Day 206: No Name; No Label

This morning I am with actuaries.  This afternoon, I'm at a computer games company.  You might imagine that the people at the computer games company will be more fun.  Far from it.

I've noticed this before.   Jobs at 'creative' agencies often evidence more tightly-wound and controlling behaviour than creative.  When something becomes an intrinsic part of your job-description, it often floats further and further away from the day-to-day reality. 

Beard Amateur

Years ago, I read a D H Lawrence essay on the nature of love that really struck a chord with me.  The main message was that the minute you commit to loving something, you invariably love it a little bit less. 

As with work.  As an amateur, you do the thing you love.  Amateur literally translates as 'lover'.  The minute you are paid to do something, you are a 'professional'.  Which means more of a commitment. You 'become' that thing (a lawyer/golfer/actor), and often you love it a little bit less.

Not always the case.  There are the rare birds who can span amateur AND professional.

Spanners.    

Day 205: Burn or Walk?

Sometimes a day comes along where you feel strongly that you are in the wrong place.  Today I also have that itchy feeling that I have experienced ever time I am about to burn my boats and bridges, and walk.  This is how it starts - the itchiness.  Which builds and builds until the final moment comes, which is like stepping off a cliff and free-falling.  When I know I'm going to jump, and there is NOTHING I can do, because some other part of me is in control. 

I've experienced this about eight times in my life.  It's exhilarating, and the outcome is invariably necessary, but I recognise that although there's part of me that likes throwing all the cards up in the air, it's foolhardy.  I could just choose to take a different path before pushing things to the cliff-edge.  Walk away, but keep access to the boats and the bridges.  In the knowledge that I may never have to use them again, but I could if I needed. 

This is what I choose to take from today.  Watch this space.  Will I burn or have I evolved enough to walk away?

Day 204: Within Tent

The Ark

A visit to the camping shop to buy a tent for next weekend.  I like tents.  And I like camping shops - all the gadgets and the promise of freedom and being outside.  When the weather is good, there is nothing better than living feral for a few days.  Today in the blazing sunshine, it is hard to imagine weather not being good - but I have been to enough trench-foot Glastonburys to know better...

So it's with this in mind that I buy a Vango Ark.  Because if it's an ark, it'll float, right?  

Incidentally, the Vango claims that it will fit 'three men'.  I find this hard to believe.  But I must not forget that Noah apparently managed to fit two of everything in his ark.  So perhaps all arks are just far stretchier than they look.

Let it rain.  I've got flotation and expansion capabilities.    

Day 203: Lawn and Ball

Deliberate

Finally the encroaching garden becomes too apparent.  Dandelion clocks by the dozen.  Tangled forget-me-nots.  Knee high grass.  The brick-encircled round lawn is invisible and the Ball Bush (as it is known) has rejected its identity, sprouting wild dreadlocks. 

To my shame, it takes less than two hours to make a significant difference.  Aggressive strimming reveals lawn; assertive trimming reveals Ball.  Grass edged; bricks exposed.  Against a few clearly defined critical elements, the contrasting overgrown borders suddenly seem deliberate and artful.  Yes, I am Gertrude Jekyll/Vita Sackville-West, and yes, this is 'drift' planting.  As I poke around, I find lost herbs.  Marjoram, oregano, mint, thyme, rosemary, sage, chives (I am now Jamie Oliver).  Tony from next door sticks his head over the fence to ask how I keep my acer flourishing (I morph into Alan Titchmarsh).  I am tempted to say 'mulch and crooning' but admit that it's luck and survival-of-the-fittest.  No space for the needy.  Not in this garden. 

Maximum satisfaction for minimal effort.  Lawn and Ball.  That's all that's needed.  Everything else can look after itself. 

(NB - this picture is someone else's Lawn/Ball combo.  Mine is more structural-yet-relaxed.)

Day 202: Leaving Canary

Every time I go to Canary Wharf I am delighted to leave.  Too much steel, and glass and self-importance. 

That's all I have to say.

Day 201: Big Fish

There are surprisingly big fish in the local lake.  Never spotted them before, but today there they are - dark shadows and swirling tails.  I am reliably informed that they are carp - not ornamental koi, but just the standard ones.

So there you go.  Big fish in a proportionally big pond.  Nothing to get self-important about. 

I have just discovered that there is a variety called the bighead carp.  Not in this pond.  No, sir.

Day 200: Bust of Chicken

Julius Caesar's bust

Two hundred posts.  In other news, I am doing something very grown-up.  I am poaching two chicken breasts (plural).  A chicken bust (singular).  Or a chicken bosom (singular).  Not chicken bosoms (plural). 

