I was technically supposed be on holiday last weekend, but decided to opt against it and stay at home because of the dismal weather. Not that there is really such a thing as a holiday nowadays. Those ended once they bought us the technology to send emails to phones. At which point I started spending all my annual leave watching my workload slowly mount up on a tiny screen, until reaching an abrupt suffocating panic forcing me to spend the rest of their holiday one-finger poking at a tiny telephone key pad trying to resolve issues at home.
But who wouldn’t want to spend their holiday with the mighty hanging sword of Damocles, sitting in their pocket; the constant threat of having an afternoon ruined by an unprompted work-related call; never quite allowing you to relax properly and let yourself go? Thanks to technology the whole world is now merely an extension of my own office; bar the fact that it is seemingly more awkward, time-consuming and (thanks to roaming tariffs) rather costly to do work tasks from a remote area. So thanks for that technology. Thanks a lot.
In all honesty, I perhaps I am using the “mobile workplace” as a bit of a scapegoat. I can quite easily muster enough inner-turmoil from my own volition. Especially when going abroad. The cosmopolitan types (I’d essentially like to delude myself into being) aspire to travel as the great “mind-expander”. They’ll have inevitably gone back packing round Europe or Asia. I find this to be one of the things which sound both nice in theory, and often reviewed in fondness (where one can retrospectively bore family and friends with endless patronizing anecdotes about the Kibbutz from in front of the glowing safety of Holby City). But the bit in between seems like a living hell. Whenever I travel abroad, I prefer to go to the touristy places, preferably with an English-speaking bias. As a national representative, I am already carrying the stigma of strong lager, football violence, aggressively territorial promiscuity and - lest we forget - dubiously motivated warmongering. Frankly I do not need an inability to speak in a native tongue to compound my conveyance of ignorance. This is not to say that strong lager, football violence, promiscuity or warmongering are my particular forte. But I am never too far from my own personal ill-conceived prejudices. For instance, if the inability to read a language prevents me from being able to read a menu, I will almost certainly assume my meal will be along the lines of assorted freeze-dried budgies phallus, parboiled in a neo-communists’ tears. Or worse still – something with tofu in it. This summer I went to Krakov, and one of my eating companions ordered a ‘soup’ which basically consisted of a bowl of beetroot juice with a boiled egg floating in it. This is not what I’d call a soup. Having said that, whilst it might appear that I am having a cheap “tee-hee-at-foreigners-and-their-funny-ways”, had they added a handful of crisps and a pickled onion, my parents would have probably labeled it a salad back in the 80’s. So who the hell am I to judge?
One of the other places I took my ‘pocket office’ this year was Amsterdam. I have been there once before about a decade ago, but that was a stag do, so this time I wished to return for some of the City’s more cultural offerings. You can’t really suggest the Anne Frank museum to a stag do. Mass genocide really does tend to bring the party down. Even the most ardent stag party would shun than level of debauchery.
On paper, Amsterdam also seemed well-suited given my tourist self-consciousness, because I rather relished the opportunity to visit somewhere a little free and easier; with fewer oppressive formalities and customs to fret about. I won’t try and pretentiously pretend that the permissiveness of the city was not also a draw. I rather looked forward to the prospect of strolling round the Red Light District having a surreptitious peep at some of the windows. Although in practice, it was more a shamble past, eyes fixed on the floor, hoping to God that none of the women tried to make eye contact.
Similarly, I was consumed with childish glee at the prospect of reliving ‘days gone by’ and finding a coffee shop to indulge in some aromatic tobacco because I rather fancied the rare opportunity of being “blissed-out” for a change. At 32 years old, you could argue I was either looking to engage in a “when in Rome” cultural experience, or was simply having a premature mid-life crisis longing to recapture my youth. But once again, this would turn out to be something much better in theory than in practice because my companion and I just couldn’t find a coffee shop that looked comfortable enough. We peered through doorways into the poky smoke-holes. If they were busy they looked too lairy to enter. Perversely, the quieter once just seemed a bit seedy. I felt a bit like Goldilocks, but a child-censored crack-whore version Goldilocks concerned with the acquisition of drugs rather than porridge. But after endlessly traipsing round, we eventually steeled ourselves and bit the bullet, summoning the bravery to enter one of them, if only to rest our now weary legs. We made our seedy purchase, sat down, lit the end, and inhaled.
At this point you may expect me to start regaling you with crazy, psychedelic adventures on the streets of Amsterdam, or embark upon a series of enlightening thoughts that spun from my mind like spider’s webs, from a brain flew around so fast that whole new mental thought processes may be born within it through sentences that veer out of control, getting increasingly lost and hazy and head to no viable conclusion yet go on and on for far too long. That’s certainly what I thought anyway. Like a pretentious fop, I even rather laughably retrieved a notepad I had been carrying around to try and catch some of these passing flits. But after just three inhalations, the notebook started to make me feel a little vulnerable. And despite hiding it back in my pocket, self-conscious thoughts persisted, eventually giving way to plain old fear. The “when in Rome” argument of earlier had quickly been rejected, probably though the inescapable logic that I was in Amsterdam (thereby making the “Rome” argument completely redundant, by simple virtue of geography). But my mental state was now not equipped enough to face a midlife crisis, and this only made things worse.
Ten minutes later I was hidden away back in our hotel room. I use the term “hotel room” quite loosely, as it implies a sense of refuge. But it was actually more a cupboard with a bunk-bed and a sink chucked in. The walls were paper thin and the toilet was shared with the floor’s other inhabitants. As is symptomatically characteristic of aromatic tobacco, I lay in bed feeling enveloped by hunger. I could have easily headed out and found something to eat - after all, it was only about 8.30 in the evening for Christ’s sake. But in my altered state, the thought of going outside felt like a herculean task akin to Raiders of the Lost Ark. In fact even the thought of bumping into ANYONE AT ALL seemed like a terrifying prospect; which was quite frustrating, because this restricted me from going to the toilet which I quite needed. So the rest of the night was spent in my hovel, feeling resolutely paranoid, with the upper half of my stomach persistently rumbling, and the lower half feeling like it had Jeremy Clarkson squatting on it. Ah. Those precious holiday memories!
Consequently I have drawn the conclusion that trips away from the dull predictability of the office are not always necessarily the answer to relaxation and rejuvenation. What I could really do with is a holiday from my own stupid brain. If only technology could cater for that, like it did with the whole emails-to-phone thing, I’d be a very happy man indeed.
Over-Compensation Culture
This isn’t, as the title may lead you to believe, a Quentin Letts style rant about Health & Safety laws gone mad. Should you wish to read that, I’m sure there’s loads column inches elsewhere that are concerned with how people can’t take responsibility for their own wellbeing, needing to hold a building accountable for their hapless actions. I have recently been involved in a courtroom as a witness defending against one of those cases, but sadly can’t remember enough about it to try and explore the experience here. All I predominantly recall about my day in court was how I found our barrister quite attractive. She was a youngish Oxford graduate and I couldn’t help but be slightly aroused by a woman with such an extensive use of vocabulary. Or maybe it was when she put the grey wig on that did it for me, giving a kind of illusive frisson - the attainable aspirations of gerontophilia, but with the actual real face of an achingly beautiful woman. It left me confused, but mildly stimulated. Make no bones - I liked it. But sadly, there isn’t time to go any further – we must press on. No matter how unlikely it is that you will read another phrase in this entry boasting the same caliber of “the attainable aspirations of gerontophilia”.
This is about a different kind of compensation, which on the surface is more psychologically altruistic than self-servingly financial. Let me give you an example.
I once found myself calling for a taxi quite late on a Saturday night. The switchboard informed me that they wouldn’t be able to provide a car for about an hour. Figuring that this was a weekend primetime for the taxi trade, I cut my losses and booked the cab anyway, deciding that I was rather peckish, and could easily fill the next hour in the Indian restaurant across the road.
The establishment was bustling with inebriated Saturday night revelers, who were slightly loud and excitable, but not particularly misbehaving. Nevertheless, I found myself self-consciously trying to draw a line between myself and the archetypal obnoxious, boorish drunken animal-men that sometimes frequent such environments, shamelessly wishing to let the staff to know I wasn’t one of them. So when the waiter arrived with the menu, I meekly proffered a “thank you… cheers… thanks a lot”. Similarly, when he bought over a glass of water, I said something like “oh cheers, thanks, thanks so much”. Then upon taking my order and collecting my menu from me I said, “that’s brilliant, cheers, thanks again”.
Predictably, when the food arrived I was similarly gushing. The only time I broke from my torrent of thanks-you’s, was to apologise for knocking my fork off the table on to my lap as I attentively attempted to make room for him to place my naan down. The level of appreciation I’d shown so far had been astounding, and I hadn’t even eaten a single bite yet. At this rate by the end of my meal, I would be collapsing to my knees, hands clenched together, weeping hysterical gratitude at the waiter’s shoes. I had embarked on a series of social over-compensations to convey an image of being a “nice guy”, yet was even starting to irritate myself with my over-politeness. Why was I doing this, I asked myself?
I suspect this quirk is borne of my Liberal guilt. It was as if my groveling wasn’t just about me and the here and now, I was also somehow attempting to apologise on behalf of any of my fellow caucasians that may have ever shown rancour or ignorance. Not just to the Asians who ran this particular restaurant, but throughout the whole of history. I wanted to show that I was not another white ignorant man, yet ironically this is actually exactly what I am. The only thing I ever learned about history was at school, through the GCSE syllabus. And I have absolutely no idea why I’d feel so inclined to apologise to the staff of an Indian restaurant for either the Agricultural, OR the Industrial Revolutions.
You may think there is nothing fundamentally wrong with manners. And I’d agree. However, there is a line to be drawn between civility and my toadying, liberal (and arguably rather patronizing) over-compensation. And I would learn exactly where this line following the acquisition of second hand furniture from a gay man. When I arrived at the house to collect these goods, the brazenness of this particular man’s sexuality took me quite by surprise, and provoked a predictably pathetic attempt to demonstrate how much I wasn’t a homophobe through my trademark over-friendliness. Before I knew it we had exchanged phone numbers and I found myself getting text messages inviting me for a drink. You could argue the implications of my assumptions of any romantic intent were arrogant; that it was merely innocent friendliness which had motivated his invitation. Perhaps such a presumption even seems homophobic in itself. You might well be right. But whenever my friends text me to see if I fancy a drink, very few of them conclude that text with a little kiss. Furthermore, this interaction seemed only to cease following a text I sent where I referenced both my irritable bowel syndrome and the rather hirsute nature of my anal area. Incidentally, the comment itself bore no intended terminative motive, I was merely crafting a clumsy conversational response. Anyone who reads this blog will know I ALWAYS reference my irritable bowel whenever the opportunity arises. Look – I’m even doing it now!
