Books.

Nicholson Baker may not be the greatest novelist in the world. He’s certainly better than me. I’ve never bothered.

But by God his choice of reading is dreadful.

He wrote a piece recently in the Guardian about eBooks and that.

He didn’t go so far as to say that the complete digitization of all literature would be good or bad, he just described his experience of the new methods of reading novels. Digitally. If one felt so disposed. On a screen. A screen that only Amazon would sell you, and only Amazon would supply content for.

This screen would allow you to download any novel you fancied – so long as Amazon stocked it – anywhere you liked. Anywhere with a broadband connection. Or free wi-fi.

I’m not as widely read as Nicholson Baker (he seems rather fond of ‘thrillers’) but here’s some of my experiences of books:

1) A paperback copy of Life of Pi by Yann Martell. Bought in a charity shop for next to nothing. A fabulous book about belief, stories and faith. And not what you would think upon initial reading. The inside cover was written upon in biro-

‘Rose – get beyond the first hundred pages and it really picks up.’

I’ve no idea who Rose is. Or the (I assume) man was who gave it to her. But it was sensible advice. I don’t know why Rose then gave it away to a charity shop.

But I think of them, whoever they are.

I then lend it to somebody else. Because I like the book and I like the person I lend it to. Like the person who gave it to Rose. Although I’m guessing Rose wasn’t too fond of it.

2) An Encyclopia in my Grandfathers ‘study’. It was really his front room, but even then he didn’t set foot in it. Amazing to a ten-year old boy. All the knowledge in the world, in one massive tome. The pages smelt of wisdom and escape.

3) The works of A.A.Milne. Worn and battered by generations. Red hardback covers hanging off, spines barely clinging. Read to my mother, read by my mother to me, read by me to my younger brother and sister and one day hopefully to my own children. Old books, literally falling apart and smelling of love, however misplaced.

4) Bookshelves. I’ve been massively fortunate growing up for one reason. There were always books. I doubt my mother or indeed any of the illiterates she married ever read any of the books they populated the book-shelves they insisted upon, but at least they were there. And for every three Jackie Collins (deeply alarming to a thirteen-year-old-boy) there was at least one Angela Carter (slightly more alarming but for better reasons). There was some Thomas Hardy, Sylvia Plath and Raymond Chandler. At least they were there.

But now they’ve invented this ‘Thing’. Upon which you can see any book anytime, like the online catch-up service of the BBC or 4 on-demand or whatever it’s called this week.

Sony have a competitor model called the ‘Kill all emotion and meaning let’s just digitize it all MK2’ or something. KAEAMLJDIA#2 is the production name.

They’ll probably win. And the losers will be people like me, who quite like seeing the odd coffee-cup ring on the page of a well-loved book. Who like giving or lending or reading to someone a book that they adore.

And Nicholson Baker will no doubt get by.

If It Weren’t For the Photographs I Would Deny It Forever.

I am making my way from my office to my bus stop. A female colleague rushes up to me. She has not uttered a word to me in three years. Something I have not lost sleep over.

Female Colleague: Tired! I just wanted to say you were brilliant on Friday night! Really convincing.

Me: You what?

Roughly forty-eight hours earlier.

I am standing in a beer cellar with Uncannily Similar, taking alternate large swigs from a pint of lager and very large vodka and tonic. He is gazing forlornly around us.

Uncannily Similar: This is a nightmare isn’t it?

Me: Mmm.

U.S: I mean. Surrounded by all this drink. And we can’t have any of it.

Me: [Adjusting my skirt] Not really what I thought you meant.

U.S: Oh. This? Yeah. Do you think I need some more lippy?

Me: I don’t ever want to hear you say that again. Be a man. How has this happened by the way?

Two years ago I had resolved to start doing things that were a little out of character as my default behavior hadn’t really worked out as well as it could have. These ‘things’ usually involved daredevil antics such as sitting on a different seat on the bus to work or eating feta cheese. But this is just silly.

U.S: [Glancing at my legs] You’d have looked better in the fishnets.

Me: [Irrationally insulted] You fucking what?

U.S: Well. The black-and-purple stripes aren’t doing you any favours. You look like Beetlejuice.

Me: Fuck off do I.

The door to the cellar opens a crack. We are due to emerge from this and then from behind the bar and behind the audience who will be expecting us to emerge from the stage in front of them. In terms of 'stealth' it would probably be the strangest Splinter Cell add-on pack ever downloaded.

Our Boss: Five minutes girls. You look fabulous.

She vanishes again.

Me: Anyway. Your tits are wonky.

U.S: Don’t tell me that now!

Hearing our ‘theme’ we dash onstage and make complete buffoons of ourselves in front of several hundred of our peers.

Fourty-eight hours later.

Me: What do you mean, convincing?

FC: Oh. Emm. Nothing. Just you were really good.

Me: Fucks sake.

FC: Really. It was just a funny panto. Loved your dance at the end. Did it take long to rehearse?

Me: I have to catch a bus.

Six hours earlier. I walk down a corridor past two gentlemen I do not recognize. Assuming they are past my earshot one of them turns to the other and says:

“You should have seen him on Friday night. FUCKING TERRIFYING.”