I was very fond of the word 'bosoms' as an eight-year old.  My mother wasn't. 

'No - bosom is SINGULAR.  My BOSOM.'  At this she would place her hand on her breast bone to demonstrate, as I would weep with laughter.  (A mono-bosom!) 

I think Mum would have preferred it if I'd said tits - at least that would have been accurate. 

Anyway, I am now a grown-up so I can poach whatever I want. 

Two chicken bosoms. 

Day 199: City Slacker

A properly hot day.  Cannon Street.  Sun is glaring off the pavements and glass, and the air is thick with dust and fumes and the smell of river mud.  I am overdressed.

Weather like this has been so long in coming that it's sensory overload. I'm bombarded by snapshot memories of other summers.

Lolling around on the playing fields at school, in pre-exam hysteria, throwing grass cuttings at each other. Pints of cold cider and packets of crisps at riverside pubs. Cherry-picking season on the farm, swaying high up in the trees on tall ladders. Then strawberries. Everything stained red, and wasps stupid on sugar.

Holidays.  Greek islands. Bongling goat bells, the lazy slap of flipflops, and the buzz of a moped. Oregano and figs and salty skin. 

As soon as I get home, I head for the Abbey Orchard.  Shoes and socks off, lying under a tree, lost in the bright green canopy of leaves swaying above me.  I'm not on holiday.  But it'll do for today.

Day 198: Bunting Fatigue

A job in London Bridge.  My journey takes me past 'The Christmas Shop', a twenty-four seven three hundred and sixty-five Groundhog Day of tinsel and baubles.  I've only been in there once.  It was October, and I needed to buy a pocket-sized shepherd (don't explain; don't justify).  It was deeply disturbing in there, and I felt concern for the staff.  That level of festive contamination has got to have consequences. 

Today, Christmas is barely in evidence.  Pushed into the background by the proliferation of Union Jacks.  Bunting.  Baubles.  Tablecloths.  Biscuit tins.  Napkins.  Pencil cases.  If it exists, they've slapped a Union Jack on it.  Jubilee/Olympic fever. 

Now, the Union Jack is an excellent flag.  Eye-catching.  Individual.  Bold.  But I this year I have already seen more than enough of it*. 

No

(*I am especially unhappy about pastel versions.  Particularly in bunting.  Please file under 'no' along with cupcakes and Cath Kidston.)

Also no

But perhaps overexposure will provide its own cure - and soon I will simply no longer register any flags, because I will be so used to them. 

(In the same way that after two stops on the train yesterday I thankfully could no longer smell the man sitting opposite me.  My nose adjusted.  His disturbing biscuitiness neutralised into my temporary normality.)

Stop

I'm hoping this will be the case.  In the meantime, I hope all this hot flag action is a lovely change of scene for the staff at the Christmas Shop.

Do they know it's Christmas time at all? 

  

Day 197: Baked Potato

Imagine that you find yourself at a time of your life when you decide that it's time to turn your back on the reckless fecklessness of your stoner past.  And to usher in this new era of reckful, feckful responsbility, you decide to mark the occasion with a tattoo.  What design would you pick?  How might you symbolise this new era?  Perhaps 'responsibility' picked out in Sanskrit?  Or a Celtic band? 

Maybe, just maybe, you would pick the image of a baked potato - because 'potatoes come from the ground'.  Yes.  Potatoes are, literally, grounded.  You might include a large knob of butter.  Butter to represent, um... niceness.  Because butter is always nice on a potato.  Isn't it? 

There again, you might not.  But it entertains me immensely that at least one person did (thanks to DMax for 'LA Ink' - every so often trash TV delivers a gem). 

I think it is no coincidence that the potato is TODALLY, like, 'BAKED', DUDE.

Day 196: Freeze In A Cow

To the Udderbelly on South Bank to see 'Freeze!'.  Odd to see the Udderbelly tent anywhere other than Bristo Square in Edinburgh.

The Cow Pasture (now rebranded as the Magners Pasture) has all the same bits, but arranged differently.  And the fake turf is strangely dry.  It should be mulchy with Edinburgh rain. 

'Freeze!' is Tim Key and Tom Basden cocking around.  Guaranteed elements include poetry and arrogance (Tim); songs and sock-mopping up (Tom); beer and microphone stand foolishness (both).  I think they are brilliant.  Separately and together.  

First time I saw 'Freeze!' was at the Fringe several years ago.  It was a late night show, with a comedy-savvy audience, confident in their choice of show. 

