Day 177: Roastmaster

And still it rains relentlessly.  On and on.  It makes me think of 'Withnail and I' and the accidental holiday.  Maybe that's why I feel moved to stick a chicken in the oven.  Reliable pleasures.

Roast potatoes AND Yorkshires. 

Amen. 

Day 176: Size Of A Bus

A London wedding.  Unseasonable rain and wind scatters the blossom from the Japanese flowering cherry trees outside the church.  Eco-nfetti.  Inside, the vicar is enthusiastic and shiny, pumped to have a capacity congregation.  But I think the organist is intimidated.  None of us really knows the tune to 'Glad that I live am I' - including him.  All a bit embarrassing.  He makes up for it by hurling himself breathlessly at 'Jerusalem'.  We hurry to keep up.  No chance for any swords to sleep in any hands.  Not at that pace.  

Old Routemaster buses take us to the reception in Westminster.  The seats are TINY.  Either the bus has shrunk with age, like a dwindling nan, or we have grown bigger as a species over the last few decades.

Supersize me.  

Day 175: Eggspenses

Today I go to the shops in search of ten Creme Eggs.  I need them for a job next week. 

Yes.  They are a genuine business expense.  Essential props.  (I look forward to including this particular receipt when I do my books, and very much hope that my accountant (the strangely emotionless Olga) will question its inclusion.)

I source the eggs from WHSmith (two for a pound - bargain).  Can't see them at first, so I have to ask.  Find myself saying 'Do you sell Creme Eggs?  Great - I need ten.'  NEED!  Shop assistant eyes me suspiciously (while probably pressing the bulimia panic button under the counter).

'Sure.  You NEED ten.  Probably for a job, yeah?  Do you want them wrapped?  Or open?' 

  

Day 174: Car Park Breakfast

Breakfast in a multi-storey car park in Kingston.  I do a lot of car park breakfasts.  Mainly because I have to be places really early. 

It's OK.  I take a Thermos of coffee and a decent mug (I can't deal with the stupid thimble provided with the flask). 

I pretend I'm on a stakeout.

Obviously. 

Day 173: Code Breaker

Code Two warning - be careful
around men of 'action'.  

Today at King's Cross there is a tannoy announcement.  'Would a member of cleaning staff please attend a Code Two by the lifts to the concourse.'  Intriguing.  What is a 'Code Two'?  The obvious guess would be (childishly) a 'Number Two', but surely Transport for London are more imaginative? 

A quick internet search confirms that they're not.  'Code Two' is indeed a 'Number Two'.  But ALSO a 'Number One'.  (Which is stupid, because I do not think they can be sensibly grouped in the same cleaning category.  One is a simple mop job.  The other a more complex scoop/bag/mop business.  Weird.) 

Anyway, here is a breakdown of all of the relevent codes, in case you hear a tannoy announcement, and want the mystery decodified:-

Code Six emergency

Code One: Blood
Code Two: Urine/Faeces
Code Three: Vomit
Code Four: Spillage
Code Five: Broken Glass
Code Six: Litter

In related news, I circumnavigate some Code Three outside the kebab shop as I walk back from the station.

(I like this.  I also like Alpha/Bravo/Charlie-ing.  Doesn't everyone?  Over and out.)

Day 172: Favourite Halves

Here they are

Jack White is on Jools Holland.  I hope there's an interview. 

There is. 

He's very interesting to watch - a strange combination of elf and lumberjack.  And, as Julian Barratt so memorably pointed out, with 'tiny kitten's teeth'*. 

(*This came from a Mighty Boosh interview with Jonathan Ross, where Noel was twirling and pirouetting, doing the tits n' teeth, and Julian was hanging back, all silent and hating being there.

Then, perfectly timed, he quietly chipped in with the kitten-teeth comment.  Pow!  Brilliant, specific, unforgettable.  (Please note that it was relevant to the conversation - he didn't just crowbar in a pre-prepped Jack White non-sequitur.)  One of the many reasons that Julian Barratt is my favourite half of the Boosh.)