Football.

This is the last thing I fucking need, I think to myself.

I have the sort of job that sometimes you just can’t walk away from at five-thirty. It involves things that sometimes can’t be left until the morning. The morning will be too late.

This is one of those sometimes. The public transport system in the city I work in tends to think ‘fuck it’ after business hours in the assumption that anyone needing to travel after six is either a drunkard or a pervert. As such I have a wait on my hands.

Raymond Chandler wrote an excellent passage about the alchemic pleasure of a bar that had just opened for the evening. ‘Farewell my Lovely’ I think.

It’s not the same now. They never really close. But there is still something about a two-thirds empty bar early in the evening – usually populated by disoriented commuters far from home, burnt-out business types and hard-core alcoholics. A stillness, a melancholy. A place to reflect in peace, populated by people who want nothing more than that themselves. People who want to be elsewhere but are either temporarily or permanently stuck. It can be quite soothing if you know you’re only visiting.

Having half an hour to kill I decide to visit a quite-nice one near my bus stop. It’s either that or the only other place open is Starbucks and I’m not that fucking far gone. Those cunts are really lost.

I push through the glass doors to be greeted by a wall of noise and approximately eight million braying lumps of flesh yowling at a plasma screen as though it were some sort of vengeful god.

Having stepped through the doors I am past the point of no return. No man in history has ever walked into a bar and then promptly turned around again.

I order a drink, making a point of not purchasing a big pint of idiot juice. Fortunately I’ve been here before and am aware of the perpetually empty ‘snug’ area which I promptly make for.

It is removed from the main bar, contains big leather chairs and only a couple of tables. The ‘wall’ facing the street is plate-glass. It is relatively quiet. I take a comfy leather chair and sit, determined to ignore the gurning festival of homoeroticism in the main room. I place my drink on a glass table-top that turns out to be one of those old arcade machines. I find this not amusingly ‘ironic’ or ‘retro’ as I’m sure I should but actually faintly depressing.

I sip my drink and stare at the skyline. My thoughts are far from here.

A man the size of a small outhouse comes barreling in and looks directly at me. He is wearing a football shirt which is puzzling as his physique is not one of an athlete. Or indeed of most normal humans.

Random Man: Thank fuck for that!

As he has not introduced himself I can only assume he imagines he has known me for some time. This is, however, not the case so I do not reply. I am not about to be involved in some nightmare scenario in which two strangers act as if they have been acquainted for years. That would just be weird. We’d be wanking each other off next.

Random Bloke: [Undeterred by my lack of response] Did you hear? [Insert name of football player here – I don’t know any] just scored! Fucking brilliant!

I gaze levelly at him and don’t respond. I can’t say if I actually shrugged, but it sounds like the sort of thing I would do.

Random Bloke: [Showing a firm grasp of the available evidence] You’re not watching it then?

Me: No.

He physically staggers for a second, but I think it’s the drink.

RB: So what you’re saying…. You’re…. Is that you just don’t give a shit about the football?

Me: Yes. I suppose so.

He steadies himself on a table. Must be the booze.

RB: But….. Fuck, man………Just trying to be friendly…….Christ……..have a bit chat and that. Jesus. Don’t have to be a CUNT.

He staggers away, his face a mass of confusion. I swear there were actually tears in his eyes.

I finish my drink and wait for my bus outside.

Escalation.

It all started quite normally and then went terribly wrong.

Interior. Office. Day.

Me: [Gazing out the window] It’s a nice afternoon actually. I’m looking forward to getting home and sitting in the garden for a while.

Blonde Colleague: [Looking at me as though I’d just announced that gang-raping her mother would be quite the chuckle] You fucking what?

Me: Em. Well. I’ve a back garden now. Bit of a novelty. Thought it would be nice. Seems like quite a pleasant evening. Maybe.

BC: What the fuck do you want to do that for?

Me: Em. Because. You know. Sit in the garden. Glass of wine. Cigarette and that. Just relax I suppose.

BC: Oh yeah? You’ll be fucking freezing. You can do all of that in your front room AND watch television.

Me: I don’t really watch televi-

BC: Don’t even get me started on that one you fucking freak.

Me: Anyway. It’s July.

BC: Yeah? And in the winter? Genius?

Me: Well –

BC: Oh. You’re going to get one of those fucking gas heaters [said as though her mother had indeed been gang-raped by some awful gang of libidious gas heaters] aren’t you?

Me: Now you mention it. That would be good.

BC: WHY?!

Me: Well. I could sit outside in the winter as well.

BC: WHAT?! You can sit inside! And not have bats in your hair!

Me: It wouldn’t be the same. [I am sensing that this is becoming an ‘outdoors versus indoors’ argument and that I have not made my case sufficiently strong. And that I’d only said that it would be quite nice to sit in my new back garden anyway.]

BC: So you’re going to spend money to sit all year round in your garden doing EVERYTHING NORMAL PEOPLE DO IN THEIR FRONT ROOMS without being able to see your telly with bats in your hair and moths and butterflies living in your silly beard?