Sometimes wonder just how accommodating I might have been, had the interaction continued. On paper it sounds ridiculous. Yet they do say we live in a compensation culture. This disgruntles many commentators, who see it being exploited for financial gain. I, on the other hand, am more concerned about having to oblige an anal consummation, just to carry on being polite.
This is about a different kind of compensation, which on the surface is more psychologically altruistic than self-servingly financial. Let me give you an example.
I once found myself calling for a taxi quite late on a Saturday night. The switchboard informed me that they wouldn’t be able to provide a car for about an hour. Figuring that this was a weekend primetime for the taxi trade, I cut my losses and booked the cab anyway, deciding that I was rather peckish, and could easily fill the next hour in the Indian restaurant across the road.
The establishment was bustling with inebriated Saturday night revelers, who were slightly loud and excitable, but not particularly misbehaving. Nevertheless, I found myself self-consciously trying to draw a line between myself and the archetypal obnoxious, boorish drunken animal-men that sometimes frequent such environments, shamelessly wishing to let the staff to know I wasn’t one of them. So when the waiter arrived with the menu, I meekly proffered a “thank you… cheers… thanks a lot”. Similarly, when he bought over a glass of water, I said something like “oh cheers, thanks, thanks so much”. Then upon taking my order and collecting my menu from me I said, “that’s brilliant, cheers, thanks again”.
Predictably, when the food arrived I was similarly gushing. The only time I broke from my torrent of thanks-you’s, was to apologise for knocking my fork off the table on to my lap as I attentively attempted to make room for him to place my naan down. The level of appreciation I’d shown so far had been astounding, and I hadn’t even eaten a single bite yet. At this rate by the end of my meal, I would be collapsing to my knees, hands clenched together, weeping hysterical gratitude at the waiter’s shoes. I had embarked on a series of social over-compensations to convey an image of being a “nice guy”, yet was even starting to irritate myself with my over-politeness. Why was I doing this, I asked myself?
I suspect this quirk is borne of my Liberal guilt. It was as if my groveling wasn’t just about me and the here and now, I was also somehow attempting to apologise on behalf of any of my fellow caucasians that may have ever shown rancour or ignorance. Not just to the Asians who ran this particular restaurant, but throughout the whole of history. I wanted to show that I was not another white ignorant man, yet ironically this is actually exactly what I am. The only thing I ever learned about history was at school, through the GCSE syllabus. And I have absolutely no idea why I’d feel so inclined to apologise to the staff of an Indian restaurant for either the Agricultural, OR the Industrial Revolutions.
You may think there is nothing fundamentally wrong with manners. And I’d agree. However, there is a line to be drawn between civility and my toadying, liberal (and arguably rather patronizing) over-compensation. And I would learn exactly where this line following the acquisition of second hand furniture from a gay man. When I arrived at the house to collect these goods, the brazenness of this particular man’s sexuality took me quite by surprise, and provoked a predictably pathetic attempt to demonstrate how much I wasn’t a homophobe through my trademark over-friendliness. Before I knew it we had exchanged phone numbers and I found myself getting text messages inviting me for a drink. You could argue the implications of my assumptions of any romantic intent were arrogant; that it was merely innocent friendliness which had motivated his invitation. Perhaps such a presumption even seems homophobic in itself. You might well be right. But whenever my friends text me to see if I fancy a drink, very few of them conclude that text with a little kiss. Furthermore, this interaction seemed only to cease following a text I sent where I referenced both my irritable bowel syndrome and the rather hirsute nature of my anal area. Incidentally, the comment itself bore no intended terminative motive, I was merely crafting a clumsy conversational response. Anyone who reads this blog will know I ALWAYS reference my irritable bowel whenever the opportunity arises. Look – I’m even doing it now!
Sometimes wonder just how accommodating I might have been, had the interaction continued. On paper it sounds ridiculous. Yet they do say we live in a compensation culture. This disgruntles many commentators, who see it being exploited for financial gain. I, on the other hand, am more concerned about having to oblige an anal consummation, just to carry on being polite.
Back By Popular Demand
Yes. You have read that rather bombastic title correctly. In order to gratify the constant requests of my regular fan-base, I have decided to resurrect my blog and attempt update it with a little more consistency.
Admittedly, when I say “Fan-base” I am actually referring to someone I bumped into in a pub. Technically more a friend than a fan, he was. And when I say “constant requests” I am referring to said friend casually asking if I’d “done any more of that blogging of late”; a telling statement also compelling me to concede the dubious credulity in claiming this fan-base is in any way “regular” (as presumably if he were, he would already be well aware whether I’d done any more of “that blogging of late”). But sadly, this is all the encouragement I need to get me going. I’ll take all the compliments I can get, no matter how tenuous - a proclamation I seem to remember also making in my last entry, hereby making “I’ll take all the compliments I can get” some kind of catchphrase. And with catchphrases like that, I bet Catherine Tate must be shitting herself.
Perhaps the reason I feel obliged to re-appropriate casual remarks as compliments is to counter-balance the off-handed insults that casually got bandied towards me that very same evening. I was out with Alan Apperley (incidentally, Alan recently released his debut novel “Indeterminable Creatures” which is rather excellent and should definitely be purchased, by you, from here. You’ve no excuse not to really). I was having an otherwise pleasant evening, when Alan’s wife suddenly asked me how old I was. For some reason, I have not yet learned my lesson, choosing once again to respond with THAT fateful question, despite the pain it always inevitably causes nowadays (and embarrassment it causes the other party – I hope). You know the one. Yes, that’s right – the one that you invariably always regret ever asking, but become too consumed by curiosity and misguided optimism to resist. Yes THAT question - the verbal equivalent of willing smacking yourself in the face with a trowel.
“Well how old do you think I am?” I ventured.
Depressingly, she punted at 36.
I know it’s my own fault, I should have known better than asking. But still, thirty-fucking-six?! Truly dismal! What makes it worse is that one would assume she has probably guessed my age then taken the obligatory few-year buffer of politeness off, meaning that to the casual observer I must have the appearance of a man knocking on the door of 40. It never used to be this way. Whenever people guessed my age whilst I was in my twenties, I would always come out as looking slightly younger than my actual age. Yet since hitting thirty, the guesses have seen a clear numerical advance in years, leading me to believe my appearance must have worryingly advanced roughly a decade in the space of 30 months. I sat for a while, zoned out of the conversation, contemplating what could have possibly aged me so much? Thankfully her husband was on-hand with an inadvertent answer though a third-party conversation he was having with someone else. They were talking about some chap or other they knew who was being referred to as “one of them baldies”, when suddenly, Alan felt the need to turn round and address me with a “no offense” gesture. I genuinely didn’t know what he was getting at, and looked over my shoulder, assuming he must have been referring to someone behind me. I regard myself as having a degree of self-awareness and whilst my head of hair is undoubtedly diminishing, I have only ever seen it as a bit of a recede, at worst a slightly limp-fronted and pervy Jack Nicholson. This was the first time I had been classified as an actual “baldy” – y’know – a proper “baldy”; so naturally my incredulity obliged me to draw attention to and consequently attempt to refute his comment. He responded by saying nothing, but merely lifting up my fringe with his hand and omitting a coy and disconcerting grin, with his stupid Tony Blair-esque face.
Well as you can imagine, the night had been ruined for me. I caught the next bus home and spent the remainder of the evening in front of the mirror, pulling my hair backwards and forwards. And I was quite shocked by how far things had gone, but I still don’t believe what I witnessed makes me a proper baldy. Were my face the character on your opponent’s card in the game “Guess Who?” and you asked if his card was a baldy and he said yes, I struggle to believe you would leave me standing beside Richard, Tom, Bill and Herman. Not just yet, anyway. Though undoubtedly, the rate of my recede now certainly makes this ‘proper baldy’ tag a strong forthcoming probability. And I have Alan to thank for this particular enlightenment. By rights I should have gone home and started TEARING HIS BLOODY NOVEL UP INTO TINY SHREDS. But I am not the type of churlish man who would allow rancor to corrupt his taste and would still recommend his novel to you, my readership , because it is genuinely brilliant. I can honestly say it is well worth the money. At the time of writing, the novel’s been out for 6 months and is currently retailing at about 24 pence on Amazon. But obviously my readership - which ostensibly consists of one reader - only looks at this blog very sporadically so by the time you get here, it might be best to check Amazon yourself to see if it’s any cheaper. Better still, why not email Alan directly and ask him to confirm Amazon’s price valuation of his work for you?
The prospect of losing my hair is not something I am particularly happy about, mainly because I am still single. And nobody can fall in love with a baldy, can they? It just doesn’t really happen. Sure, you see baldies who are married. It’s not that a baldy can’t be loved because you do see them around, all married and stuff. Quite brazenly married too, with their shiny heads and all. Like it’s the most natural thing in the world. But I believe it is an evolutionary measure rather than a coincidence, that most baldies become baldies at certain age, when they have had a sporting chance to entrap a mate. So a lot of them are already safely married before they have the audacity to fully recede. And by this time, their respective partners just learn to live with it; ideally seeing past the desolate cranium, able to appreciate the security, life aspirations, history, trust and love which has developed between them in the interim. Or at the very least, viewing balding as a flimsy premise to end a relationship, consequently feeling obligated to stick with their baldy to the bitter end as an act of compassion, in the same way they might do had their husband fallen foul to a debilitating illness, or disfiguring accident. Either way, the point is that I don’t have that luxury. And the last thing I need is yet another obstacle to hinder my already moribund sex life. The only consolation being that at least my baldy gene will not receive the opportunity to get passed on to any poor, unwitting offspring. Evolution always finds a way.
So here I am again, back by popular demand.
Basically mourning the fact that the same can’t be said about my hair.
Admittedly, when I say “Fan-base” I am actually referring to someone I bumped into in a pub. Technically more a friend than a fan, he was. And when I say “constant requests” I am referring to said friend casually asking if I’d “done any more of that blogging of late”; a telling statement also compelling me to concede the dubious credulity in claiming this fan-base is in any way “regular” (as presumably if he were, he would already be well aware whether I’d done any more of “that blogging of late”). But sadly, this is all the encouragement I need to get me going. I’ll take all the compliments I can get, no matter how tenuous - a proclamation I seem to remember also making in my last entry, hereby making “I’ll take all the compliments I can get” some kind of catchphrase. And with catchphrases like that, I bet Catherine Tate must be shitting herself.