Anyway - back to Jack White.  Enough about his new five-star album.  The real news is that he's re-opened his upholstery shop.  Yes.  His UPHOLSTERY shop ('Your Furniture Is Not Dead').  Imagine just walking in, to get your nan's old armchair re-chintzed - there's Jack White with a mouthful of tacks in a pinny.  If I'd had to come up with a Venn diagram of rock stars and upholstery, I'd never have thought that Jack was the intersection. 

Brilliant.  One of the many reasons that Jack White is my favourite half of The (now defunct) White Stripes.

Day 171: Frequent Flyer

A rare visit to the National Theatre, to see a one-man show at the Cottesloe.  Inua Ellam's 'Black T-Shirt Collection'.  It's a thank you from the friend I bailed out last week.  Very good to be back at the National - it's been a long time. 

Years.  When I was a teenager, it seemed the most glamourously bohemian place.  I revelled in its unashamedly ugly timber-textured concrete (and I still do).  I indiscriminately watched as much as I could (I've stopped that) and I collected flyers from the foyer and blu-tacked them all over my bedroom walls to give them personality (I've stopped that too). 

I was particularly fond of this one for King Lear. 





    




    

Day 170: A Serious Man

'Receive with simplicity everything that happens to you' - Rashi. 

The Coen brothers' film, 'A Serious Man' starts with this perplexing quote.  Sounds pretty straight forward initially, but to me, the more you think about it, the more you can twist yourself up in knots over EXACTLY what it means. 

As with the film.  Billed as a comedy, there are some darkly funny moments, but overall it's way too bleak for such a classification.  Whatever.  It's fascinating. 

It starts with an extraordinary folk tale, in which a woman stabs an old man who has helped her husband.  Because she believes him to be a 'dybbuk', who will bring a curse on the house.  We never get to find out whether she's right, and has averted evil - or wrong, and murdered an innocent man.  We then move forward in time to the 1960s.  The folk tale is never referenced or mentioned again.  I was waiting for it to reappear (as anyone with basic story-telling chops knows, you expect something like this to be justified or reincorporated).  It's brilliant that it doesn't.  Because it introduces in the most unsettling way, the concept of uncertainty, which is the theme running through the film.  One character even explicitly talks about having to 'accept the mystery'. 

So I suppose that's the point.  That however much we want to understand, there are rarely any clear and easy answers.  All that remains is how you face the uncertainty. 

It's been a long time since I've seen a film that got me thinking as much as this one.  I've been scuffling around with it in my head ever since I saw it.

Which isn't exactly receiving with simplicity...  Ho hum.

Day 169: White Room

Bowling down winding lanes in deepest Hertfordshire, singing along to the radio and channel-hopping. 

Here's 1970s self-styled 'supergroup' Cream, with 'The White Room'. When you only know the first seven words, you have to improvise the rest. 

One of these versions is theirs.  One is mine. 


In the white room with black curtains near the station
Blackroof country, no gold pavements, tired starlings
Silver horses ran down moonbeams in your dark eyes
Dawnlight smiles on you leaving, my contentment

In the white room with black curtains and a sofa
There's a telly, plus a bean bag, and some nick-nacks
Empty bottles and newspapers and a menu
From the Thai on the corner, by the Abbey

You're welcome. 

Day 168: Good Pain

Last night I beasted myself with kettlebells.  This morning I thought it would hurt, so was very impressed and surprised to wake up feeling limber and smug.  Foolish and premature.  By lunchtime I could feel my shoulders and thighs stiffening.  Now I feel like I have taken a sound beating.  I sense it is going to get worse before it gets better. 

But there is a perverse enjoyment to post-exercise muscle pain.  When your arms are so sore that you can barely lift them to wash your hair in the shower.  A good pain. 

On the M25 for a third time this week.  Rain slashing down dramatically.  On one of the bridges above the motorway I see a troop of hikers.  I can tell they are hikers (as opposed to civilians), because they are fully kitted out in waterproofs, and they have big backpacks, and walking poles (professional).  They doggedly trudge over the bridge, in a line of determination.  Hoods up, heads down.  No amount of Gore-Tex could be a match for this quantity of water.  They must be very, very wet. 