Me: Look-

BC: And do you know what’ll happen? ‘Cos I’ll tell you. Your neighbours will be on the phone and they’ll be all like “ Hello is that the police? It’s just I think the man next door is a peeping-tom. He’s really skinny so he thinks I can’t see him hiding behind his fucking gas heater but I can see his beady little shrimp-eyes sticking out and his weird E.T. fingers. Can you send a car straight away?”

Me: Ok.

BC: Good?

Me: Not as good as when you told me I look like a cross between Pierce Brosnan [good] and Stephen Hawking [bad].

BC: [Small amount of snot coming out of her nose] Did I say that? I am ON FIRE! You do look a bit crippled though.

Me: Mmmmmm.

I’d just said about the garden and that.

It Rains.

It’s a dark day at work.

The 'positive' announcement from the M.D. is 71 more people will lose their jobs. This will ‘safeguard the future of the company’.

Which is ‘good’.

The 71 people will not know who they are for a month.

Which is not so good. But I suppose they know already. Either way.

I stare out the window. I have much to think about.

The general mood is not fantastic.

Thug Colleague: I reckon we just organize a massive dance-off to decide who keeps their jobs.

Random Colleague*: I’m totally your wing-man on that one like.

Grant From Work: That’s you fucked then Tired. I’ve seen your moves.

Me: Mmmmm.

Some more time passes and I think unhappy thoughts. I tune-in again to hear this:

Thug Colleague: …the spacka school her daughter went tae. By, there were some reet ones there, like. Weird thaw. Some a theym looked nawmal. But there were some reet parsnips an all. It had a canny football pitch thaw. Ah mean for a flid school and that. Their team wasn’t that bad either. Had to put a fucking bell on the ball mind.

I gaze out the window some more. The rain is so heavy I cannot see the other side of the street.



* I've worked with him three years. Never bothered to learn his name or indeed make up a pretend one.

Love.

I’m not a very demonstrative person.

Physically.

Some months ago.

I am trying to figure out how to effectively market a client.

Said client has all the answers to chronic fatigue syndome, ME, depression, insomnia and anxiety attacks. There is a brand new method she is bringing to the market. Involving magnets or crystals or something. Whatever. It could be an enormous solution to these woes.

I’m puzzling over this. Some sort of online campaign methinks. The 'internet people' love this shit.

Grotbags glances at my screen.

Two years ago Grotbags nursed her mother through terminal stomach cancer. At home. Whilst maintaining her job and raising her two biological children and one child from her husband’s previous marriage. She changed her mother’s bandages daily and personally swabbed her intestines when it finally ate through the walls of her stomach. She died at home in Grotbags’ front room.

We argue daily. She's right about everything and so am I. Neither of us ever win but have massively entertaining blazing rows.

Grotbags: What’s this then?

I don’t have much to say on the subject. It sort of speaks for itself.

Grotbags: [Reading my client’s amazing talents] Fuck ME? She can actually cure things that DON’T EVEN EXIST?? She must be fucking amazing! What would happen if she turned her hand to REAL illnesses? Anyway, you out tonight?

I don’t hug her, although I have in the past. Drunk and that.

I shoot her a sidelong glance and a grin. That’s all.

She winks at me.

That’s all.

I’d always thought that was quite enough.

We both know.

Things I Must Never Forget #!1

The shiny apple.

I take it out of the shopping basket. It’s not something important. We don’t need it right now.

The evening has been difficult. Due to a badly-scheduled (by me) Parent’s Evening myself, Tired Mam, Favourite Son and Favourite Daughter are in a supermarket way past bedtime purchasing ingredients for a very quick very late meal.

The soles of my feet are riddled with pins-and-needles. They are wonderful children and this has just been impartially verified. My daughter has demonstrated amazing story-telling abilities and has shamed me. I resolve to start my silly blog again. My son is not the push-over I was beginning to fear he was, but is merely a little man who knows how to keep his own counsel.

My nerves are jangling. The little chairs don’t help, the physical closeness to Tired Mam is not ideal. The brief sensation of shared unconditional love is a bit intoxicating. The whole talk of ‘we’ and ‘us’ when we speak of our parenting. It feels like a charade. As if we would leave the premises and cackle to ourselves. ‘We FOOLED them! For another year! They think we’re happy with this!’

Me: We don’t need that tonight sweetheart. Let’s just put it back.

I’ve just pulled-off a first-class impression of a caring, involved father. I almost convinced myself. I am both but not actively; circumstances are against me. Tired Mam and I have spoken to teachers as if we both daily make a huge effort with their education. When only she does. But it was kind of her to pretend.

Favourite Daughter: But Daddy…

I’m not having this. She’s six now. She knows that you can’t have things purely because you feel like it that moment. Life isn’t that simple.

Tired Mam glances at the contents of the basket.

Tired Mam: It’s two-for-one on ALL the Covent Garden Soups.

A wave of irritation washes over me, familiar and care-worn like an old friend. I wordlessly double-up the soup quota.

There is some debate about bread that is resolved with minimal difficulty.

