – or maybe just one killer. Be a nightmare to identify in the middle of a flock wouldn’t it?” said Phil. “Mind you, knowing what sheep are like, they’d all want a go. They’re notoriously…” his voice trailed away, “…sheep-like aren’t they?”
“What about deer?” asked Billy, keen to join in the conversation. “They can be big and aggressive.”
“Didn’t Jane say that some of the victims had been deer?”
“Wouldn’t put it past ‘em,” Billy muttered darkly.
“Bloody hell,” said Frankie. “Psycho Rudolph! This could be more disturbing than The Child Catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.”
“Nothing could be that scary.” Penny looked genuinely alarmed at the prospect.
“Imagine,” grinned Billy, “you’re just drifting off to sleep, peacefully counting sheep, when one of them leaps out and starts to chew your face off!”
“I really…” Penny turned very pale indeed. “Why do we count sheep do you think?”
“I think it’s because they come in flocks,” suggested Deidre.
“Starlings come in flocks,” said Terry. “And pigeons.”
“Much too difficult to tie down,” said Vanessa. “It would keep you awake, the possibility that you’d missed one.”
“You’d have to count so quickly,” added Penny. “I think it would keep you awake.”
“Unlike a demented sheep?” Billy chided, winking at the grinning Terry.
“I think we’d all agree,” said Vanessa, “that consideration of the demented in any species is probably inadvisable in the moments before sleep. Nobody should have to try and sleep in the company of the psychotically unhinged. Do you have a partner Mr Hunt?”
“I…” Billy’s mouth lolled open like a dying carp. He looked towards Terry for support. He got none.
“Good,” said Vanessa, unaware of Deidre’s appreciative stare. “So, Jane, what are they, these killer ungulates: sheep, pigs, deer or just plain old red herrings?”
“Well, there’s my problem, I’m really not sure,” she frowned slightly. “I haven’t really got it straight in my head yet, and I’m afraid to say that it’s keeping me awake at night…”

‘The Writer’s Circle #1 – Penny’s Poem’ is here.
‘The Writer’s Circle #7 – Vanessa’ is here.
‘The Writer’s Circle #9 – The New Chapter’ is here.

The Running Man on Reasons to be Cheerful

OK, I am willing to concede that ‘cheerful’ may not always be my default setting, but today’s run has found me with a certain (if slightly demented) smile on my face. (I’m sure that you’ve got the drift by now that the day of writing is not necessarily the day of publishing – I am nowhere near that organised – so, if meteorological references do not match up with what you are seeing through your window today, I apologise. I have posted a nice photo at the top to help you with your ‘visualisation processes’. In truth, this disconnection may be even more profound today, because I am actually writing this down tomorrow, as it were, for reasons that may – or may not – become clearer as we go along). Today (that being yesterday as I write and possibly even last week by the time you read it) I ran in beautiful Spring sunshine*. The white carpet of snowdrops that glisten along the hedgerows has been supplemented by yellow and violet crocuses (croci?) aconytes, narcissi and daffodils; the sky is blue and cloudless and the sun is warm on my back. Even the sight (site?) of an abandoned TV, three-quarters of somebody’s old kitchen and a three-legged dining room chair in the ditch at the side of the road only impacts on my mood transiently. Spring has sprung and I am in high spirits. I have discovered that I am capable of running and being happy at the same time.

Breathing is, sadly, a bit of an issue: the trees are pumping out pollen like their future depends upon it (which, of course, it does) and most of it is making its way up my snout. I have tissues in both pockets and both hands and I cannot even smell the giant heap of steaming manure that has materialised in the field alongside the newly built houses – although I’m pretty sure that the ‘new to the countryside’ owners can (nobody ever fully appraises you of the fact that for large chunks of the year, all that rural England smells of is Cow Parsley and shit) – but I am not dispirited. It is Spring and I am enjoying my run – even when the grinning ‘Community Ambulance’ driver forces me off the road and through something brown and sticky. (I’m hoping it’s mud. I will find out soon enough when I get home and my wife – who has the olfactory acuity of a bloodhound – gets a whiff of it**.) I ran further than I have before and I ran quicker. I am a man reborn. This heightened mood could last until the very last pickings of brambles in the autumn, or until the very next ministerial broadcast on Covid – you can probably guess which is the most likely.

Which brings me on to the evening (and the reason why today is actually yesterday) and the local Covid vaccination station. Yesterday we were Astra Zeneca’d (I’m not coming over all Royal Family there, we were both vaccinated). It has cheered me up even further. It was brilliantly organised and everyone was so cheerful and helpful (Thank you NHS) even when the internet failed – the site is in the middle of nowhere – and we had to sit for twenty minutes whilst many uniformed people wandered around looking perplexed. I presume that the confusion means that it hadn’t happened before: it was waiting for me. Well, I don’t care. It can bugger off. I’m happy***.

We visited four ‘chip shops’ on the way home as we decided we deserved a treat. The first two were closed. The third refused to put anything new in the friers because they were about to close and didn’t want to waste chips – the fact that we were there to buy them did not, somehow, compute – would we like a pie? The fourth was open and proudly displayed the fact that it was under new ownership. It was truly awful. The best thing about it was the satisfying ‘thunk’ it made as it hit the bin. I had ice cream with golden syrup and cream instead. (Oh come on – try it. You’ll never look back.) A good day that ended far too late to write about – particularly as it was time to get back up to speed with ‘Line of Duty’.

Reasons to be cheerful? Today (Tomorrow/yesterday, who knows?) there are plenty. Don’t worry; it’s unlikely to last…

*A note from the future: today it is cold and murky. Everything is shrouded in a thick blanket of fog. As is usual in this country, Spring has both sprung and disappeared with an alarming synchronicity. Somehow we have skipped onto Autumn, which means that another bout of Winter is almost certainly bound to arrive, shrivelling spring blooms and freezing the blossom from the trees, with the consequence that when Spring finally arrives again, all that the sleepy little bees will find with which to make honey will be KFC wrappers, somebody’s discarded dining arrangements and a strangely besieged helleborous.
**A further note from the future: it wasn’t mud.
***Yet another note from the future: we both had a headache the following morning, but nothing worse than that. Still happy.

The whole sorry tale of my attempts to run stated here with ‘Couch to 5k’
The previous instalment or the Running Man diaries, ‘The Running Man on Plodding On’ is here.
The next Running Man ‘...On the Path’ is here.