Day 368: Mozart and Mother T

At Oval tube, classical music is playing, and there is a board prominently displaying the station's 'Thought For The Day'.  It's one of Mother Teresa's.  'Every time you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing.' 

Butch

Sundance

Classical music soothes the soul - it's good for your health.  And inspirational quotes are useful (albeit often sickly). 

So why do I find this so disturbing?  

Well, it's rather like coming into a room and smelling both disinfectant (good for your health) and air freshener (useful - albeit often sickly).  You know there's a reason.  Someone has vomited.   

There's a thread of tension running tight behind the music and the thought board.  I suspect there must be some uncivilised dark shit going on at Oval tube to require the double-barrels of Mozart and Mother T.     

Unnerving - but it's but good to see someone taking direct action to affect their environment.  A friend of mine lives in a block of flats in Tufnell Park.  People used to regularly piss in the lifts.  So she started cleaning them.  Every day.  Swabbing them out with floral disinfectant.  It took about six months, but eventually the pissing stopped.  A well-cared-for environment creates better behaviour.

As I type this I survey the wreckage of my dining room. 

Off to piss in the cutlery drawer.   

Day 367: An Album Party

Double thumbs up indeed

Delighted to hear that Susan Boyle's Twitter tag for her record launch is #susanalbumparty.

Could this get any more camp?  Susan Boyle (underdog triumphs against the odds, has eyebrows waxed and hedge hair trimmed to emerge, with strong overtones of tragi-tranny, as the living embodiment of 'I Will Survive') plus a seemingly unintended bum-glorious double-entendre.

Two questions.  1) Was this deliberate?  2) How long before G.A.Y celebrate by hosting a tribute party?

Answers:  1) Yes. No. I don't know. That is why this is so BRILLIANT.  2) Invites probably already circulating.  

Day 366: Reasonably Priced

A day that has been looming in my diary for some time.  Two jobs - one in the City, one in Reading - with not as much time as I'd like to get between the two.  But both are sufficiently financially compelling that I'm prepared to run/panic/take a gamble that all trains will behave. 

Amazingly, they do.  But on the way home, the Bakerloo line is very moody, stopping sulkily at each station for prolonged minutes with the doors shut.  It's rammed and stuffy, and there is a woman behind me yapping loudly and sharply elbowing me in the back.  I do not like her.  Nor do I like the man in front who is leaning on the pole that I am trying to hold onto.  He shifts to full body contact with the pole, which is nestling unpleasantly in the groove between his arse cheeks.  To accommodate his full body lolling, I've had to move my hand up high.  And then he throws his head back and his hair TOUCHES MY HAND!  This is disproportionately horrible.

Most days I would take direct action in cases of aggressive personal-space violation.  Today I live with it.  It seems like a small price to pay for a day that could have backfired horribly but didn't. 

The hair business is pushing it though...

Day 365: Musical Veg

Ludgate Hill.  A restaurant with a board outside (see right).  Yes.  A MELODY of vegetables.  Two possibilities here.  The first is that this is meant to read 'medley'.  The second is that this is a flagrant attempt at reframing vegetables in a new and more appealing light.  Either possibility is good - but I really hope the second one is the true one. 

It wouldn't be the first time mixed veg have been rebranded.  As in 'Panache of Vegetables'.  This is where the veg is not boring at all, but flamboyant and dashing, and probably wearing velvet and a green carnation.  (AKA gay West End veg.) 

A 'Melody of Vegetables' is where, again, the veg is not boring at all, because it sings to you.  Like Gareth Malone or Katherine Jenkins.  (AKA family-friendly veg.)

Musical veg.  I want this taken further.  Give me a Descant of Peas.  A Madrigal of Broccoli.  And a Potato Basso Profundo.   

Just One Veg
Singing in the darkness,
All it takes is One Veg,
Shout it out and let it ring.
Just One Veg,
It takes that One Veg,
And every Veg will sing!

Day 364: Lights On

Today the Christmas lights are switched on in St Albans.  The High Street has been closed off, and turned into a small funfair, with rides, and stalls selling mulled wine and German sausages.  Anticipation grows as the cast of 'Aladdin' (Alban Arena) jump up and down on a make-shift stage, stoking the atmosphere with an unbearably exciting countdown.  'Three!  Two!  One!'  And... nothing. 

Then sarcastic whooping and slow hand-claps - the traditional British response to any public humiliation.  Techies start scuffling frantically in civic fuse boxes.  About five seconds later the lights decide to play ball.  Good-natured, and genuine applause. 

This wouldn't have been half as much fun if the lights had worked straight away. 

I wonder if 'Aladdin' will have as much dramatic tension? 

 

Day 363: A Proper Job

A gig in Islington.  As I arrive, things are starting to get nasty.  The room is full to capacity, and there are people arguing with the compere, making their case for why they should be allowed in (they've been queuing for hours, their friends are already in, other people pushed in front of them).  There's a tense edge.  Not the most conducive atmosphere for comedy. 

Happily, I'm wrong.  As often happens when a gig is ill-starred.  There are laughs in the all the right places.  Even the impassive man in the front row (there's always one) eventually cracks. 

Good to walk away at the end of the night, knowing that you did a proper job. 
 

Day 362: Sticking Point

No

Children In Need.  A great cause, but it's hard to get past a) Terry Wogan and b) Pudsey (particularly in his new urban 'Street Dance' incarnation.   

No.  Not at the end of a long week. 

No.