I wonder where they're going?  This isn't Cumbria, or Yorkshire, or the Highlands.  It's a bridge over the M25.  Wherever it is (Amersham?  Rickmansworth?), I hope they get the classic post-hike-pain pay off.  The stupidly deep bath, the warm, dry clothes, the pint and the rib-sticking meal.  Preferably in a pub with an open fire.  The rewards are that much sweeter when they are hard-won.    

Day 167: Inside Out

A day of serious weather.  Heavy, heavy rain.  Hail the size of peas.  And a storm against a bruised sky. 

Proper apocalyptic end-of-days thunder cracks.  The sort of forked lightning that could split boulders.  Birds are freaking out, startled by the electricity and the noise, directionless and flapping.  Nowhere to run to.   

I sit at home, looking out of the window like a cat.  With no intention of going outside, but very happy to watch the show.  Birds and all. 

Day 166: A Friend In Need

A panicky message from a very stressed friend leads to a rescue mission.  On his way to an all day job, he's shocked to realise that the content for the final session of the afternoon has been completely redesigned, and he has no time to prepare it.  I hear the utter lack of hope in his voice, as he asks in desperation whether I'm free and willing to come and run it for him.  Happily I am.  He is transformed - I've never heard anyone sound so grateful.  I leave the house wearing a cloak and pants over my tights (metaphorically - this client wouldn't consider that to be 'business dress').

On my way into London I realise that, in accepting this job, I cross a volume threshold that means this particular client will pay me at a higher rate for all the work I do for them next month. 

It is rare that you get the opportunity to help a friend, and the reward goes beyond feel good to hard cash.  I'd have done it for the first alone, but I'm not going to turn my nose up at the second.

Day 165: April Showers

Lots of rain.  Some of it cold and slushy.  Then a few flakes of snow, drifting softly across my windscreen.  I thought it was cherry blossom at first.  Blossom and snow may look very similar (small, light, white) but they move very differently. 

This was definitely snow.  I only saw about four flakes, but it still counts.  Snow in April.

Not a first.  It snowed in April when I was nine.  I was in my dad's car, with my friends Nicky and Sarah, on the way to Hever Castle.  But by the time we arrived, the snow had stopped, and the sun had come out. 

The gardens at Hever are full of statues.  Lots of Grecian nudes.  I spent a disproportionate time photographing marble bottoms with my new camera (plasticky and very basic).  Idiot.   

Day 164: Sacred Cows

Driving past junction 17 of the M25, I am struck by the arresting sight of a hillside of cows.  The sky above is blue, the grass below is bright green, and the cows are satisfyingly black and white. 

There is a graphic simplicity to a field of cows that cannot be underestimated.  Just looking at them makes my pulse drop and my horizons expand.   

Hooray for cows.

Day 163: Hard to Swallow

Lunch with a woman who has advanced Huntington's disease. Her central nervous system is shot.  She is in a wheelchair. She cannot control her movements. She cannot speak. She has huge difficulty swallowing. Her husband mixes thickening powder into her drinks, so they can be spooned into her mouth. Less likelihood of choking that way. He is unfailingly calm and kind. It is an appalling situation for both of them.

Feeling seedy and hungover today, but very aware of the immense privilege of normality - to have been able to spend an evening singing, dancing, talking, eating and drinking. Not to be taken for granted. Not today, anyway.

Day 162: First I Was Afraid

An evening spent bawling karaoke in Imperial China on Lisle Street, as one of a party of hens.  It follows a restrained day at the Royal Festival Hall, and a trip on the Duck (no penis balloons, L-plates or wedding veils, by order of the hen-in-chief).  However, as all Japanese businesses know, the combo of karaoke and booze is a great leveller, and any semblance of tastefulness evaporates the minute the first few bars of 'I Will Survive' kick in. 

Imperial China has lots of sound-proofed karoake rooms, all full of people submerged in noodles and noise.  Walking down the corridor to the toilets is brilliant - bursts of raucousness from each room as waiters emerge.  Freddie vs Spice Girls vs Wham.  There is no room for cool.  The camper the better. 