Perhaps the reason I feel obliged to re-appropriate casual remarks as compliments is to counter-balance the off-handed insults that casually got bandied towards me that very same evening. I was out with Alan Apperley (incidentally, Alan recently released his debut novel “Indeterminable Creatures” which is rather excellent and should definitely be purchased, by you, from here. You’ve no excuse not to really). I was having an otherwise pleasant evening, when Alan’s wife suddenly asked me how old I was. For some reason, I have not yet learned my lesson, choosing once again to respond with THAT fateful question, despite the pain it always inevitably causes nowadays (and embarrassment it causes the other party – I hope). You know the one. Yes, that’s right – the one that you invariably always regret ever asking, but become too consumed by curiosity and misguided optimism to resist. Yes THAT question - the verbal equivalent of willing smacking yourself in the face with a trowel.
“Well how old do you think I am?” I ventured.
Depressingly, she punted at 36.
I know it’s my own fault, I should have known better than asking. But still, thirty-fucking-six?! Truly dismal! What makes it worse is that one would assume she has probably guessed my age then taken the obligatory few-year buffer of politeness off, meaning that to the casual observer I must have the appearance of a man knocking on the door of 40. It never used to be this way. Whenever people guessed my age whilst I was in my twenties, I would always come out as looking slightly younger than my actual age. Yet since hitting thirty, the guesses have seen a clear numerical advance in years, leading me to believe my appearance must have worryingly advanced roughly a decade in the space of 30 months. I sat for a while, zoned out of the conversation, contemplating what could have possibly aged me so much? Thankfully her husband was on-hand with an inadvertent answer though a third-party conversation he was having with someone else. They were talking about some chap or other they knew who was being referred to as “one of them baldies”, when suddenly, Alan felt the need to turn round and address me with a “no offense” gesture. I genuinely didn’t know what he was getting at, and looked over my shoulder, assuming he must have been referring to someone behind me. I regard myself as having a degree of self-awareness and whilst my head of hair is undoubtedly diminishing, I have only ever seen it as a bit of a recede, at worst a slightly limp-fronted and pervy Jack Nicholson. This was the first time I had been classified as an actual “baldy” – y’know – a proper “baldy”; so naturally my incredulity obliged me to draw attention to and consequently attempt to refute his comment. He responded by saying nothing, but merely lifting up my fringe with his hand and omitting a coy and disconcerting grin, with his stupid Tony Blair-esque face.
Well as you can imagine, the night had been ruined for me. I caught the next bus home and spent the remainder of the evening in front of the mirror, pulling my hair backwards and forwards. And I was quite shocked by how far things had gone, but I still don’t believe what I witnessed makes me a proper baldy. Were my face the character on your opponent’s card in the game “Guess Who?” and you asked if his card was a baldy and he said yes, I struggle to believe you would leave me standing beside Richard, Tom, Bill and Herman. Not just yet, anyway. Though undoubtedly, the rate of my recede now certainly makes this ‘proper baldy’ tag a strong forthcoming probability. And I have Alan to thank for this particular enlightenment. By rights I should have gone home and started TEARING HIS BLOODY NOVEL UP INTO TINY SHREDS. But I am not the type of churlish man who would allow rancor to corrupt his taste and would still recommend his novel to you, my readership , because it is genuinely brilliant. I can honestly say it is well worth the money. At the time of writing, the novel’s been out for 6 months and is currently retailing at about 24 pence on Amazon. But obviously my readership - which ostensibly consists of one reader - only looks at this blog very sporadically so by the time you get here, it might be best to check Amazon yourself to see if it’s any cheaper. Better still, why not email Alan directly and ask him to confirm Amazon’s price valuation of his work for you?
The prospect of losing my hair is not something I am particularly happy about, mainly because I am still single. And nobody can fall in love with a baldy, can they? It just doesn’t really happen. Sure, you see baldies who are married. It’s not that a baldy can’t be loved because you do see them around, all married and stuff. Quite brazenly married too, with their shiny heads and all. Like it’s the most natural thing in the world. But I believe it is an evolutionary measure rather than a coincidence, that most baldies become baldies at certain age, when they have had a sporting chance to entrap a mate. So a lot of them are already safely married before they have the audacity to fully recede. And by this time, their respective partners just learn to live with it; ideally seeing past the desolate cranium, able to appreciate the security, life aspirations, history, trust and love which has developed between them in the interim. Or at the very least, viewing balding as a flimsy premise to end a relationship, consequently feeling obligated to stick with their baldy to the bitter end as an act of compassion, in the same way they might do had their husband fallen foul to a debilitating illness, or disfiguring accident. Either way, the point is that I don’t have that luxury. And the last thing I need is yet another obstacle to hinder my already moribund sex life. The only consolation being that at least my baldy gene will not receive the opportunity to get passed on to any poor, unwitting offspring. Evolution always finds a way.
So here I am again, back by popular demand.
Basically mourning the fact that the same can’t be said about my hair.
Bruce's Stag Weekend
The stag do is a concept which probably best epitomizes masculinity in the modern age. Yet it seems for someone like me, stag weekends have the rather astonishing ability to allow the word “man” to be something that is simultaneously literal, yet oddly tenuous.
This particular stag-do begins in a car park in Manchester on a bright sunny Friday morning, and I am standing in shorts next to my parked-up Nissan Micra feeling a sense of dread and nervousness.
Perhaps you believe that irrespective of how happy and fulfilling the resulting outcome of his wedding should hopefully turn out to be, if anything, it should have been the stag’s liberty to feel any doubts, stresses and apprehensions. But this does not make my own fears any less genuine. Because he might well be approaching the life-changing transition of matrimony, but in less than an hour’s time, I will be playing football. And whilst I do not intend to sound like I am belittling whatever pressures or sense of occasion the stag may feel, I would argue that what I was about to do was definitely braver.
Let me explain why, using the following three points.
1) I have not kicked a football since school.
2) School was a very long time ago.
3) I was no good at kicking a football even when I was at school.
That last point cannot be overstated. I really was no good a kicking a football. That is not to lazily assume I was always the kid cursed with the indignity and humiliation of being picked last for the teams in P.E.; because in my defence, it was usually more 50/50 between me and this other lad, who had chronic asthma and six toes on his right foot (the latter should not be regarded as particularly exceptional, given the type of small rural West Midlands village I grew up in). Yet even if this hadn’t been the case, there wasn’t a single thing I ever enjoyed about the sport, even right down to the attire. Particularly the shorts. I have never felt more vulnerable either before or since those old P.E. days. I went to school in the eighties, when shorts really did mean shorts. I just never trusted them. The impending threat of popping out of them was all too prominent, and I’m not trying to be boastful either; this was a threat that was irrespective to the size of one’s decidedly averaged sized genitalia. It genuinely wouldn’t surprise me if the writers of the film Basic Instinct, had actually gathered some inspiration from seeing us sat on the benches in our school changing room. In fact retrospectively, the timing of the film’s release coinciding with our school days seems suspiciously impeccable.
And then there was the game itself; which for me personally, seemed to entail hovering uselessly about on a field impatiently awaiting the sound of a shrill whistle. Not a noise commonly associated with beauty, but which I became conditioned to believe sounded like a choir of heavenly angels. If the ball went into the top half of the pitch, I might, at a push, jog a few paces forward in a conceited attempt at enthusiasm. Or if the action entered our half of the pitch, I might half-heartedly trot a few paces the other way. On some rare occasions some deluded idiot would kicked the ball towards me (or “pass” it, as I believe is the correct terminology). Whenever that happened, I’d stand frozen in bewilderment, as a herd of twenty schoolboys stampeded toward this spherical thing I'd unwittingly found in my possession (not a sentence I am proud of that one, and certainly less so were it quoted out of context). My instinctive resolve was always to run round and round the ball in some sort of panicky circle for a while not knowing quite what to do, before finally opting to kick this round article (or ‘football’ as I believe is the correct terminology) toward any old random wilderness; sometimes at the feet of someone from my team, sometimes to a member of the opposition. That was ostensibly my whole game-plan in its entirety, and mostly it kept me reasonably successful in my heady aspirations of sporting underachievement.
So as you can imagine, football was only a game I would have ever played under duress. And yet here I was, about to do something I detested under my own volition; and since we were hiring 5-aside indoor soccer pitch between us, I was actually PAYING for the privilege. Furthermore, the more astute of you may have noticed that this was a FRIDAY morning, so I had even taken a day’s holiday off work to be putting myself through this! What on Earth had led me here? To this car park in Manchester? To do something that now seemed suddenly much less preferable to a day at work?
One (or more) of the following three points may be possible explanations:-
1) I am the sort of person who will generally agree to do anything. So long as it’s in the future. So long as there is a buffer of time ahead of me to provide a nice cushion, I will be pretty much amenable to most ideas.
2) Subconsciously this may possibly have something with my similarly previously documented hypochondria. Perhaps I only agree to do stuff in the future because I assume I’ll already be dead before they arrive.
3) Preceding the agreement of my participation, I may have had a particularly good gym session that charged me with endorphins and hubris. “Why not play football?” my brain might have asked. “You have put the hours in at the gym. You’re certainly a lot fitter than you used to be at school. You never know, given the benefit of age and experience, you might just get on the pitch and something might suddenly click into place and you’ll start playing like Bobby Charlton!” (Note to self, don’t listen to brain – the resulting ache alone, which followed the game would soon be enough to heavily disprove such a flimsy theory).
Co-incidentally, the Stag party comprised mainly of a lot of people who I had been to school with, and had not really seen since my salad days (ironically named, since I ate far fewer salads back then). This was quite good, because expectations of my prowess would be low. But there were also some of the stag’s more recently-made friends who I had never met before. And the one thing that seemed to unite them was that they were all men who now had families, or were in long-term relationships and successful jobs and arrived in cars whose models were called things like ‘BMW Hercules’ or ‘Rover Thor’, which is quite humbling for a man who drives a Nissan Micra at 32 and furthermore feels immense gratitude that he can afford to do so. And whilst I know that Rover Thor and BMW Hercules aren’t actually real names, the fact that my knowledge and enthusiasm towards cars is so tenuous only serves to diminish the already pitiful number of points on my ‘Top Trump card’ of masculinity even further.
I knew my old school chums would be well aware of my lacking sporting prowess, but it was the people I had not met before who I worried most about. I am socially anxious and find it difficult to get to know new people at the best of times, so the thought of having to do so through my incompetence on a football pitch seemed fraught with potential humiliation. And this was an anxiety I held before it was revealed to me that a referee had been booked especially for our game; effectively meaning I would now also be paying towards having my incompetence and humiliation professionally observed and assessed. I suspect that was the very moment my sense of maleness was so low, that I was half considering skipping the post-match shower, just in case I found that my penis suddenly became inverted.