Tonight is different.  The audience is quieter, and some seem bemused by the lo-fi shambolic approach. A man with a briefcase walks out. Key is relieved, as he did not consider him 'target audience'.

Part of what I love so much about these two is their on-stage vibe.  Playful and subversive.  It's not for everyone.  That's why Michael McIntyre exists. 

Day 195: She-Man

Morning run.  Ahead of me, a mother and her small son who's making painfully slow progress on a scooter.  As I near, the woman guides him to one side to let me pass.

'Move over, darling - let the lady through.'  As I run past I thank her and she immediately corrects herself, sounding flustered.  'Oh... Err - gentleman'. 

Yes.  She thought I was female.  Then I spoke and she realised her mistake. 

I should make it clear that I am in fact female.  I possess all the usual physical attributes (reasonably ample).  Plus longish hair.  Admittedly I am tall - 5'10" (so not freakish) and I do have a low voice, exacerbated today by a minor cold.  So I guess if you weren't paying close attention...

I've been mistaken for a man before.  Normally by the very elderly and short of sight, who presume tall-in-jeans means man.  But I've never had someone correct themselves before.  Never had someone embarrassed that they've mis-identified a man as a woman. 

Which is worse?  To be a man, mistaken for a woman?  Or to be a woman, mistaken for a woman, and then correctly identified as a man?

I snigger intermittently all the way home.  It would appear that I don't take my gender reassignment very seriously.   

Day 194: Price of Beef

Today for lunch I eat wagyu beef and miso-blackened cod.  Privately served to me in a shiny lacquer box, with starched linen napkin.  To drink?  Fresh raspberry juice, cut with sparkling water. 

No, I have not robbed a bank.  This is for free. 

When I say 'free', actually there is (as always) a price tag.  When you do jobs for the sort of company that provides this sort of lunch, you can pretty much bet that for the time you are with them, you are their tiny dancing bitch-on-a-string.

I've never eaten wagyu beef before.  It's good.  But tiny dancing bitch-on-a-string good? 

No.  Not that good. 

Once is enough.   

Day 193: Bleeding Hearts

Walking through Piccadilly this morning I come across a trail of scattered playing cards, amidst splatters and drips of blood.  Like the cover of one of those classic 1960s James Bond paperbacks.  Le Chiffre, casinos and violence. 

I realise that the cards and the blood could well be unconnected.  Maybe a tramp had a nosebleed and some hours later, on the very same spot, a student with a passion for Patience dropped a pack of playing cards.  Or vice versa (student with nosebleed, tramp with cards). 

But I'd much prefer to think that both elements are connected.  A high stakes game of poker.  A cheat exposed.  Fisticuffs on Jermyn Street (bespoke suits ruined).

Real life Cluedo.  Bringing some colour (mostly red) to a street near you.        

 

Day 192: Going Open Kimono

On the radio this morning I hear the phrase 'open kimono'.   It's not a programme about delicate cherry blossom geishas, but an interview with the bluff boss of a multi-national energy company.  

Apparently 'open kimono' means no secrets - from the Samurai tradition of showing that you have no weapons concealed beneath your robes.  The meaning makes complete sense, even if I don't like the business-speak context.

But what I like even less is the hideous image that immediately springs to my mind.   Grizzled poon-hound Peter Stringfellow, naked and on display beneath a coyly open 1970s synthetic kimono.   This at 6.30 in the morning.   What is wrong with me?   Where are the noble Samurai?

Imagine my horror when I find THIS (see right) on the internet.  Have I manifested this? Am I responsible?

Or perhaps I have unguardedly allowed my mental kimono to fall open, and I am under psychic attack from Stringfellow.  What other grotesque 'pop ups' will be visited on me?  Thongs?  Droopy buttocks?  Mullets?  Smuggery?

Do what you want, Peter - but NOT IN MY HEAD.   Invade someone else's kimono.

Day 191: Car Envy

Today I see a toddler in a battery-powered Mini Cooper.  She appears to be driving - steering herself nonchalantly and at speed into the cafe at Kenwood.  But a second glance reveals that her father has a remote control console.  Daddy's new toy.  One step up from a model boat on a lake. 

In the corner there is a small boy who is awe-struck.  Eyes like saucers, unable to stop staring.  Tiny princess is lifted out and fussed over at a table.  Juice, wipes, toys.  The car stands empty and tantalising.  Small boy edges closer, hypnotised, as parents arrive and ineffectually try to head him off.  No chance.  He is locked onto his target.  Alpha-Dad is expansive and magnanimous and offers a go.  Small boy gets in.  Alpha-Dad wields the controls.  The car moves - transportations of joy.   