Leave hoarse and drunk, with my ears ringing.  The restaurant has a little curved bridge that leads to the street.  There are no trolls underneath.  Just a pond of big, fat koi carp.  In Chinese culture, carp symbolise strength and endurance.  These ones look very sluggish.  Exhausted by too much karaoke.  As am I.     

Day 161: High-def Idiot Savant

I need a camcorder.  Work purposes.  Spend some time this morning looking at techie comparison websites.  Soon I am overwhelmed with conflicting gadget reviews.  Give up and drive to PC World, where I am distinctly NOT overwhelmed.  There is one HD camcorder.  Literally.  The display model.  I am slightly nonplussed by the lack of choice/stock, but buy it (at negotiated discount).  Get it back home, and look at reviews online.  Accidentally I have bought a truly excellent camera.  And for £90 less than on Amazon.  I am an idiot savant.

Go to Boots to get a duplicate of a photo.  I've not been near a photo developing area for many years.  Digital camera and inherent sloth mean that all my photos are hidden on a hard drive, languishing in forgotten files.  Boots has gone all high-tech, and DIY.  There are customer nodes, which will accept your various media, and allow you to edit and resize at will.  Amazing.  You still have to go away for an hour, and then come back and collect your photos from a real person (a wait AND human interaction - unreasonable in 2012). 

I return at the given time, and the assistant selects a packet.  She opens it so I can check that it's mine.  There's only one photo (see left). 

She looks at me.  I look back.  I nod.  Nothing is said.  Exit.

That camcorder's landed on its feet with me. 

Day 160: Nibbling The Braid

Today, for the first time in several months, I find myself daydreaming as I run.  Rather than focusing on my aching lungs and legs.  Seems to take half the time, and I'm surprised when I get to the end.  This is a pretty clear sign that I'm recovering my cardiovascular fitness.  Good. 

This evening I watch a ridiculous programme on fitness through the decades.  Brilliant vintage footage of 1950s women swinging their legs pointlessly (but unsurprisingly, given that they're wearing high heels and full make up).  Freestyle dancing in the 60s.  Stupid contraptions in the 70s.  Cheese string leotards in the 80s. 

But the thing that really stands out for me is some footage of schoolchildren - probably in the 60s - busily engaged in 'nibbling the braid'.  This involved standing on the end of a strip of webbing (the braid) - which you pull towards you by scrunching your toes, so the 'nibbled' bit goes under your feet.  I only wish I had been allowed to nibble the braid at school.  I'd have been a lot keener on P.E. if that had been the case...

I hated sports at school, and would do anything to avoid them.  Top tactics included making sure I had a piano lesson right in the middle of games (and dawdling there and back); doing a lot of 'deep fielding' (making daisy chains, daydreaming and then reliably letting the team down if the ball ever came anywhere near me), and doing dramatic full face skids on asphalt.  This was the best, as it meant hobbling to Sick Bay, where Miss Glazier would swab you with raw alcohol while you teased Brock, her bad-tempered dachshund.  Good times. 

P.E. was marginally better.  At ten, the entertainment value of a fat child doing forward rolls to the theme music from 'Born Free' was not lost on me (even though I was that child).  


I was twenty-four before I realised that I actually enjoyed exercise.  The thing I didn't enjoy was P.E. teachers. 

I don't think I'm alone.

Day 159: Ten of Clubs

A walk in the woods.  Nobody about.  As always, in this sort of situation, I am keeping half an eye out for an intervention.  A wizened dwarf with a riddle.  A crone prepared to exchange three wishes for a good deed.  A talking tree.  (As any fool do.) 

Nothing.  But I do find a playing card on a tree stump.  A ten of clubs.  Pretty good for a completely deserted wood (no visible poker players or patience fans).  Obviously I know what happens next.  If I pick up the card - I'm in the game.  (It's a portal.  An invitation to dance from another world.)  But as always, there will be unforeseen consequences.  A wager that goes horribly wrong.  I will probably end up enslaved in the wood (bad). 