But y’know... The game wasn’t that bad after all. Don’t get me wrong, I did not suddenly play with the ability of Bobby Charlton like my briefly deluded brain briefly suspected I might. I didn’t even play with the ability of Bobby Davro, truth be told. But it was ok. I gave it a shot. And once in a while some of the more seasoned players even gave me the odd compliment for my efforts at tacking and saving a goal (my football knowledge is so lacking that it was impossible to tell whether I was merely being patronized. But fuck it, I took the compliments anyway). And despite the fact that Dave Barnett received an excruciatingly painful ankle injury, leaving him writing in agony, allowing him to be liberated the pitch (the lucky bastard), I did get ample opportunity to play in my favorite position a fair bit. (My favourite position being substitute, obviously).
And with the much-dreaded football game all done, survived and out of the way, it was time to enjoy the rest of the stag weekend.
“So what are we doing tomorrow?” I casually asked Bruce as we left the changing room.
“Oh, there’s a home derby on nearby”, he replied, “Think we’re going to see that. Stockport vs. Macclesfield”.
But this wasn’t the only nasty surprise that would be sprung on me. Apparently the too-good-to-be-true budget price City centre apartments that had been booked for our stay had no on-site parking. And the nearest car-park I could find to our accommodation was at the Arndale Centre. The nasty surprise being that parking cost £25 per night! You can call me tight-fisted if you must, but it seemed absurd for my car to stay in accommodation that was almost as expensive as mine. £50 to park for the weekend! It’s not like the car-park even had any ensuite facilities. Thank God it was just a “stag-weekend”. For had it been a stag “fortnight”, because given the market value of my car, then technically, it would have been cheaper for me to have just driven my Micra into the nearest scrap-yard and simply just left it there.
The Stockport vs. Macclesfield game wasn’t all that bad. I have not been to a football match for about 12 years, because I always found them so mind-numbingly dull. But nowadays they can be much more enjoyable, thanks to the advent of mobile technology which at least allows you to tit around on the internet for 90 minutes. However, for any other non-football fans reading, I must pass on a small piece of cautionary advice. At one point I looked up to witness a goal being scored, and in order to show a bit of polite interest, I burst into enthusiastic applause. Obviously, being a dispassionate observer, I didn’t actually care that Stockport had attained a goal, and was pretty much faking it. A bit like an orgasm that the wives of some of those disgusting, clammy football-loving faces must also feel obliged to fake. But unfortunately, I had not done enough ground-level research, so had failed to ascertain that we were located in the Macclesfield end. Consequently, I found myself the recipient of dagger glances. And to let me tell you, these lower division football fans are not the type of people one would wish to disgruntle. Honest to God, I had seen some of them buy pies, proper pies, in a round foil pie dish, then (and this is the astonishing part) just eat them WITH THEIR OWN BARE HANDS. No word of a lie, they devoured them without using ANY CUTLERY WHATSOEVER! These football types are like savages or something!
I mentioned this to one of the stag party, who seemed genuinely nonplussed by my observation, as if going to see football and eating a pie with your fingers, is the most natural thing in the world. Maybe it is. I wouldn’t know. As I have mentioned several times before, I am not really much of an authority on maleness. In fact at times throughout this weekend, I started to suspect I was simply just not made of the sufficient “man”-stuff required for stag do’s, like I was in some way unqualified. I even began thinking I’d possibly be more suited to hen dos. I’ve seen them hen parties round the town – squealing in equal measures of excitement and despair, and drinking blue drinks. That doesn’t seem as hard. I reckoned I could easily do that.
Or could I? On both Friday and Saturday night I would be the first to retire to the apartment. Yet I did so with a degree of self-justifying nonchalance, convincing myself that my restraint was borne of some situational upper-hand. I reasoned that 1am was a perfectly acceptable time to head home. As I mentioned earlier, most of the party are in settled relationships. It is probably rare they get such an opportunity nowadays, and having obtained a “free pass” from their respective partners to engage In this debauchery, it is natural they would wish to take full advantage of it and stay out as late as possible, and live like they were over-excited teenagers once more. Bless ‘em. But this is not such a novelty for me. I am a single man. I don’t have the responsibility of compromise with other people like my friends do. I could be out late indulging in this sort of debauchery EVERY SINGLE NIGHT if I so choose. That’s right, EVERY NIGHT! Admittedly I spend most nights alone, lying face down in my pillow crying myself to sleep because of the aching loneliness of my existence. But that’s irrelevant: at least I’ve got the option.
Perversely this trip actually allowed me a rare opportunity to spend the night in a shared bed. Actually, perhaps “perversely” is not a particularly great word to use in this context, as I was sharing a bed with Ben; the best-man who’d been a close friend of mine at school. He has lived in the North-West since moving there at university age. I have not seen much of him in the intervening years, but he has changed very little. Although I think there may have been a degradation in his bowels if I’m to be honest, as I seemed to spend the night in a dense cloud of his perpetual, never-ending supply of flatulence. Still – it was nice that we could still feel comfortable enough to share such an intimacy after all this time, because surely you can’t get much more intimate than having particles of someone else’s fecal matter wafting up your nose for the duration of a night.
So that just about sums it all up. It wasn’t until returning to the multistory car park on the Sunday morning that I was able to reflect on the weekend. And despite what this blog may have led you to believe, in all seriousness I really had actually enjoyed this stag-do. Any initial reticence about seeing old school friends would turn out to be completely unfounded. I feared the last 14 years and their acquisition of posher cars, more lucrative careers and kids might leave a social void between us; but it was just like the old days again, as if we were all back at school in the science labs or something. So much so, that when I got into the drivers’ seat, I even found a crocodile clip that someone had surreptitiously attached to the back of my shirt.
Ah how the old memories came flooding back…
This particular stag-do begins in a car park in Manchester on a bright sunny Friday morning, and I am standing in shorts next to my parked-up Nissan Micra feeling a sense of dread and nervousness.
Perhaps you believe that irrespective of how happy and fulfilling the resulting outcome of his wedding should hopefully turn out to be, if anything, it should have been the stag’s liberty to feel any doubts, stresses and apprehensions. But this does not make my own fears any less genuine. Because he might well be approaching the life-changing transition of matrimony, but in less than an hour’s time, I will be playing football. And whilst I do not intend to sound like I am belittling whatever pressures or sense of occasion the stag may feel, I would argue that what I was about to do was definitely braver.
Let me explain why, using the following three points.
1) I have not kicked a football since school.
2) School was a very long time ago.
3) I was no good at kicking a football even when I was at school.
That last point cannot be overstated. I really was no good a kicking a football. That is not to lazily assume I was always the kid cursed with the indignity and humiliation of being picked last for the teams in P.E.; because in my defence, it was usually more 50/50 between me and this other lad, who had chronic asthma and six toes on his right foot (the latter should not be regarded as particularly exceptional, given the type of small rural West Midlands village I grew up in). Yet even if this hadn’t been the case, there wasn’t a single thing I ever enjoyed about the sport, even right down to the attire. Particularly the shorts. I have never felt more vulnerable either before or since those old P.E. days. I went to school in the eighties, when shorts really did mean shorts. I just never trusted them. The impending threat of popping out of them was all too prominent, and I’m not trying to be boastful either; this was a threat that was irrespective to the size of one’s decidedly averaged sized genitalia. It genuinely wouldn’t surprise me if the writers of the film Basic Instinct, had actually gathered some inspiration from seeing us sat on the benches in our school changing room. In fact retrospectively, the timing of the film’s release coinciding with our school days seems suspiciously impeccable.
And then there was the game itself; which for me personally, seemed to entail hovering uselessly about on a field impatiently awaiting the sound of a shrill whistle. Not a noise commonly associated with beauty, but which I became conditioned to believe sounded like a choir of heavenly angels. If the ball went into the top half of the pitch, I might, at a push, jog a few paces forward in a conceited attempt at enthusiasm. Or if the action entered our half of the pitch, I might half-heartedly trot a few paces the other way. On some rare occasions some deluded idiot would kicked the ball towards me (or “pass” it, as I believe is the correct terminology). Whenever that happened, I’d stand frozen in bewilderment, as a herd of twenty schoolboys stampeded toward this spherical thing I'd unwittingly found in my possession (not a sentence I am proud of that one, and certainly less so were it quoted out of context). My instinctive resolve was always to run round and round the ball in some sort of panicky circle for a while not knowing quite what to do, before finally opting to kick this round article (or ‘football’ as I believe is the correct terminology) toward any old random wilderness; sometimes at the feet of someone from my team, sometimes to a member of the opposition. That was ostensibly my whole game-plan in its entirety, and mostly it kept me reasonably successful in my heady aspirations of sporting underachievement.
So as you can imagine, football was only a game I would have ever played under duress. And yet here I was, about to do something I detested under my own volition; and since we were hiring 5-aside indoor soccer pitch between us, I was actually PAYING for the privilege. Furthermore, the more astute of you may have noticed that this was a FRIDAY morning, so I had even taken a day’s holiday off work to be putting myself through this! What on Earth had led me here? To this car park in Manchester? To do something that now seemed suddenly much less preferable to a day at work?
One (or more) of the following three points may be possible explanations:-
1) I am the sort of person who will generally agree to do anything. So long as it’s in the future. So long as there is a buffer of time ahead of me to provide a nice cushion, I will be pretty much amenable to most ideas.
2) Subconsciously this may possibly have something with my similarly previously documented hypochondria. Perhaps I only agree to do stuff in the future because I assume I’ll already be dead before they arrive.
3) Preceding the agreement of my participation, I may have had a particularly good gym session that charged me with endorphins and hubris. “Why not play football?” my brain might have asked. “You have put the hours in at the gym. You’re certainly a lot fitter than you used to be at school. You never know, given the benefit of age and experience, you might just get on the pitch and something might suddenly click into place and you’ll start playing like Bobby Charlton!” (Note to self, don’t listen to brain – the resulting ache alone, which followed the game would soon be enough to heavily disprove such a flimsy theory).
Co-incidentally, the Stag party comprised mainly of a lot of people who I had been to school with, and had not really seen since my salad days (ironically named, since I ate far fewer salads back then). This was quite good, because expectations of my prowess would be low. But there were also some of the stag’s more recently-made friends who I had never met before. And the one thing that seemed to unite them was that they were all men who now had families, or were in long-term relationships and successful jobs and arrived in cars whose models were called things like ‘BMW Hercules’ or ‘Rover Thor’, which is quite humbling for a man who drives a Nissan Micra at 32 and furthermore feels immense gratitude that he can afford to do so. And whilst I know that Rover Thor and BMW Hercules aren’t actually real names, the fact that my knowledge and enthusiasm towards cars is so tenuous only serves to diminish the already pitiful number of points on my ‘Top Trump card’ of masculinity even further.