This is only going to end one way.  And it does.  After the joy comes terrible cries.  Hands prised off the steering wheel.    Consolation cake hurled across the room. 

Tiny princess looks on serenely, and passively allows herself to be buttoned into her coat and driven out into the sunshine.  The diamond studs in her ears sparkle as she leaves the building.


Inside we are left with the anguished keening of loss.

Day 190: Hedgerow Bustle

Blue sky for my morning run.  The fields throb green in the bright sunlight, and the hedgerows along the lane to Gorhambury are alive with birds and beasts, and lacy with cow parsley and may blossom.  The air is thickly scented - aniseedy, savoury, with a top note of sweet putresence. 

If there's a bustle in your hedgerow, don't be alarmed now,
It's just a spring clean from the May Queen
Yes, there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run
There's still time to change the road you're on

Day 189: Total Peace OMG

I notice that my new sunglasses (see Day 185) come with this guarantee (see left).

This has got to be the best £165 I've ever spent!   X-ray vision, glare reduction and TOTAL PEACE OF MIND.

Just as well.   It's been a day of petty irritations - but that's BEFORE I realise I have the guarantee.

Tiny geese

This changes everything.  Immediately.  The guarantee kicks in, providing TPOM via an excellent display of goslings down by the lake.

Big rhubarb

And then following up with the appearance of a gunnera growing alongside the reeds.

A favourite plant, because it looks like B-movie mutant rhubarb, and screws with your sense of perspective.   You get to experience life as a Borrower. Just for a moment.   

This is amazing.   Everyone should own a pair of Ray-Bans.  Seriously.

Day 188: Not For Crows

An easier run this morning.  I think the weather is on my side.  High winds help me up the slow climb to the farm, and blow the cobwebs out of my head. 

May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.

A very large crow keeps me company, flying ahead and then sitting on the fence between the lane and the fields, waiting for me to catch up before flying ahead again.  Eventually it gets bored, and flaps off in the direction of the copse.  But not before catching my eye pointedly.  As if to say 'I won't be your dog.  You're too sluggardly for crows.'      

       

Day 187: Burns Department

Very pleased to see Cardinal Burns have bagged a series on Channel 4.  I have been a fan of their work for many years, but am especially fond of Burns.  Mainly because of this:-

Improtwat will blow your mind.

Unlike other improv groups (like Improdicks) they take the art of improvisation very seriously.

Larwood (level 4)

Demri-Burns (level 4)

Their two strongest performers – Marek Larwood and Dustin Demri-Burns – boast a Level 4 status. For tourists and people who don't attend regular improv nights this means they even improvise at weekends. Their weakest performer – Sophie Black – is only a Level 2 but is a girl which is why they keep her on. They are joined by New Zealander Jarred Christmas (level status tbc) who will see if he can keep up with his culturally superior counterparts.


I saw this show about four years ago.  It still lives within me. 

 

Day 186: The Beast of Bodmin

After a long weekend of eating and drinking without moderation, my run this morning is not impressive.  I heave myself round the park like an ancient and resentful labrador.  It is extraordinary the impact that just three days has had.  I believe I have a food hangover.  And that's not a euphemism for my belly (although I may start calling it exactly that).  I feel sluggish and listless and out-of-focus. 

I'm not suggesting for a minute that this is completely alien to my usual state.  I am frequently sluggish, listless and out-of-focus, but this has a different quality.  It feels chemical, like a come-down. 

Fortunately, I know how this plays out.  It will be considerably better by tomorrow morning, and by Thursday morning I should be back to normal.  In other words, just standard sluggish/listless/out-of-focus.  Not Taste The Difference.

I have just spotted a massive black cat in the garden.  Almost large enough to spark geographically inaccurate Beast of Bodmin rumours.  Thank goodness for the internet.  A search turns up many pictures of the B.O.B.  This is one of them.  From this picture I can make a positive identification.  The Beast of Bodmin is definitely in my back garden.   

What is the difference between a domestic black cat, and the Beast of Bodmin?  Not sure.  Probably a long weekend of eating and drinking without moderation. 

Day 185: X-Ray Specs

Covent Garden in the rain.  Undeterred, I am buying sunglasses.  They are Ray-Bans, and therefore stupidly expensive.  I pick them because they have magical properties.  There is a television screen in the store.  Look at it with the naked eye - nothing.  Blue fuzz.  Put on the special polarised glasses - a beach scene appears.  Take the glasses off - the beach disappears.  The sales assistant says something about filters, but I'm not really listening.  As far as I'm concerned, these are X-Ray Specs.  For real. 