Or perhaps it's just cartomancy?  Maybe the ten of clubs predicts my fortune.  An internet search reveals that it's good news.  The ten of clubs is, apparently, a 'strong good luck card, with riches suddenly acquired.' 

Later today I go to the post depot to pick up an unexpected parcel that's been waiting for me.  I have been sent a Cadbury's Caramel Easter egg.  Yes!

This confirms my belief that the wood is a powerful place, full of augury and magic.  Going back there tomorrow, to see if I can share my lunch with a crone.

Day 158: Cobblers

Shopping.  Friend's impending wedding forces my hand.  Throw money at a dress that I am actually likely to wear in civilian rather than nuptial circumstances.  Normally I leave it too late, panic sets in, and I buy something odd/depressing/horrific.  So feeling pretty proud of myself this time.

 However, there is still room to disgrace myself.  Rather than buying new shoes, I am choosing to 'renovate' some old ones (see - still leaving the door ajar for odd/depressing/horrific).  I have been to the cobblers.  I have bought some shoe dye (vintage 1970s by the looks of things) and some pink laces.  Tomorrow I will apply the dye - photo to come.    

I enjoy the conversation between two bored shop assistants, one of whom is (apparently) fasting for forty days.  Seems a bit late to the Lenten party.  That's all over now.  (Reminds me of the ex-colleague who chose to wear her 'Free Nelson Mandela' badge on the day he was freed.)

Shop Assistant 1: What would be the worst temptation for you?  Like, if the Devil was in front of you - what would he be holding?

Shop Assistant 2:  Any kind of cereal.

Shop Assistant 1:  Oh...  Really?  For me it would be fillet steak. 

Shop Assistant 2:  No.  Cereal. 

I'm not sure that SA2 is really fasting.  Sounds suspiciously like a low-carb diet to me.   

As I beat a hasty retreat from the shopping centre, I surprise a baby.  She's sitting in her pushchair, fussing a bit. The very moment she lets out a loud squawk coincides with my sudden appearance through a set of double doors.  She's startled, and stares, open-mouthed.  I clearly see the cogs move in her brain as she comes to a cause-effect conclusion.  She squawked; I appeared.  Like a badly-dressed genie.  She MADE me happen.  I walk off, and she cranes after me, hanging out of her pushchair in fascination.  I do not envy her the come-down when she realises her magic powers have deserted her. We've all been there.

Day 157: Bank Holiday Moanday

Rainy Bank Holiday Monday.  We're back on track.  Everything is as it should be.

Day 156: Resurrection

Easter Day starts as it should - with the ceremony of the Lindt Chocolate Bunny.  Amen. 

And then a trip to the cinema to see 'Headhunters'.  An enjoyable thriller, with a particularly memorable tractor-driving scene.  Allelujah.   



Xfm in the car, and it's a programme with a topical theme.  Resurrection.  What would you resurrect, if you could?

General consensus appears to be 'The Smiths'.

That's as religious as the day gets. 

   

Day 155: New Forest

This morning I see a young mallard attempting to mount a swan.  Things pan out as you might expect - a fair amount of swan outrage expressed through the medium of violence. 

But you have to admire the mallard's pluck and optimism.  Why aim low? 

Heartwood Forest.  Just outside St Albans, the Woodland Trust is planting England’s largest new native forest.  The site is big - about eight hundred acres, and is going to include wildflower meadows as well as woodland.  I was expecting fields with saplings - nothing that will be even vaguely foresty for decades - but the site also encompasses four ancient woods.  Awash with bluebells and windflowers.  And stretches of heathland with larks singing high over head. 

It feels a bit managed - in the new bits there are gates and fences, and planting, and slightly prescriptive signage ('The Magical Wood').  But the heart is all there.  No buildings, no commerce.  Just trees and flowers and space.

Plucky and optimistic.  Like a mallard.  Hooray.