Their teachers had been talking about the next academic year with total confidence. As if they were sure. That our children would even reside in the same part of the world as they do now in a few months time.

Favourite Daughter: It’s REALLY shiny.

We’re all together but the air is crackling with unsaid things between Tired Mam and I. And I’m doing my best ‘everything is ok’ impression. I couldn't care less how shiny it is. I have other things on my mind. I want to get through this in one piece.

At the check-out I pay for the supplies and also call a taxi for Tired Mam and our offspring. It’s dark and cold now.

As they leave, I think about this:

I have taken the apple out of Favourite Daughter’s hand. It’s not a ‘right now’ thing and this is a ‘right now’ moment. Something hot, quick and nutritious is required.

As I place it back in the weird molded-cardboard that it came from I actually look at it.

I know that Snow White herself would have been taken by this fucker. It is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. It appears to be made of lovingly-polished glass of the deepest deepest loveliest red ever. It is perfectly shaped; think of the word ‘apple’ and this thing will pop into your head. In short. It is gorgeous.

It’s too late though. It fits snuggly back in its cardboard womb and I inform Tired Mam that the two-for-one only applies to the Wild Mushroom variety that isn’t actually very nice.

I should have bought her the shiny apple.

Meeting.

People have to really be Something to impress me. I am not easily won over. But Grant From Work is my new personal hero.

I digress.

It’s strange how a business meeting can bend the space-time continuum.

You’re in there for three days, but when you leave the meeting room a mere thirty minutes have passed.

I have a new boss. She is all about the meetings. Every morning. Each identical.

Each so stultifyingly tedious I would gladly eat a tramps cock to get out.

I have ground my teeth until I am merely mashing gums. When we have the chance – because normally we are stuck in dreadful meetings – all any of us have the time to do is complain about the number of tiresome meetings we have to attend before we are called into another one, the subject of which is usually to do with lack of productivity due to meeting-related activity.

Tedious Boss: We know things are really hard at the minute, what with the current economical climate…

Yes. We do know that. Thanks for reinforcing it though. And it’s ‘economic’ not ‘economical’.

Tedious Boss: But we’ve just got to get out there and do our best…

As opposed to what? Staying at home, doing nothing and getting fired? Genius.

And so it goes. For half an hour each morning.

This Friday morning, twenty of us endure another daily identical meeting with Tedious Boss. Grant From Work has been up late the previous night, or at least looks it.

The following is 100% true.

Grant From Work yawns. In the middle of the meeting.

Not a little yawn. But a Bagpuss yawn. The sort of yawn you would imagine Henry the Eighth performing after eating 10 wild boar, drinking a gallon of mead and fucking fifteen wenches. It was a big old yawn right there is my point.

Flies stop in mid-air. All is silent.

A minute passes. Grant From Work does not appear concerned. All eyes are on him.

Tedious Boss: Oh. I’m sorry Grant From Work. Am I boring you?

Another minute passes. Literally. Grant From Work gazes expressionless at Tedious Boss. Some more time passes. Nineteen people are clenching everything they have.

Grant From Work: [Deadpan] Yes.

Another minute.

Tedious Boss: Well. Ok. Do you have any suggestions as to how we generate new revenue in this economical –

Grant From Work: Actually, I’ve got a client I need to call and a deadline so –

Grant From Work leaves the meeting room. Eighteen other people make grumbling noises and follow him.

I instantly forgive him the fact that he looks like a boogly-eyed daddy-long-legs when he dances and repels every woman I do not accidently assualt.

Tedious Boss is left alone with a flip-chart.

It actually happened.

Ants.

This is a new one. Something I hadn’t noticed when last it started happening.

Thing is, I can put up with all of it except the fucking ants.

I doubt you can imagine it.

The incessant buzzing noise in the back of your skull is bearable compared with the sensation of their crawling.

The thick tongue is tolerable. As is the constant taste of metal in the mouth.

The slow-moving glaciers of your exhausted sluggish thoughts that occasionally crash into each other and shatter into splinters of nonsense.

The uneasy feeling that you are also making other people uneasy when they speak to you. Because you have to stare at them blankly for a few minutes whilst your brain grindingly processes the noises that have come from their mouths.

The short- to medium-term memory loss.

The sensation that your eyeballs are filled with sand.

The less-than-uplifting sensation when friends of several years who have not seen you like this, who don’t know about it, take one look at your eyes and say ‘Fuck, what is wrong with you?’

Bluffing your way through work, speaking to clients when you can’t remember a meeting from a day ago let alone what they said thirty seconds ago. And coming out of it ok, but only just.

Using the traffic lights. It’s a big city, you’re a big boy. But you just don’t trust your reaction- time. Not now. Best to be safe. Wait for the lights with the blind and the old.

The short temper. You say things. Things you would normally quell for the sake of an easy life. The astounding thing is that when you drop any social etiquette toward people you dislike they are so befuddled by it and by the dead look in your unblinking eyes that it actually makes life easier for a little while. But not in the long term. And you’re so detached you feel no sense of satisfaction or victory anyway. You just ARE. You exist. Because you have to. And if you stop, the momentum may just disappear forever.