I knew my old school chums would be well aware of my lacking sporting prowess, but it was the people I had not met before who I worried most about. I am socially anxious and find it difficult to get to know new people at the best of times, so the thought of having to do so through my incompetence on a football pitch seemed fraught with potential humiliation. And this was an anxiety I held before it was revealed to me that a referee had been booked especially for our game; effectively meaning I would now also be paying towards having my incompetence and humiliation professionally observed and assessed. I suspect that was the very moment my sense of maleness was so low, that I was half considering skipping the post-match shower, just in case I found that my penis suddenly became inverted.
But y’know... The game wasn’t that bad after all. Don’t get me wrong, I did not suddenly play with the ability of Bobby Charlton like my briefly deluded brain briefly suspected I might. I didn’t even play with the ability of Bobby Davro, truth be told. But it was ok. I gave it a shot. And once in a while some of the more seasoned players even gave me the odd compliment for my efforts at tacking and saving a goal (my football knowledge is so lacking that it was impossible to tell whether I was merely being patronized. But fuck it, I took the compliments anyway). And despite the fact that Dave Barnett received an excruciatingly painful ankle injury, leaving him writing in agony, allowing him to be liberated the pitch (the lucky bastard), I did get ample opportunity to play in my favorite position a fair bit. (My favourite position being substitute, obviously).
And with the much-dreaded football game all done, survived and out of the way, it was time to enjoy the rest of the stag weekend.
“So what are we doing tomorrow?” I casually asked Bruce as we left the changing room.
“Oh, there’s a home derby on nearby”, he replied, “Think we’re going to see that. Stockport vs. Macclesfield”.
But this wasn’t the only nasty surprise that would be sprung on me. Apparently the too-good-to-be-true budget price City centre apartments that had been booked for our stay had no on-site parking. And the nearest car-park I could find to our accommodation was at the Arndale Centre. The nasty surprise being that parking cost £25 per night! You can call me tight-fisted if you must, but it seemed absurd for my car to stay in accommodation that was almost as expensive as mine. £50 to park for the weekend! It’s not like the car-park even had any ensuite facilities. Thank God it was just a “stag-weekend”. For had it been a stag “fortnight”, because given the market value of my car, then technically, it would have been cheaper for me to have just driven my Micra into the nearest scrap-yard and simply just left it there.
The Stockport vs. Macclesfield game wasn’t all that bad. I have not been to a football match for about 12 years, because I always found them so mind-numbingly dull. But nowadays they can be much more enjoyable, thanks to the advent of mobile technology which at least allows you to tit around on the internet for 90 minutes. However, for any other non-football fans reading, I must pass on a small piece of cautionary advice. At one point I looked up to witness a goal being scored, and in order to show a bit of polite interest, I burst into enthusiastic applause. Obviously, being a dispassionate observer, I didn’t actually care that Stockport had attained a goal, and was pretty much faking it. A bit like an orgasm that the wives of some of those disgusting, clammy football-loving faces must also feel obliged to fake. But unfortunately, I had not done enough ground-level research, so had failed to ascertain that we were located in the Macclesfield end. Consequently, I found myself the recipient of dagger glances. And to let me tell you, these lower division football fans are not the type of people one would wish to disgruntle. Honest to God, I had seen some of them buy pies, proper pies, in a round foil pie dish, then (and this is the astonishing part) just eat them WITH THEIR OWN BARE HANDS. No word of a lie, they devoured them without using ANY CUTLERY WHATSOEVER! These football types are like savages or something!
I mentioned this to one of the stag party, who seemed genuinely nonplussed by my observation, as if going to see football and eating a pie with your fingers, is the most natural thing in the world. Maybe it is. I wouldn’t know. As I have mentioned several times before, I am not really much of an authority on maleness. In fact at times throughout this weekend, I started to suspect I was simply just not made of the sufficient “man”-stuff required for stag do’s, like I was in some way unqualified. I even began thinking I’d possibly be more suited to hen dos. I’ve seen them hen parties round the town – squealing in equal measures of excitement and despair, and drinking blue drinks. That doesn’t seem as hard. I reckoned I could easily do that.
Or could I? On both Friday and Saturday night I would be the first to retire to the apartment. Yet I did so with a degree of self-justifying nonchalance, convincing myself that my restraint was borne of some situational upper-hand. I reasoned that 1am was a perfectly acceptable time to head home. As I mentioned earlier, most of the party are in settled relationships. It is probably rare they get such an opportunity nowadays, and having obtained a “free pass” from their respective partners to engage In this debauchery, it is natural they would wish to take full advantage of it and stay out as late as possible, and live like they were over-excited teenagers once more. Bless ‘em. But this is not such a novelty for me. I am a single man. I don’t have the responsibility of compromise with other people like my friends do. I could be out late indulging in this sort of debauchery EVERY SINGLE NIGHT if I so choose. That’s right, EVERY NIGHT! Admittedly I spend most nights alone, lying face down in my pillow crying myself to sleep because of the aching loneliness of my existence. But that’s irrelevant: at least I’ve got the option.
Perversely this trip actually allowed me a rare opportunity to spend the night in a shared bed. Actually, perhaps “perversely” is not a particularly great word to use in this context, as I was sharing a bed with Ben; the best-man who’d been a close friend of mine at school. He has lived in the North-West since moving there at university age. I have not seen much of him in the intervening years, but he has changed very little. Although I think there may have been a degradation in his bowels if I’m to be honest, as I seemed to spend the night in a dense cloud of his perpetual, never-ending supply of flatulence. Still – it was nice that we could still feel comfortable enough to share such an intimacy after all this time, because surely you can’t get much more intimate than having particles of someone else’s fecal matter wafting up your nose for the duration of a night.
So that just about sums it all up. It wasn’t until returning to the multistory car park on the Sunday morning that I was able to reflect on the weekend. And despite what this blog may have led you to believe, in all seriousness I really had actually enjoyed this stag-do. Any initial reticence about seeing old school friends would turn out to be completely unfounded. I feared the last 14 years and their acquisition of posher cars, more lucrative careers and kids might leave a social void between us; but it was just like the old days again, as if we were all back at school in the science labs or something. So much so, that when I got into the drivers’ seat, I even found a crocodile clip that someone had surreptitiously attached to the back of my shirt.
Ah how the old memories came flooding back…
Music To Perspire To
On Thursday, I left my cosseted suburban existence to catch a gig in London, as I am a fully formed adult now. On the way I met up once again with the promoter whom I had an extreme fit of perspiration in the company of. Since writing that particular entry, there has been another occasion that I have been struck by an attack of irrepressible self-moistening. According to my personal journal, this was on Fri 4th June. A date I should be able to remember with ease, since it was a very special day for one of my friends from school, who was betrothing himself in matrimony that day; and I had been invited along to witness the occasion.
(NOTE - When I say “friend from school”, I do mean a person I befriended whilst attending school as a pupil. I feel obliged to clarify this, as a little further on in this entry, I will have been victim of a major sweating outbreak, and will have lank greasy hair stuck flat to my forehead; thus fitting the perfect stereotypical appearance of a dubious person who might well wish to ingratiate himself schoolchildren. Which I assure you I am not.)
It was a wonderful day for a wedding. There was not a cloud in the sky. I suspect it may have been the sunniest day of the year so far. But the first mistake I made was agreeing to wait for my mate Neil to call by my house so we could walk to the church together. Because Neil is always invariably arrives late for everything. It is the only consistently reliable thing in his nature.
Whilst I do not consider myself most au fait with social convention, I am pretty confident that arriving at a wedding, effectively following the bride down the aisle is not deemed particularly appropriate behaviour. So dressed in full three-piece suit attire, Neil and I were obliged to run to church in order to prevent such a faux pas occurring. Thankfully we did manage to beat the bride’s arrival, but given the amalgamation of heavy clothing, the temperature and the act of running, my breathless entrance to the church managed to make me feel like I was turning the occasion into some weird real life re-enactment of the ending from the film “The Graduate”.
The usher seemed a bit flummoxed by our last minute arrival too, as all the seats in the church seemed to be occupied, bar for a few at the very front; which, to my immense surprise, he continued to lead me to. I knew at the time he was making some sort of mistake. And so did everyone else seated in the church. As I followed him down the aisle, I did not dare look at the other guests, but I could feel their eyes looking at me. And upon taking my seat, I could still feel their glances burning the back of my neck. It was at that moment the sweating began in earnest. For even given my ignorance of formal social conventions, even I know that these seats are reserved for specific alumni. To the other guests I must have been exuding a certain amount of hubris, appearing as if I considered myself important enough to turn up to a church last, and then arrogantly assume my place alongside the bride and grooms’ family. But at this stage, the last thing I desired was to draw further attention to my profusely sweating face. All I could do was sit there feeling socially helpless. And rather damp.
Since I had seemingly lost the ability to take responsibility for myself, it would eventually be the Best Man who would save me from my plight. He kindly (and thankfully) grasped control of the matter, by locating a store room with chairs, and placing one at the very back of the church for me. This relegation meant that I would no longer have any sort of view for the ceremony itself. But I cared little. At least I was now hidden away out of view, tucked behind the other guests, where I could commence my sweating with a degree of privacy. The only person that paid me any attention was a young mother sitting in the row in front of me, who had happened to looked round. She took pity on me, and kindly offered me a wet-wipe. Initially I thought this was some sort of cruel joke, since conceptually, adding a moist wipe to a moist face seemed devoid of being any practical assistance. But the wet wipe actually ended up doing the trick nicely, managing to cool my face, and I was soon able to enjoy some of the ceremony with a degree of comfort. I must find out who that lady was, and thank her sometime.
Which brings me to my meeting in London with the promoter on Thursday. I am rather afraid to say that my body temperatures fared no better than on our last meeting. Which makes me feel a degree of chagrin. The recent onset of these intense and untimely perspiration attacks seem very unfair. Why on Earth have they started to happen now? Were I unfit I could understand them, but I currently live a healthier lifestyle than I’ve ever done previously. I eat healthily, have a better regime than ever, and whilst not strictly teetotal, I am not the drinker I was in years gone by.