Day 154: Good Friday

Today I am good.  I throw stuff out.  Mainly books.  Every room is choking with the damn things.  So I get ruthless.  If I failed to get through it on the first attempt, and put it to one side to try again later, it must go.  If having read the blurb on the back, I still can't remember it, it must go.  If I do remember it, but it's unlikely I'll read it again, it must also go.  I forcefeed the Oxfam book bank like a Strasbourg goose. 

Initially I wince slightly as I bin some borderline cases, but that's soon replaced by a reckless abandon.  It would be very easy to cull the whole lot and reduce my shelves to Zen emptiness.

I also muck out my sock drawer - any strays are rounded up and binned.  I'm not unfair.  Every sock gets a chance.

I have a death row bag - a holding pen for strays, where they get a six month stay of execution.   Sometimes their opposite number turns up, and they're reprieved, paired up and sent back into the sock community.  If not, it's curtains. 

And there's no room for any injured players on the team - any holes or thin patches and you're out.  So far, so normal sock mucking-out.  This time is different though.  I also throw away all socks I simply DON'T LIKE.  

I realise that some of these socks I've had for years.  Because I will only ever wear them as a last resort.  So they're still intact, not worn enough to throw away.  Hanging on, taking up a disproportionately large slice of space in my life.  Still annoying me, when much-loved socks are a distant, holey memory.

Good Friday.  Good - as in no room for bad.  No bad books.  No bad socks.

Day 153: Default Browser

Marylebone to meet a friend.  There is no plan - the only thing that has been mooted is 'swanning about'.  Which is exactly what we do. 

Up to St Christopher's Place, where we poke about in clothes shops, and gag at price tags.  Into a 'art' gallery/shop - a terrible mishmash of daubs, mainly chocolate-box erotica (misty eyed nudes in loft apartments), and cloying sentiment (children with trembling lips).  I feel free to comment, because the member of staff is safely behind the counter, over the other side of the shop.  Unfortunately there are TWO members, and I haven't noticed the other one, who is sitting quietly on a stool about a metre away from me.  Whoops.  We leave quickly.   

It's an awkward dynamic when a shop is small.  There's none of the anonymity you get when you wander into a big high street outlet, where nobody notices whether you're there or not.  There's a tension.  Are you going to buy or not?  Is there going to be conversation?  I often know, within seconds of walking in, that there is NOTHING there for me, and I need/want to leave immediately.  But convention constrains me to do a full loop around the shop.  I feel sleeves, pick up books, have a sage look at a label.  All bollocks.  All a game.  Just waiting until I can decently walk out, leaving the impression that the shop is full of lovely things, and perhaps I may come back.  Sometimes, I am even cowardly enough to ask 'What time do you shut today?', to add to this impression (but actually just to oil my exit route). 

That's normally when I feel bad for the shop owner.  I don't today.  Anyone who peddles this sort of terrible shit is more to be punished than pitied.   






   

Day 152: The Greatest Love of Small

Today I pay a flying visit to my home town.  It feels as if it has shrunk since I was a teenager.  Like the crisp bags I used to miniaturise in the oven at a low temperature.  Quavers for goblins.  KP Skips for elves. 

I was a fan of small.  Babybel used to be a medium-sized cheese that you cut into wedges.  Then mini versions arrived.  Still the same bland, slightly sour, milky rubber.  Horrible.  But small!  And therefore unbearably exciting. 

In the same vein, I used to like those mini-Hovis rolls.  The ones shaped like a tiny loaf.  I didn't particularly like the flavour - wholemeal is the driest and foulest of all breads - but that was insignificant next to the incalculable delight of cutting tiny slices, and making stupidly small sandwiches.  Inevitably filled with pointless Babybel.  Hooray.

It's quite a relief that Heroes and Celebrations weren't around when I was growing up.  I know that I'd have been an avid fan (MINIATURES!), and would have wolfed them down.  Iced Gems were far safer - off-puttingly sweet icing, hard as plaster, on top of a dubiously hamsterish biscuit.  Three or four and you'd have to stop, with a mouth as dried out as the Gobi. 

Just as well there was an inherent deterrent.  Because my love of small did not extend to portion control...

Not then.  Not now.