And so you eat. Not because you are hungry but because you have to.

You laugh and socialize. Not because you want to. But because you don’t want people to think you hate them. Which they would, if all you did was stare, which is almost all you can do.

Four days now. Either asleep by twelve (late for me) and awake by three or wide-eyed-awake until three and awake again at five-thirty. It’s a new pattern I do not understand.

All of it would be tolerable but for the ants under the skin of my forearms. Crawling.

My lower back too.

That would be fine were it not for the fuckers under the skin of my cheeks and the back of my neck.

The worst thing is that it makes you feel like yourself again. A self that you worked hard to get rid of.

Meeting.

A lot of my working time is spent in meetings.

More so now that my boss has returned from her holidays.

I shan't go on about it. I'm sure the world is awash with 'hey! Aren't meetings a bit pointless!' stories and mine'll probably not be as good.

This morning's theatre of foolishness was not one of my best however. I can normally disrupt these things with earnest-looking absurdity but have not the heart due to an unpleasant sleep problem I had thought long-since conquered.

I drift through.

I hear one salient point that I vaguely think may be of relevance and absent-mindedly make a note of it on my pad without really listening.

Two hours later in a fug of sleep-deprivation I check my one-and-only note from the morning's meeting. It reads thus:

'Lesbians all have different names.'

I gaze blankly at this astonishing piece of information. I resolve to try and sleep now and then and pay more attention.

Days Out.

‘I say Hermoine, isn’t this all just so charming?’

It is a Saturday. I am trying to enjoy it.

A big part of our local science museum involves a working model of the river that we live by. There are aprons, toys and much general fun to be had.

Favourite Son and Favourite Daughter are having a grand time.

Except that Favourite Son has, without his consent or interest, acquired a new ‘friend’.

‘And isn’t your dear Felicity doing so well? Oh look at her, pretending to torment that lovely little boy?’

‘Oh! That back-fired a bit. She must feel awful. Difficult to judge quantities and such-forth at that age. The little chap doesn’t seem to mind that much though. Plenty of towels and hand-driers about.’

‘So darling now isn’t she? I can’t believe how she’s come on, playing with such a little fellow obviously so much younger than her. How considerate. She’s so precious.’

She isn’t ‘precious’ I think to myself. She’s a ‘little fucking cunt’.

And if she ‘accidentally’ splashes my son with water one more time I’m going to knock her out.

Charity. Again.

Her name was Maria by the way.

She died yesterday.

I didn't really know her that well.

The Park. Again.

Last month.

This bloody-rope climbing frame thing.

Favourite Son once again conquers the fucker like it isn’t even a big deal and once more his elder sister gets about half-way up and shits herself. As I would. It’s bloody HIGH.

Favourite Daughter: [Again] How come he’s not scared but I’m older?

Me: Because you’re older sweetie-pie. FS is too little to know it’s dangerous. But you’re older and cleverer and know that it is. That’s why.

Favourite Daughter gives me a spontaneous hug.

Hah. Eat that Lone Dad.

I look around. He’s nowhere to be seen. This being real life and not a silly blog there is no chance of the same smug twat being around to see me actually get it right for once.

And it’s only taken me three months to figure out what the right answer was.

Grrrr.

Charity.

Me: No, Grant From Work, there is no way I am dancing. Forget it. I dance, people get hurt. I don’t need the grief.

We are at A Function. Myself and eight hundred colleagues. I am being hassled to dance.

Grant From Work: LOOK AT IT TIRED! There’s not one bloke on the dancefloor! It’s a minge-pit!

I’m attending because I have to. It’s some sort of charity thing to do with cancer or something and apparently we’re going to cure some woman someone knows if we all attend this thing.

She’ll die anyway but if we get the cash together she might not die so soon.

Grant From Work: If you don’t get in the minge-pit, you’ll never have the minge! Let’s have the minge!

Thing is, she has young children. The treatment we’re raising money for might prolong her life for a few years.

Me: Look, Grant From Work. I can’t dance, I injure people. Go away.

Grant From Work: Me and you Tired. Me and you are going to make twats of ourselves and get in the minge-pit.

I don’t really want to go in the ‘minge-pit’. To be frank, I don’t even like the sound of the 'minge-pit'. It makes me think of that desert scene in Return of the Jedi.

At the end of the evening, we raise £13,000. Enough for two treatments. She’ll live for a bit.

I’m on the dancefloor.

Grant From Work: Tired. Keep your arms down. Actually no. Go and sit down. That’s the second woman you’ve accidently smacked in the face.

The Park

Four months ago.

Like any decent parent, I have an encyclopedic knowledge of all the parks in my district.

They’re all shit.

But even the shittest will entertain a couple of children under the age of five whilst you keep an eye out for broken pieces of Bacardi Breezer bottles from The Park’s shady night-time persona of Night Club to the area’s thirteen-year-olds.

We’re at the nearest one. There’s a big climbing-frame-type thing, only it’s made of rope and reaches at least twenty foot in the air.

Favourite Son decides to tackle it. He is three now and can do anything. He thinks.