In my defence, we are in the middle of a major heat-wave. And I did have to carry a heavy rucksack full of scratching around London. Yes that is right – there is no need to re-read that sentence. On learning of the meeting my boss couldn’t resist the opportunity for more nepotism, and requested I took a bag of pork scratchings as a gift for each member of staff. I figure he thought this as a slightly kooky West Midlands thing to do for a bit of a laugh. But it is still fundamentally depressing to think that I have been working in the entertainments industry for twelve long years now, and I have been reduced to carting a rucksack of dead pig’s skin across London, like some weird Pied Piper for the capitals’ stray dogs. Imagine how that would look to the Transport Police on the tube. Thank heavens I never had the indignity of being searched. Twelve fucking years long my career I tell you, and this really the best I can aspire to? The life of some slightly dubious, anti-Semitic working-class fluffer? And to further such indignity, when I got there, they didn’t even want them!
Oh well - looking on the bright side, at least the stench from my rucksack might in some way mask the stench of stale sweat. If these attacks continue to be a problem, I may have to take to wearing nothing but an impractically tight pair of Speedos to such meetings and formal occasions. But I hope that there will not be a need to take such measures and this is just a passing phase, or something I can learn to control; having so far ascertained three fundamental lessons.
1) Don’t eat whole chillies
2) Don’t go jogging in a full suit
3) Don’t carry a heavy rucksack of Pork Scratchings on a hot day.
And for the benefit of people who have never suffered such problems, I have made a short compilation mix, featuring the music which I believe best evocative of the sticky, clammy feelings of an intense hot summers’ day, so that you may be able to empathise with my plight in some way. I have called it “Music To Perspire To” and you can download it here.
And whilst demostrating such an unashamed level of self-indulgence, here is another chance to download my own musical/monologue collaboration for as long as the link lasts.
(NOTE - When I say “friend from school”, I do mean a person I befriended whilst attending school as a pupil. I feel obliged to clarify this, as a little further on in this entry, I will have been victim of a major sweating outbreak, and will have lank greasy hair stuck flat to my forehead; thus fitting the perfect stereotypical appearance of a dubious person who might well wish to ingratiate himself schoolchildren. Which I assure you I am not.)
It was a wonderful day for a wedding. There was not a cloud in the sky. I suspect it may have been the sunniest day of the year so far. But the first mistake I made was agreeing to wait for my mate Neil to call by my house so we could walk to the church together. Because Neil is always invariably arrives late for everything. It is the only consistently reliable thing in his nature.
Whilst I do not consider myself most au fait with social convention, I am pretty confident that arriving at a wedding, effectively following the bride down the aisle is not deemed particularly appropriate behaviour. So dressed in full three-piece suit attire, Neil and I were obliged to run to church in order to prevent such a faux pas occurring. Thankfully we did manage to beat the bride’s arrival, but given the amalgamation of heavy clothing, the temperature and the act of running, my breathless entrance to the church managed to make me feel like I was turning the occasion into some weird real life re-enactment of the ending from the film “The Graduate”.
The usher seemed a bit flummoxed by our last minute arrival too, as all the seats in the church seemed to be occupied, bar for a few at the very front; which, to my immense surprise, he continued to lead me to. I knew at the time he was making some sort of mistake. And so did everyone else seated in the church. As I followed him down the aisle, I did not dare look at the other guests, but I could feel their eyes looking at me. And upon taking my seat, I could still feel their glances burning the back of my neck. It was at that moment the sweating began in earnest. For even given my ignorance of formal social conventions, even I know that these seats are reserved for specific alumni. To the other guests I must have been exuding a certain amount of hubris, appearing as if I considered myself important enough to turn up to a church last, and then arrogantly assume my place alongside the bride and grooms’ family. But at this stage, the last thing I desired was to draw further attention to my profusely sweating face. All I could do was sit there feeling socially helpless. And rather damp.
Since I had seemingly lost the ability to take responsibility for myself, it would eventually be the Best Man who would save me from my plight. He kindly (and thankfully) grasped control of the matter, by locating a store room with chairs, and placing one at the very back of the church for me. This relegation meant that I would no longer have any sort of view for the ceremony itself. But I cared little. At least I was now hidden away out of view, tucked behind the other guests, where I could commence my sweating with a degree of privacy. The only person that paid me any attention was a young mother sitting in the row in front of me, who had happened to looked round. She took pity on me, and kindly offered me a wet-wipe. Initially I thought this was some sort of cruel joke, since conceptually, adding a moist wipe to a moist face seemed devoid of being any practical assistance. But the wet wipe actually ended up doing the trick nicely, managing to cool my face, and I was soon able to enjoy some of the ceremony with a degree of comfort. I must find out who that lady was, and thank her sometime.
Which brings me to my meeting in London with the promoter on Thursday. I am rather afraid to say that my body temperatures fared no better than on our last meeting. Which makes me feel a degree of chagrin. The recent onset of these intense and untimely perspiration attacks seem very unfair. Why on Earth have they started to happen now? Were I unfit I could understand them, but I currently live a healthier lifestyle than I’ve ever done previously. I eat healthily, have a better regime than ever, and whilst not strictly teetotal, I am not the drinker I was in years gone by.
In my defence, we are in the middle of a major heat-wave. And I did have to carry a heavy rucksack full of scratching around London. Yes that is right – there is no need to re-read that sentence. On learning of the meeting my boss couldn’t resist the opportunity for more nepotism, and requested I took a bag of pork scratchings as a gift for each member of staff. I figure he thought this as a slightly kooky West Midlands thing to do for a bit of a laugh. But it is still fundamentally depressing to think that I have been working in the entertainments industry for twelve long years now, and I have been reduced to carting a rucksack of dead pig’s skin across London, like some weird Pied Piper for the capitals’ stray dogs. Imagine how that would look to the Transport Police on the tube. Thank heavens I never had the indignity of being searched. Twelve fucking years long my career I tell you, and this really the best I can aspire to? The life of some slightly dubious, anti-Semitic working-class fluffer? And to further such indignity, when I got there, they didn’t even want them!
Oh well - looking on the bright side, at least the stench from my rucksack might in some way mask the stench of stale sweat. If these attacks continue to be a problem, I may have to take to wearing nothing but an impractically tight pair of Speedos to such meetings and formal occasions. But I hope that there will not be a need to take such measures and this is just a passing phase, or something I can learn to control; having so far ascertained three fundamental lessons.
1) Don’t eat whole chillies
2) Don’t go jogging in a full suit
3) Don’t carry a heavy rucksack of Pork Scratchings on a hot day.
And for the benefit of people who have never suffered such problems, I have made a short compilation mix, featuring the music which I believe best evocative of the sticky, clammy feelings of an intense hot summers’ day, so that you may be able to empathise with my plight in some way. I have called it “Music To Perspire To” and you can download it here.
And whilst demostrating such an unashamed level of self-indulgence, here is another chance to download my own musical/monologue collaboration for as long as the link lasts.
Yet Another Cautionary Tale About Why You Should Never Have Any Aspirations
“You might as well just go for it. Whatever happens, you’ve got nothing to lose. It’s not like it will cost you anything”, they say. I am referring to the words of other people, when you find yourself once again procuring a job interview for a vacancy you now feel ambivalent towards. But don’t be fooled; their advice is little more than a flawed lie. Because other people talk rubbish. Fundamentally they must hate you. Or is it just me?
The interview I had been invited to attend was scheduled at quite short notice, so the chances of getting a cheap advance train booking had long passed. Bottom line it would be £60 each way; thus in its very cost exposing their first lie. Yet these other people continued with their fantastical blabbering.
“Why don’t you drive up the night before after work and stay in a Premier Inn?” they suggested, “You could spend a nice evening in Brighton – turn it in to a bit of a trip too. And then when you wake up, rather than having to make a long journey in the morning, fretting about hold-ups and finding the interview destination, you can relax, clear your head and have a casual stroll along the beach. “
It doesn’t seem like bad advice on paper, does it? It almost sounds practical. Well that’s what they want you to think. Haven’t I told you already? Other people talk rubbish. Because by the time I arrived (past 11pm, after getting lost for two hours trying to locate the damn Premier Inn in a pedestrian area via a car, with a sat nav determined to procure me several fines for driving in bus lanes), there was little time to explore Brighton. In fact there was precious little time to make it before last check-in. At least there was some sense of pleasure accrued from the relief of my eventual arrival. Something about booking into and waking up in hotel room all by myself gave me a peculiar sense of being an adult. Pathetic really. I am 32 years old.
In fairness, amongst all their lies, there was some solitary advice that these other people got right; I did wake up feeling refreshed. I had a leisurely lie in bed watching BBC Breakfast News a while, before showering, donning my best interview suit and pulling open the curtains to survey the beautiful bohemian seaside town before me. It was absolutely pissing down.
The interview wasn’t until 2.30pm and check out time for the hotel was 11am, so the intervening time was spent jogging from cafe to cafe, in order to avoid turning up at my interview looking like an elephant who’d walked through a car wash. Now I like coffee as much as the next man, but three and a half hours of solid coffee drinking would surely waiver anyone’s enthusiasm towards the beverage. Oddly enough, such level of caffeine consumption in solitary, brooding cafe environment doesn’t become particularly amenable to settling to one’s nerves either.
In fact by the time it was nearing 2.30, I was so wired with pinball anxiousness that I seriously considered bailing out and heading home. But something willed me on. Not sure what. I don’t think it was the desire for the job providing me with motivation anymore. More likely it was the thought of the petrol , hotel and inflated Brighton cafe costs going to waste whilst not even having any of the much-acclaimed ‘interview experience’ to show for it. Although I suspect such lauding of ‘interview experiences’ is yet another ill-fated advisory rhetoric of those “other people” I was telling you about earlier. Because minutes before heading over to my interview, I was forcefully obliged to relieve the heavy contents of my agitated, coffee-ridden bladder; which, I grant you, should be a fairly simple and mundane procedure; one which I performed to text-book perfection. I’ve never understood men who don’t bother washing their hands afterwards though. Through the performance of this ritual of hygiene, I believe myself to be in a courteous minority. Much to my own disservice. Because rather than the conventional and conveniently pressure-controllable dial-taps, these ones were those press-down sorts. The water pressure was far from shy. And I held my hands underneath the flow, inadvertently being in a position to direct the tap’s heavy geyser-like gush toward the general fly-hole and upper inner-thigh area of my suit trousers. I almost suspect these taps may have been some sort of elaborate joke set-up. Especially since there were no air dryers I could use to draw damage limitation from. Just one of those paper-towel dispensers containing some teal-green sheets which, after a slightly aggressive and desperate rub, provided little benefit beyond leaving a light, dusty residue to draw attention to any of the remaining moisture on my groinal area.
