I’ve just been trying to write this entry and nearly broke my computer! I was lying in bed with my laptop on my lap when along came a spider, which didn’t quite so much as sit down beside me, as much as abseil from the ceiling towards my face. I didn’t notice him until he was about 30 centimetres away and such close perspective made him look like almost monstrous. The sudden shock meant that impulsively, I quite literally dived off the bed, flinging my laptop along the floor with terrific force. How my computer actually survived the impact I am unsure, but it’s a pretty good job. I don’t think arachnid attacks are covered in the insurance policy. I’d have broken my computer for no conceivable gain whatsoever. At least if you’d got to see my floundering idiocy it might have been a slightly humorous spectacle for you, but slap-stick doesn’t really work in print. It would have been a complete waste.
I am not usually the sort of person who is usually fearful of creepy crawlies (although I make up for this with a more than adequate share of other fears and foibles), but this is actually the second time in recent weeks I have been made to feel uneasy by the insect world. A couple of Sundays ago, I went for a walk over a place called the Edge, near Much Wenlock. It is nice to be amongst nature, and this particular walk was also the inspiration for A Shropshire Lad by A.E. Housman. I find the literary history of the place quite ironic considering the name Much Wenlock makes no grammatical sense whatsoever (surely Very Wenlock, or Quite Wenlock would have been more correct). On the way home we stopped off for a lamb shank at a pub called The Boycott Arms. If I had been in the mood to be around nature then this would be a most ideal stop-off. As soon as our food arrived, so many insects appeared the place practically turned into a frigging conservatory. Perhaps the squashed wasp on the menu we saw before ordering should have been a bit of a giveaway. By this I mean a literal squashed wasp. “Squashed Wasp” wasn’t the actual name of one of the dishes, obviously; although if it were, the raw ingredients would certainly have been in plentiful supply. Honestly, it was like a sodding Wasp Factory or something. So much so, I even felt inclined to check my genitals on the way out, in case I’d fallen foul to some bizarre gender swap*. There was also this really weird thing I’ve never seen before or since which looked like a beetle, only it had bright red legs, a pair of wings, and more disconcertingly, something at the tail end that looked suspiciously like a sting. But the most disconcerting thing of all was the way it had no fear of humans whatsoever; it kept pacing towards me until I felt it necessary to actually switch to the other side of the table. In retrospect I guess this seems a little unchivalrous of me, since it now made an unnoticed bee-line to my eating companion instead, who eventually got pounced upon by the creature and was forced to flick it off in a bit of a sudden panic. And although no real harm was done by this apocalyptic-esque attack of insects, it really did taint the whole eating experience. Consequently, I shall not be visiting The Boycott Arms again. At least there was one place we visited with a correct name.
Footnote
* With that literary allusion to The Wasp Factory I may have spoiled the ending of a popular novel for the sake of a reasonably weak joke, but to be fair if you haven’t read it by now, I doubt that you ever will.
Sat 5th Sept 2009
Saturday nights can be a strange affair when you are a single thirty-one year old. Especially when your contemporaries are generally preoccupied doing adult stuff in couples. This might make me sound lonely but I always have the option to find younger friends to have a hedonistic time on the town with. But personally I never feel much inclined for big nights out in nightclubs and the lark. At my age, the financial and physical strains are simply too much to bear. It seems whichever way I turn, the Saturday night always promises so much, but delivers so little. So sometimes I end up spending the weekend feeling like an old bit of driftwood washed up on the shore of a wasteland, with no-where to go and no-one to be with.
I remember once at work, I obliged a hall viewing for an almost painfully pretty woman, the type so angelic that she almost makes one weep into your lonely pillow at night. Sadly (or happily) she was scheduled for an arranged marriage and wished to find a venue to hold the reception, hence the pretext of her visit. I always used to have an ideological discomfort with the concept of the arranged marriage. This wasn’t a specific cultural unease at the obligations of Hindu caste (it was also common practise in European aristocracy, whilst “shotgun” weddings are still commonplace in contemporary society), more that the fundamental principle of marital coercion seemed like an attack on liberty. As I’ve got older, I can't help but appreciate certain benefits to the arranged marriage. Especially on nights like tonight. In a few weeks time, some lucky bleeder will be spending every Saturday night with that angelic woman, and he won’t even have to go through all that kerfuffle woo-ing her with wit, charm and vast quantities of Blue WKD. They will just be together and he can take as lazy approach as he likes. And me, a criminally lazy woolly liberal, will most likely be sitting here alone, typing another slightly self-pitying blog entry before engaging in act of teary-eyed onanism.
So which of us seems the most liberated now?
I remember once at work, I obliged a hall viewing for an almost painfully pretty woman, the type so angelic that she almost makes one weep into your lonely pillow at night. Sadly (or happily) she was scheduled for an arranged marriage and wished to find a venue to hold the reception, hence the pretext of her visit. I always used to have an ideological discomfort with the concept of the arranged marriage. This wasn’t a specific cultural unease at the obligations of Hindu caste (it was also common practise in European aristocracy, whilst “shotgun” weddings are still commonplace in contemporary society), more that the fundamental principle of marital coercion seemed like an attack on liberty. As I’ve got older, I can't help but appreciate certain benefits to the arranged marriage. Especially on nights like tonight. In a few weeks time, some lucky bleeder will be spending every Saturday night with that angelic woman, and he won’t even have to go through all that kerfuffle woo-ing her with wit, charm and vast quantities of Blue WKD. They will just be together and he can take as lazy approach as he likes. And me, a criminally lazy woolly liberal, will most likely be sitting here alone, typing another slightly self-pitying blog entry before engaging in act of teary-eyed onanism.
So which of us seems the most liberated now?
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