He starts off quite well.

FD: [Beaming at me] I’m a clever boy.

Me: Yes you are.

He takes another step and misses. He is now hanging upside down, clinging on to some rope with the inside of his knees for dear life. His thoughts are not of his imminent demise.

FD: I’m not a clever boy now though.

Me: Yeah you are.

I right him, and hope that his thoughts will not always involve impressing me over his personal safety.

He cracks on with it. And is doing quite well.

FD: I’m SPIDERMAN!

Fair enough. He’s gotten higher on the bloody thing at the age of three than I would consider attempting at my age, so he can be whomever he wants.

Five-year-old Favourite Daughter is having none of this. I have seen her out the corner of my eye, steely-eyed and jaw set throughout this exchange. She is not one to be outdone; to have the spotlight taken off her. She leaps on the climbing frame.

FD: I’m Batman!

She starts climbing. And then stops for a moment.

FD: Em. Actually. I’m Catwoman!

I am much happier with this.

Favourite Daughter also slips and is soon hanging upside down.

FD: I’m Scaredy Catwoman. Daddy. Help.

Whilst admiring her comedic ability I get her down, at considerable risk to my own safety.

Favourite Son is now twenty foot above me informing the entire district of his secret identity. I hope that a) the Daily Planet or whatever don’t get wind otherwise his anonymous Superhero days are numbered and b) he doesn’t get in trouble because there’s no way I’m going up there to get him. A man could break his neck falling off that thing.

FD: How come he’s so brave but I’m older?

Me: Because he’s a boy sweetheart.

I suddenly see a forty-year cavern of female neuroses open before her.

Me: No. Nononono. Not that boys are intrinsically BRAVER than girls, they’re just a bit, you know, they don’t really think –

I notice another lone Dad laughing at me.

Lone Dad: You’re digging a hole mate.

Fuck off Lone Dad.

The Phone Rings.

Something will have to be done about this, I think to myself. The ringtone on my mobile is one that mimics a ‘real’ phone, the ones with the circular dials. This is to let people know that I am not a ‘prick’ whenever my phone rings, which is rarely.

It is however, quite alarming, as it was originally designed to be. When I was a child, a ringing phone was a thing of great importance, and not the tiresome everyday occurrence it is now.

The unexpected call is not helped by the fact that as it is a weekend, my phone is in the front pocket of my jeans and not the breast pocket of my suit. As such the ‘vibrate’ function that I am unable to turn off has an alarming effect upon my testicles.

It is 11.15pm. No one who knows me would dream of ringing me at this hour. And people who do not know me would not have my number. Something is badly wrong.

Nerves and testicles jangling, I fish the phone out of my pocket.

‘Granddad’ informs the display.

My grandfather is 93, is 95% blind, the Parkinson’s and the arthritis are not doing him any favours and I am of the opinion that he is not phoning me for shits and giggles. He’s usually asleep by 9.00pm.

My nerves are no longer jangling but have formed some sort of jazz troupe.

Me: Hello? Granddad?

Not Granddad At All: This isn’t your Grandfather. I’m WPC Noname of Region Police Force.

I take this in for a split second. A police-type-person is on the phone to me. From the phone line of my Grandfathers home. This cannot be good. She is in his house. And he is not talking. This really isn’t good. In fact, it may be quite bad.

The jazz troupe throw in the towel and are replaced by some dreadful death-metal outfit that make it difficult for me to hear or think.

WPC Noname: I’m here with the fire brigade….

The death-metal dudes sling it as well and are replaced with a massive wall of white noise. I am reliably informed at this stage that I have turned rather white myself.

Me: [Very good in a crisis] Gargle wfhbfb.

WPC N: What?

Me: I said gargle grfrbjf.

36 hours later.


Granddad: Frankly, I’m glad they’re all gone.

He’s been beset with visitors since the fire, has enjoyed the fuss of the nurses at the General Hospital and is now getting a bit pissed off and fancies some time to himself.

Granddad: What I mean to say, it’s been grand to see you all, but all at once is a bit……Durham Cathedral really is quite something don’t you know. If you are by the river… I used to row by there… my university days you understand…..

Me: I know Granddad. I think you might have just said. I’ve bought plenty of milk……

Granddad: Lovely to see you all but just……Well. I woke up this morning and PEOPLE were already in my house. Dear me.

Me: We were just worried that’s all.

Granddad: Mmmmm.

He pretends to get out a mop to clean the linoleum in the kitchen/snug area that is his only real home, secure in the knowledge that I won’t let him and will do it myself.

Granddad: Your sister usually dries it herself with a towel. On her hands and knees. It takes some time. Perhaps…

He didn’t spend the Second World War sat on a beach in the Seychelles or whatever beach resort (his words) he was stationed at perfecting his skills in the Catering Corps to be cleaning his own floors himself.

I mop up the soot from the earlier visits of my mother, brothers and sister. On my hands and knees.

Me: I must go. Is there anything else at all I can do?

There isn’t.

I want to tell him how important he’s always been to me. What a tremendous failure I sometimes think I am, how bad I always feel, how I’ve let down every person important to me.