With damp, teal flecked trousers, I entered into my appointment with a panel of prospective employers. Predictably, the interview itself didn’t go all that well. Upon arrival I was asked if I would like a glass of water. I declined, mainly because I have a hang-up about putting people out. I feel awkward when people want to do things for me. I am the type of person who says ‘thank-you’ far more than is actually necessary. I can’t merely accept the altruist gestures of others. It makes me uncomfortable. I felt as though I should be asking the interview panel if I could fetch THEM a glass of water. But she pressed the issue further, saying that she’d fetch me one anyway, and I could always drink it should I became thirsty during the interview. This time I relented. To be honest, I was pleased the small plastic cup was insisted upon me. The levels of coffee I had consumed this morning had perversely made my mouth and throat all claggy and dry. I was oddly dehydrated. So thirsty in fact, that when she bought the cup over, I kind of forgot myself, contradicting my earlier protestations by taking an immediate massive swig from the vessel. The first question had been whether I wanted a glass of water, yet apparently I couldn’t even answer that one correctly. How was I going to fare with real when the real interview questions were fired at me?
The immediate realisation of my faux pas wrong-footed me and I was concerned that it would be a preface that would pretty much set the tone for the following 30 minutes. I needn’t have worried, as I found that my appointment had drawn to a premature conclusion by 3.50; which seemed quite surprising, having felt like I’d been in there at least four days. As I stood in the entrance hall of the building preparing to leave, I felt rather gutted to have spent a couple of hundred quid and a 350 mile round trip on what was effectively a bad interview. The briefness of my 20 minutes with the panel was evidence enough that things had not gone particularly well, and that it would be very unlikely I’d be the candidate filling their vacancy. But in their defence, how could they possibly have entrusted me with this new position? I had walked into that interview donning the appearance of a man who didn’t even know the appropriate times in which fluid should be entered and expelled from his own body!
Before stepping out the door, one of the staff members asked, “How did you get here all the way from Wolverhampton?”
“By car.” I replied.
“That’s a shame.” She said, “I should have told you before you came, we’re paying expenses on all train tickets”. For one final time, I had fallen foul of the suggestions of other people.
I was pleased I put myself through the process, but also disappointed with myself (and the shoddy advise of other people, obviously). I certainly can’t think of much worse torment than facing the indignity of failure. Well – aside from the prospect of being called for a 2nd interview of course.
The interview I had been invited to attend was scheduled at quite short notice, so the chances of getting a cheap advance train booking had long passed. Bottom line it would be £60 each way; thus in its very cost exposing their first lie. Yet these other people continued with their fantastical blabbering.
“Why don’t you drive up the night before after work and stay in a Premier Inn?” they suggested, “You could spend a nice evening in Brighton – turn it in to a bit of a trip too. And then when you wake up, rather than having to make a long journey in the morning, fretting about hold-ups and finding the interview destination, you can relax, clear your head and have a casual stroll along the beach. “
It doesn’t seem like bad advice on paper, does it? It almost sounds practical. Well that’s what they want you to think. Haven’t I told you already? Other people talk rubbish. Because by the time I arrived (past 11pm, after getting lost for two hours trying to locate the damn Premier Inn in a pedestrian area via a car, with a sat nav determined to procure me several fines for driving in bus lanes), there was little time to explore Brighton. In fact there was precious little time to make it before last check-in. At least there was some sense of pleasure accrued from the relief of my eventual arrival. Something about booking into and waking up in hotel room all by myself gave me a peculiar sense of being an adult. Pathetic really. I am 32 years old.
In fairness, amongst all their lies, there was some solitary advice that these other people got right; I did wake up feeling refreshed. I had a leisurely lie in bed watching BBC Breakfast News a while, before showering, donning my best interview suit and pulling open the curtains to survey the beautiful bohemian seaside town before me. It was absolutely pissing down.
The interview wasn’t until 2.30pm and check out time for the hotel was 11am, so the intervening time was spent jogging from cafe to cafe, in order to avoid turning up at my interview looking like an elephant who’d walked through a car wash. Now I like coffee as much as the next man, but three and a half hours of solid coffee drinking would surely waiver anyone’s enthusiasm towards the beverage. Oddly enough, such level of caffeine consumption in solitary, brooding cafe environment doesn’t become particularly amenable to settling to one’s nerves either.
In fact by the time it was nearing 2.30, I was so wired with pinball anxiousness that I seriously considered bailing out and heading home. But something willed me on. Not sure what. I don’t think it was the desire for the job providing me with motivation anymore. More likely it was the thought of the petrol , hotel and inflated Brighton cafe costs going to waste whilst not even having any of the much-acclaimed ‘interview experience’ to show for it. Although I suspect such lauding of ‘interview experiences’ is yet another ill-fated advisory rhetoric of those “other people” I was telling you about earlier. Because minutes before heading over to my interview, I was forcefully obliged to relieve the heavy contents of my agitated, coffee-ridden bladder; which, I grant you, should be a fairly simple and mundane procedure; one which I performed to text-book perfection. I’ve never understood men who don’t bother washing their hands afterwards though. Through the performance of this ritual of hygiene, I believe myself to be in a courteous minority. Much to my own disservice. Because rather than the conventional and conveniently pressure-controllable dial-taps, these ones were those press-down sorts. The water pressure was far from shy. And I held my hands underneath the flow, inadvertently being in a position to direct the tap’s heavy geyser-like gush toward the general fly-hole and upper inner-thigh area of my suit trousers. I almost suspect these taps may have been some sort of elaborate joke set-up. Especially since there were no air dryers I could use to draw damage limitation from. Just one of those paper-towel dispensers containing some teal-green sheets which, after a slightly aggressive and desperate rub, provided little benefit beyond leaving a light, dusty residue to draw attention to any of the remaining moisture on my groinal area.
With damp, teal flecked trousers, I entered into my appointment with a panel of prospective employers. Predictably, the interview itself didn’t go all that well. Upon arrival I was asked if I would like a glass of water. I declined, mainly because I have a hang-up about putting people out. I feel awkward when people want to do things for me. I am the type of person who says ‘thank-you’ far more than is actually necessary. I can’t merely accept the altruist gestures of others. It makes me uncomfortable. I felt as though I should be asking the interview panel if I could fetch THEM a glass of water. But she pressed the issue further, saying that she’d fetch me one anyway, and I could always drink it should I became thirsty during the interview. This time I relented. To be honest, I was pleased the small plastic cup was insisted upon me. The levels of coffee I had consumed this morning had perversely made my mouth and throat all claggy and dry. I was oddly dehydrated. So thirsty in fact, that when she bought the cup over, I kind of forgot myself, contradicting my earlier protestations by taking an immediate massive swig from the vessel. The first question had been whether I wanted a glass of water, yet apparently I couldn’t even answer that one correctly. How was I going to fare with real when the real interview questions were fired at me?
The immediate realisation of my faux pas wrong-footed me and I was concerned that it would be a preface that would pretty much set the tone for the following 30 minutes. I needn’t have worried, as I found that my appointment had drawn to a premature conclusion by 3.50; which seemed quite surprising, having felt like I’d been in there at least four days. As I stood in the entrance hall of the building preparing to leave, I felt rather gutted to have spent a couple of hundred quid and a 350 mile round trip on what was effectively a bad interview. The briefness of my 20 minutes with the panel was evidence enough that things had not gone particularly well, and that it would be very unlikely I’d be the candidate filling their vacancy. But in their defence, how could they possibly have entrusted me with this new position? I had walked into that interview donning the appearance of a man who didn’t even know the appropriate times in which fluid should be entered and expelled from his own body!
Before stepping out the door, one of the staff members asked, “How did you get here all the way from Wolverhampton?”
“By car.” I replied.
“That’s a shame.” She said, “I should have told you before you came, we’re paying expenses on all train tickets”. For one final time, I had fallen foul of the suggestions of other people.
I was pleased I put myself through the process, but also disappointed with myself (and the shoddy advise of other people, obviously). I certainly can’t think of much worse torment than facing the indignity of failure. Well – aside from the prospect of being called for a 2nd interview of course.
Open Letter To The Toilet Guy
This is a personal message for the chap with those squirty bottles of hand soap and a pile of paper towels, who stands in the men’s toilet at The Varsity in Wolverhampton.
Dear Sir,
I suspect your employment from the management of Wolverhampton Varsity was intended to give the illusion of “class” to what can otherwise only be described as some of the worst toilets I have ever used in my life. Whilst you cannot be blamed for the state of the facilities, I hope the following feedback will be beneficial for the procurement of greater income in the future.
I would have been more willing to leave a tip in your tray had you offered to stand guard at the door of my cubicle. This would have been handy, what with the lock being broke and all. However, I appreciate that this may have been a little bit too much to expect of you. But since the toilet roll dispenser had also been ripped off the wall, it would have been both a pleasant and useful gesture for you to have offered me some of your paper towels from your pile when you saw me entering the cubicle. I do not think such pro-active assistance towards my anal cleanliness would have been too demanding. It’s hardly like I was expecting you to get down on your hands and knees and ‘rim’ me clean or anything.
If we examine the service you did offer, could I be bold enough to suggest that you may have your sales pitch all wrong. Ironically, the soap dispenser and the air towel are really the only things that function properly in those so-called ‘conveniences’. For this reason, your services of washing and drying men’s hands are effectively redundant. Could I suggest you develop a more captive market by fusing the air towel and emptying the soap dispenser at the start of each shift? Judging by the state of the other facilities, I am confident the Varsity management would neither notice, nor care about your sabotage. Otherwise, as far as I can see, you are little more than a man who has to spend his shift enduring particles from other people’s scatological expulsions drifting up his nostrils. And while this may not be the most pleasant undertaking, I genuinely fail to see why you consider this task of enough necessity to warrant any sort of monetary payment.
I would have offered this advice at the time. Only I was too preoccupied; shuffling from the wash basins to the exit, with my eyes fixed on the floor, desperately trying to avoid your gaze.
Dear Sir,
I suspect your employment from the management of Wolverhampton Varsity was intended to give the illusion of “class” to what can otherwise only be described as some of the worst toilets I have ever used in my life. Whilst you cannot be blamed for the state of the facilities, I hope the following feedback will be beneficial for the procurement of greater income in the future.
I would have been more willing to leave a tip in your tray had you offered to stand guard at the door of my cubicle. This would have been handy, what with the lock being broke and all. However, I appreciate that this may have been a little bit too much to expect of you. But since the toilet roll dispenser had also been ripped off the wall, it would have been both a pleasant and useful gesture for you to have offered me some of your paper towels from your pile when you saw me entering the cubicle. I do not think such pro-active assistance towards my anal cleanliness would have been too demanding. It’s hardly like I was expecting you to get down on your hands and knees and ‘rim’ me clean or anything.