Wearing these I will be able to see what lies beneath.  The TRUTH. 

Plus, of course, nudity.     

Spot dancing minceur Louis Spence on Langley Street.  Not wearing my X-Ray Specs, so I don't see him nude. Sometimes you don't need to see what lies beneath.

That being said, his clothes are so tight, I already can.

Day 184: Mouth Filth

For some time now I have been aware of the existence of wasabi chocolate.  I have circled it suspiciously in the supermarket.  I like wasabi.  I like chocolate.  But I don't entirely trust the combination.

I thought I would like chilli chocolate.  But I don't.  I think it is less than the sum of its parts.  The chilli makes the chocolate taste dingy, and the chocolate makes the chilli cardboardy.  Weird. 

I knew I would love salt chocolate.  And I do.  The salt simply makes the chocolate taste more chocolatey.  Surprising and brilliant. 

So I tried the wasabi today.  Not underwhelming, like the chilli chocolate.  Just WRONG.  Lovely peppery horseradish turns to bitter earth against the sweetness, with a sickly, stagnant pond aftertaste.  Both chocolate and wasabi lose in this battle.  No winners. 

One of the rare times I have actually spat chocolate out. 

Think it's relational.  A matter of with or against.  Chocolate and salt.  As opposed to chocolate versus wasabi.   

Day 183: Good Time Door

An invitation to a neighbour's long-mooted house-warming party.  It's been eighteen months in gestation, and frankly I don't have high hopes.  Troop round clutching bottle of wine, and expecting a a couple of drinks, stilted conversation, a handful of Twiglets and a speedy exit. 

Fast forward six hours, and it's half one in the morning.  Don't notice the time pass, fuelled by scandalous topics, jaw-dropping candour, high grade nibbles, and plentiful wine.  Much laughter.  Warm fudge cake and vanilla ice-cream.  And a TWO MINUTE walk home. 

The best times are those that present themselves without a fanfare.  Unexpected treasure.  Don't think you can cheat the odds by pretending that a planned event will probably be indifferent, hoping to engineer some magic.  You can't force it.  It doesn't work like that.   

Sometimes things just align, like a combination lock.  And the good time door springs open effortlessly. 

Hooray.

Day 182: Fishfingers

A knock on the door yesterday evening.  Perfectly timed to coincide with me having salmon hands (fishcake craft).  I open the door - there's a man with red hair and a matching rosette.  He looks startled.  I realise I am holding my fingers stiffly splayed - it probably looks odder than it feels. 

Rosette Man:  'Hello.  Voting for local elections is taking place this evening, up at the Jubilee Hall'.

Edward Salmon-Hands:  'Right.  I know the Jubilee Hall.'

(Awkward pause).

Rosette Man:  'I am the Labour candidate...'

Edward Salmon-Hands:  'Yes.  I guessed that from the rosette'.

(Awkward pause).

Rosette Man:  'Um...  Thank you for your time.'

(Exit) 

Ironic that the Labour candidate fails to put any labour into his efforts at all.  As he walks away into the rain, I am in half a mind to call him back.   'TELL me why I should vote for you!  INSPIRE me!  Come on, man - don't lose heart!  This is your CHANCE!'  But the fishcakes are calling, so I don't. 

I wonder why he didn't try harder.  Perhaps my hands put him off. 

Day 181: Magic Carpet

Another busy day, caught up in the detail of other people's very specific needs.  It's not until mid-afternoon that I actually remember what the date is.  Fifteen years ago today, my father died.

When something big like this happens, everything else is thrown into a different order.  Priorities change.  Day-to-day stresses are as insignificant as dandelion clocks, and as easily dispersible.  You sail above the quotidian on a magic carpet of higher cosmic significance.

This lasts for about two weeks.  Tops. 


My first experience with the carpet came after an accident that almost cost me my life.  On the day I was discharged from hospital, I drifted home, captivated by everything I saw.  Christmas lights, shopping crowds, the solidity and fumes of a London bus. 


I had been spared and everything was beautiful. 

As I say.  Two weeks.  Tops.  And then the normal order is restored. 

There's something to be said for magic carpet perspective, flying high above the trivial.  But the downside is that it's not truly connected to reality.  It is a detached overview.  A brilliant buffer - a comedown shock cushion.  But the real carpet of life isn't magic and floating and impermanent.  It's the dirty, knotty weft and warp of what's beneath our feet on a daily basis. 

Mine's a pub carpet.  One of those ones with a pattern that is 50% design; 50% accidental stains.  A few bald patches. 

And I think there might be something unspeakable in the corner.