He has shirts he needs to iron for no occasion.

He opens the door to the living room for me.

Granddad: I’ll open the door but I can’t look myself.

He no longer has a living room.

He kept most things in there. He was a voracious reader before his eyesight went. As an art teacher he was a prolific artist himself. He was a traveller, a lover of music. Everything he loved and created was in that room.

It’s not there anymore.

That's All Folks!

The reasons are far too boring.

This might be it for now, but I think it's forever.

And it's only a silly blog.

P.

Call Me 'J'.

Oh Jason. How many ways can I hate thee?

Your dreadful dreadful swagger, your awful winks and ticks and perplexing hand gestures, all of which I am sure you consider to be ‘street’.

Your appalling insistence upon speaking in Ebonics. When you felt like it. Except when you didn’t remember to. Those times when you remembered that you went to a perfectly adequate school funded by the flawed but essentially good British educational system and not from some hell-hole in South Central L.A.

And that you are not ‘Straight Outta Compton’ but actually ‘Not Too Far From Your Mum’s House In Gateshead’.

Your hair. Oh dear God man your hair. Did you pay money for that? Did you?

If it were meant to do that it would have done so already.

But it’s when you talked. That was the icing on the cake. A cake made of your own shit.

Dear readers. The following exchanges are 100% factual.

Jason: Lunch eh? No I’m not going anywhere. [No-one had asked him] Need to check my shares. [He is 22. Stares at his PC screen in a lofty manner. EVERYONE leaves the building.]

Another day.

Jason: Did I mention I have a controlling share in Newcastle United?

Odd. No. You didn’t.

Another day. I am walking to the tube with Curvy Girl. She glances behind me.

CG: He’s coming.

Me: Who?

CG: ‘Call Me ‘J’’

Me: [I dare not look] Fuck off.

CG: He is.

Me: [I can’t look for fear of meeting his eye and then acknowledging his existence] Walk quicker. I’m not getting on the tube with him.

CG: I can’t. Not in these shoes.

Me: You’ve bought shoes you can’t walk quickly in?

CG: [As if such a thing were rational and it is me who is insane] Yes.

He is gaining on us.

Me: I’ll give you a backy if it will get us on a train before he catches up.

CG: [Glances at my overall build] I don’t think that will happen.

Me: Fuck. FUCK.

Jason: [He’s caught up] Dudes.

Me: What?

Jason: ‘Sup?

Me: Right. Hello Jason.

Jason: Call me ‘J’.

Me: No.

Jason: [Oblivious] Off home yeah? Sweet. Aight. Bin looking at my property portfolio myself.

Have you? From your mothers box room? Must be tough maintaining your empire and your board.

Jason: Yeah right- [Despite the fact that neither of us have acknowledged his presence] thinking of adding some offshore stuff. Maybe Greece. [Can’t get more off-shore than that. What with it being a different country you TWAT] Got some interest in some clubs there.

You’re getting confused dear Jason. You WENT to some clubs there that you FOUND interesting. Probably with your Mum.

Easy mistake to make for someone with a silly haircut, no sensible bearing on the real world and no obvious friends

Later.

Jason: It’s all good Tired.

Me: What?

Jason: Sweet, man.

Me: What?

Jason: ‘Sup?

Me: I really don’t know. You came over here.

Jason: So you probably heard about it all then?

Me: What?

Jason: Well. You’re a family man so you’ll get it. Why I ran him over and that. Because I couldn’t see my kid. Only just got out of jail, so this is my last chance really. You’d have done the same if it were your kid.

Me: What?

Jason: My own son doesn’t know what I LOOK LIKE. But I don’t go on about it like some. Just get on you know. Tried to get custody. Her new fella wouldn’t have it, I ran him over, went inside. Do what ya gotta do innit?

Me: Right. Jason-

Jason: Call me ‘J’

Me: No. So, you were on the doorstep, trying to arrange access to your child – assuming any of this is true – were unsuccessful in your doorstep negotiation and then coaxed your ex’s new bloke into standing still in the middle of the road whilst you carefully manoeuvered your CAR – I notice you get the bus into work – OVER him?

Jason: You wouldn’t think it to look at me.

Me: No. I wouldn’t.

Surprisingly, according to his C.V. his previous employ had been at a call centre for T-Mobile and not at Her Majesty’s Pleasure. Puzzling.

Later:

Jason: My brother was in Iraq [He didn’t have a brother] and one of his mates was hit by a car-bomb. Terrible. He had to identify both halves of him.

Me: What?

Jason: Yeah man. He had to identify both.

Me: Ok. So the head and torso – with the absence of hips or legs – alone on a slab were not enough to prove that you ‘brother’s’ ‘friend’ was dead? That he might have been faking it? He had to identify the severed legs and whatnot to prove that the man wasn’t just taking the piss and fancied a sicky?

Jason: You’ve not been in combat-

Me: Like you.

Jason: You have to identify each body part. So they know where to put everything.

Me: So your brother easily identified his mates LEGS? Separately from the rest of his body? He was given a big pile of LEGS to choose from and said ‘That’s him!’