If we examine the service you did offer, could I be bold enough to suggest that you may have your sales pitch all wrong. Ironically, the soap dispenser and the air towel are really the only things that function properly in those so-called ‘conveniences’. For this reason, your services of washing and drying men’s hands are effectively redundant. Could I suggest you develop a more captive market by fusing the air towel and emptying the soap dispenser at the start of each shift? Judging by the state of the other facilities, I am confident the Varsity management would neither notice, nor care about your sabotage. Otherwise, as far as I can see, you are little more than a man who has to spend his shift enduring particles from other people’s scatological expulsions drifting up his nostrils. And while this may not be the most pleasant undertaking, I genuinely fail to see why you consider this task of enough necessity to warrant any sort of monetary payment.
I would have offered this advice at the time. Only I was too preoccupied; shuffling from the wash basins to the exit, with my eyes fixed on the floor, desperately trying to avoid your gaze.
Blakey Related Injury
Reign your sympathies on me, for I am ill with the dreaded lurgee. Not quite ill enough to call in sick from work, but just about enough to make my day a grinding punishment. All last night I’d been cursed with a perpetually leaky face. My nose was like an unrelenting tap of dripping mucus. This morning, I awoke to a similar kind of volume of screwed-up tissues surrounding my bed as an untidy pubescent boy might at the end of a particularly uneventful summer holiday. But let me assure you, at my age, it was all definitely nose mucus. More’s the pity. That’s the problem with ailments. There’s never any illnesses with ‘pleasant’ side-effects, is there. They always involve tedium, pain or misery so the best you can ever aspire to, is feeling just plain old back to normal like you were before. Just for the sake of counter-balance, why can’t we have ‘nice’ symptoms with a cold too, rather than just aches and runny noses? For example, imagine if the mucus build-up wasn’t actually mucus, but another fluid. And it wasn’t in the sinus, but in the groin area. And instead of having to blow your nose a gazillion times, you had to relieve yourself using the nearest practical orifice. Meaning that throughout your working day, you’d be obliged to head off to the toilets every five minutes to knock out a more pleasurable excess, as a matter of valid medical necessity. This’d be great news if your employer is prudish, or better still a guilt-ridden Catholic. They’d be so naturally repulsed by your condition that the first slightest hint of the groinal snivels (or whatever they were), and you’d be sent home for the day! Even more fun when your boss caught a cold himself. Imagine the torturous dilemma and self-loathing on his face every time he was hit by the necessity of vulnerable fluid expulsion. But no. Instead we are left with tedious nose blowing. And this becomes painful after a while. I tell you, I’ve had to wipe my nose so much over the last couple of days that I have developed flaky skin, little cuts and sores between my nostril and top lip. As well as being darn painful it is particularly unattractive. In fact earlier today, I did an impression of Blakey from “On the Busses” with a little too much gusto, and having stretched my mouth a bit too far, one of my grazes unexpectedly popped open and started leaking blood. I must be the first person in the world who has suffered a split lip whilst doing an impression of Blakey from “On The Busses”. Whoever heard of a “Blakey-related-injury” before? Exactly. Colds are rubbish.
Happy New Year?
If you’re anything like me, you make absolutely no plans whatsoever for New Year’s Eve thinking that it’s too far ahead in the future to be worrying about. You wonder why everyone else is in such a flap; it’s only 29th December for God’s sake! And from there you glide on, under a quietly confident delusion that something will turn up. Inevitably things DO turn up, but in a pique of miserliness you end up declining them all, because they involve buying extortionately priced advance entry tickets, meals in the same price range as filling your own bath to the brim with caviar and Taxi journeys with fares that at any other time of the year would be enough to finance a journey to and from Adis Abababa. Or at least they would be, only the last available cab was booked way back in the summer of 2004, and now the only option is to make a three-way investment purchase with Gary and Wayne on the nearest available property located 8 miles away from the proposed gathering, which you’d have to traipse back to at 3 in the morning, whilst carrying both Wayne and Gary on your back because they’ve over-indulged on vol-au-vents filled with vodka and have lost the use of their own legs. And such offers always come in a cruel game-show style format. Upon invitation your friends suddenly take the form of “The Banker” off Deal or No Deal and you’ll have to make a decision on the spot there and then, otherwise the tickets will sell out and your chance will have passed. But you let it pass and keep twisting, hoping that another friend will invite you to something affordable, but then you realise you’re 31 and that the remainder of your contemporaries now have families of their own now and they will be watching Jools Holland and sipping Baileys in the glow of loving domestic warmth, not caring in the slightest whether they leave you to watch Jools Holland alone in the warmth of a paltry rattling fan-heater, which operates so noisily it blocks out the warbling sound of Paloma Faith performing her latest chart-smasher (possibly being the only virtue of your desolate and sorry night).
So are you anything like me, then? Of course you’re not. I know this to be true as this year I found my level, and you weren’t there with me. I very much doubt the people I happened to spend this New Year’s Eve with are the type of people who’d read this blog. In fact I very much doubt they’d even know what a “blog” was. And should they be forced to hazard a guess, they’d probably assume it to be a particularly messy and unpleasant bowel disorder. I was in my local you see, with about thirty or forty other people. Needless to say I was the youngest there, probably by about 30 years. Not that I’m getting all ageist about it. Despite the generational ravine, fundamentally we all shared something in common; we’d all apparently kind of “given up” on celebrating the passing of another year. Possibly this was for different reasons, but I suspect that with wearying age, the perpetual novelty of forced seasonal bonhomie had worn thin. Why be financially extravagant when you can suffer yet another crushing annual anticlimax more cheaply in the local boozer? My attendance implied I must be ahead of my years, leaving me to conclude that spiritually, I must either be very wise or very broken.
I am not criticizing the clientele and I’m not criticizing the pub either. The effort the landlord had gone to easily out-weighed that of his custom, having provided 2 party poppers on each table and putting on a karaoke (which may sound modest, but remember there had been no admission fee, so he had literally provided this out of his own pocket). But the whole evening had a strange ambience, akin to that of an autumnal off-season club-house on a caravan holiday park. Rather than seasonal party hits, even the karaoke choices were weirdly weary. Not out and out depressing as such. It was more the sort of music that amalgamated a sense of crushed melancholy with a kind of ‘lighters-aloft’ hope. You know - the type of stuff that would not seem out of place if Comic Relief used it to soundtrack heart-rendering footage of starving Ethiopian children.
I didn’t quite last until the New Year, opting to leave the pub at around 11.45. The last thing I recall was gazing at some decorations draped from the ceiling, pondering whether or not there would be enough hold in a line of tinsel with which to hang myself with, if I so choose. Or maybe it was seeing some old chap standing up to deliver a rendition of “He Ain’t Heavy He’s My Brother”, and having to stop myself pulling out my bank card and making a charitable pledge. Either way, I was home just in time to see the London New Year fireworks display from my television screen. I remember thinking, this time last year I was watching those firework displays from London itself. Admittedly it was on the telly in a mate’s flat because we couldn’t face the nightmare of the tube. But still, it was much closer to the pulse of philanthropy than I am now. Back then I had the prospect of a new job, a new life. And one year on, it would appear the only development seems to be the recede of my hairline. It is rather alarming to realise you have done little but drift through another year-long funk.
But thankfully New Year is a time of reflection. Another chance to consider ambitions and to review life in terms of the positive changes one can make. Of course, there’s every chance we’ll just spend another year repeating the same old behaviours, mistakes and all, like some lab rat pushing levers without will. But I guess the important thing about New Year is that it seems an appropriate time to allow ourselves the indulgence of contemplation. And you don’t need a plush night out to be able to do that.
So are you anything like me, then? Of course you’re not. I know this to be true as this year I found my level, and you weren’t there with me. I very much doubt the people I happened to spend this New Year’s Eve with are the type of people who’d read this blog. In fact I very much doubt they’d even know what a “blog” was. And should they be forced to hazard a guess, they’d probably assume it to be a particularly messy and unpleasant bowel disorder. I was in my local you see, with about thirty or forty other people. Needless to say I was the youngest there, probably by about 30 years. Not that I’m getting all ageist about it. Despite the generational ravine, fundamentally we all shared something in common; we’d all apparently kind of “given up” on celebrating the passing of another year. Possibly this was for different reasons, but I suspect that with wearying age, the perpetual novelty of forced seasonal bonhomie had worn thin. Why be financially extravagant when you can suffer yet another crushing annual anticlimax more cheaply in the local boozer? My attendance implied I must be ahead of my years, leaving me to conclude that spiritually, I must either be very wise or very broken.
I am not criticizing the clientele and I’m not criticizing the pub either. The effort the landlord had gone to easily out-weighed that of his custom, having provided 2 party poppers on each table and putting on a karaoke (which may sound modest, but remember there had been no admission fee, so he had literally provided this out of his own pocket). But the whole evening had a strange ambience, akin to that of an autumnal off-season club-house on a caravan holiday park. Rather than seasonal party hits, even the karaoke choices were weirdly weary. Not out and out depressing as such. It was more the sort of music that amalgamated a sense of crushed melancholy with a kind of ‘lighters-aloft’ hope. You know - the type of stuff that would not seem out of place if Comic Relief used it to soundtrack heart-rendering footage of starving Ethiopian children.
I didn’t quite last until the New Year, opting to leave the pub at around 11.45. The last thing I recall was gazing at some decorations draped from the ceiling, pondering whether or not there would be enough hold in a line of tinsel with which to hang myself with, if I so choose. Or maybe it was seeing some old chap standing up to deliver a rendition of “He Ain’t Heavy He’s My Brother”, and having to stop myself pulling out my bank card and making a charitable pledge. Either way, I was home just in time to see the London New Year fireworks display from my television screen. I remember thinking, this time last year I was watching those firework displays from London itself. Admittedly it was on the telly in a mate’s flat because we couldn’t face the nightmare of the tube. But still, it was much closer to the pulse of philanthropy than I am now. Back then I had the prospect of a new job, a new life. And one year on, it would appear the only development seems to be the recede of my hairline. It is rather alarming to realise you have done little but drift through another year-long funk.
But thankfully New Year is a time of reflection. Another chance to consider ambitions and to review life in terms of the positive changes one can make. Of course, there’s every chance we’ll just spend another year repeating the same old behaviours, mistakes and all, like some lab rat pushing levers without will. But I guess the important thing about New Year is that it seems an appropriate time to allow ourselves the indulgence of contemplation. And you don’t need a plush night out to be able to do that.
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