Jason: [With impressive bravado] YES.

Me: Ok.

Later:

Jason: I could be a serial killer. If you’re going down for one murder, might as well take as many with you as you can. They can only give you ONE life sentence. And I’ve studied this. I don’t even fit the profile. They’d never catch me.



To my knowledge they never have.

News Flash!

I am no longer funny!

If ever I were. And now may have to stop this silly thing-whatever-it-is.

Those waiting for any elaboration upon the subject of the dreadful ‘J’ may have to wait FOREVER!

Today.

I am At Work.

As I take my job very seriously, I am reading the local newspaper. As are several of my colleagues. There is a news item regarding a very pleasant – by all accounts, and there are lots of them – local man who had tried to prevent some youths from being a terrible nuisance on his street and who had been killed to death for his trouble.

My local paper is filled with such tales.

I read it, and can only think that the sub-editors have let themselves down.

The front-page headline on the subject reads ‘Death of Mr. Nice Guy’.

It could have been better, I think.

How, ask my colleagues. What would be the more effective headline?

Me: ‘No More Mr. Nice Guy’.




Absolutely nobody laughs.

Many look horrified.

I quit.

Dark Days.

It's banality more than anything else. And still is.

The thing with long-term insomnia is that you don’t really feel anything anymore. You go through your days and to all concerned you appear to be a normal person. But you’re neither happy nor sad, excited or bored. You’re just THERE.

And don’t get me started on the memory loss or the general feeling of unreality. Or the six-foot high spiders that aren’t really there. They scared the shit out of me.

No. It was the whole Not Really Feeling Anything that got me.

Except Anger. It was the only thing that got through, that made me feel alive.

So thank God for people like ‘J’.

Some time ago I worked for an idiot, on an idiotic monthly publication that didn’t really exist. Said idiot had an alarming habit of employing other idiots. The idiot level once got so high I wasn’t really sure if any of it was real.

Idiot Boss: Hi Tired. This is Jason. I’m sure you’ll all make him ‘feel’ welcome.

Jason: You can call me ‘J’.

Me: What?

Jason: I said you can call me ‘J’.

Me: Really?

Jason: Yeah.

Me: [Laughing. I foolishly thought he was joking.] What? Like ‘H’ in ‘Steps’?

Jason: [Deadpan] Just ‘J’.

Oh God.

His jeans were so over-designed they must have been the work of an OCD epileptic, his hair would have worn Vidal Sassoon to the quick and I’m sorry but there is no way on God’s earth are you losing you door keys when they are attached to your belt with a two-foot long bicycle chain.

Not what I’d have worn on my first day but who am I? Did I mention the jeans were white?

The very fact that this absurd cockerel even exists is starting to re-invigorate me.

And then he started talking.

To be continued.

Spiderman Part 2

Me: Go on then. I doubt I have but let’s get this over with. What is a Spiderman?

I had to ask.

To recap.

I have foolishly entered into a conversation with a man ten years my junior. Which one should never do; it’s ultimately depressing. But for some reason I felt compelled to match his absurdity, even in the knowledge that the idiocy of youth will eventually defeat me. I can’t win. I watch Newsnight and enjoy Radio 2 for fucks sake. I know I’m dead in the water as I look at his goofy grin and his young eyes sparkling with delight.

God help me he makes me think of my son. My nearly- three year old son who experiences many mundane things as if they are small miracles.

Thug: Aye. Reet thun. Ya knaw when you’re whackin’ off like?

Me: [sigh] I suppose.

Thug: Aaaaye ye dae like! Ah can tell.

Me: Can we just do this?

He’s virtually dancing with delight. Again I reminded of a small child. Albeit one slightly simpler than my son.

Thug: Aye alreet Grandad. Ah knaw yuz is hankerin after a Worther’s Original so's Ah'll be quick. So you spunk it all oot reet, and you’re wonderin’ what ta dae wi’ it?

Me: OK then.

In many ways I admire his delight at the new-found wonders of the world. He lives in a constant state of excitement akin to a fourteen-year-old who has found a copy of Razzle in the bushes on his way home from school.

Thug: Reet then, so ya gans up to your lass, and flick your wrist and fling a fistful of spidey-web reet in her face and ya gans ‘Spiderman! Spidermaaan!’

Me: Right.

I am now no longer thinking about my son, except to hope that he never grows up. At least not into this.

What I am doing is trying to remember my early twenties, and the quiet nights in I had with my lady friend at the time. Oddly, Thug’s new-found past-time had never occurred to me as an effective way of spending the evenings. And if it had, I’m not sure how welcome it would have been. How times change.

Me: OK then. I’ve got some work to d-

Thug: Have ye hurd me impression of The Claw off of Inspector Gadget?

Me: No. Go away now.

Thug: Do ya knaw it’s true black people can’t swim? Their bones are too dense or summat?

Me: Not as dense as you. Fuck off.

I’m left in silence for a while. I do some work and try not to worry too much about the future of civilization. From the other side of the office I hear:

Thug: Ah divn’t knaw wits up with that Tired like. He’s a reet grumpy cunt at the minute.