Day 361: Spoons not Spooks

Season of mists.  No mellow fruitfulness.  At least, not down by the Thames at Blackfriars.  Sepia river banks, and shadowy bridges rise out of heavy-hanging fog.  It doesn't take much of a leap to imagine mudlarks picking through the silt. 

Or the body of Roberto Calvi, hanging from some scaffolding, his pockets stuffed with bricks and cash. 

In the gloom of an early November morning, there's an air of shrouded secrecy to the river, winding deep and opaque through the heart of the city.  There's nobody around and I suddenly get spooked.

Beat a hasty retreat to a cafe.  It is misty with steam, and fruitful with coffee. 

No spooks here.  Just spoons.   

Day 360: Pig Bag

Resistant pig

The wheel bearings in my laptop trolley bag are so worn that they've started sticking and squealing.  It's like dragging a dead weight.  Or taking a resistant pig for a walk.  I don't think you're meant to do serious mileage with one of these.  It's probably just for 'executive'-style transfers between taxi and luggage rack.  Not for cross-country.  I did once wheel this over Wimbledon Common, which was unpleasantly tussocky and heavy-going. 

In addition to the squealing, there's a grating noise.  Probably because I am driving on the rims.  I've got no tread left. 

Different pig.  More biddable. 

Might get away with this on the back streets around King's Cross.  But in Canary Wharf I am drawing looks - a mixture of incredulity, pity and embarrassment.  Let us not forget that Canary Wharf is the sort of place where people have a man clean their shoes at lunch time, while they make phone calls.  People do not have bags that complain and squeal.     

The squeaky wheel gets the grease, according to the proverb.  Not so.  The squeaky wheel gets the boot.  Time for a brand new pig bag.  A less resistant one.   

Day 359: Michael Hutchence - Who He?

Today I realise quite how young my group are.  We are talking about those MTV-style interviews, where presenter and celeb are disingenuously lolling around on a bed, because they are all casual and hip.  I mentioned the precursor to these - Michael Hutchence being interviewed by predatory Paula Yates on The Big Breakfast.  I am greeted with blank looks from all present.  'I don't know who either of those people are' explains one. 

The infamous interview I refer to (Paula approaching flirtation like a lumberjack closing in on a tree) happened in 1994.  Eighteen years ago.  When the suited and booted group in front of me were four or five, and probably hooked on Teletubbies.  Weird. 

I'm still surprised, though.  In my early twenties I knew about people like Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix - even though they were dead before my time.  We lived in a smaller, slower world.

Today we value instancy and disposability.  In our photos.  Our food.  And also our cultural figures.    

"There must be some kind of way out of here,"
Said the joker to the thief,
"There's too much confusion,
I can't get no relief.

Ah, Jimi.  Dead for over forty years, but still relevant*.  If only the kids knew who you were, dude. 

(* I know, I know - technically Bob's song, but spiritually/musically owned by Jimi). 

Day 358: Raindrops On Roses

A terrible drive home.  There has been a massive fire at a local recycling plant, which means road closures all around St Albans.  Traffic destined for two major roads is being diverted through the narrow chariot tracks of the town centre.  Gridlock and road rage abounds. 

About to seriously lose patience myself, but am cheered up no end by Barry Cryer on 'I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue'.  He is lugubriously singing the words of 'My Favourite Things' to the tune of Chopin's Funeral March.  Actually laugh out loud at the radio.  And then I don't feel so bad. 

A few years ago I met Barry Cryer at the Edinburgh Festival.  He was incredibly open and relaxed and funny.  I liked him immediately.  Today he is one of my favourite things. 

Try it.  It's good:-

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens
Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens
Brown paper packages tied up with strings
These are a few of my favorite things

Day 357: Bra Lies

Passing by suburban stalwart Ann Summers, I notice this arresting poster in the window that exhorts you to TELL LIES (BOOST YOUR BUST). 

Yes.  Bra lies.  But we all know what happens to people who lie.  They get found out.  In this case, the minute the bra hits the floor and the LYING BUST is revealed in its flaccid shame.  Then the recriminations:- 

'I can't believe this, Beverley!  You've LIED to me with your TITS.  What next?  Have you boosted your hips? 

'Don't overreact, David.  You know that hips don't lie.  Shakira says so.'

'If tits can lie, so can Shakira.  And so can hips.  The trust is gone.  Goodbye, Beverley.'

(This could happen.  Seriously.)

Interesting that recent studies show a correlation between lies and low self-esteem.  The more lies you tell, the shittier you feel about yourself. 

You could do what the poster says.  TELL LIES (BOOST YOUR BUST).  Or instead you could just TELL THE TRUTH (BOOST YOUR SELF-ESTEEM). 

Day 356: Gryphon Gallstones

An afternoon spent nosing around the Hunterian Museum.  Jars containing otherworldly specimens, bleached and buoyed by embalming fluid.  A baby kangaroo, white and hairless - a dead ringer for Lewis Carroll's Mock Turtle.  The internal organs of 'A Siren' - as the label breezily reads.  I have no frame of reference for 'a Siren' other than the mermaidy one.  Begin to suspect that the Hunterian is a portal into a fictional world.  A suspicion which is only reinforced by the vision of the 'Skeleton of a Giant'.  What next?  Dragon pancreas?  Gall stones of a gryphon?   

It's a fascinating and unnerving place.  I love it - but it's not for everybody.  There are bits of people's faces.  Dead babies.  Twisted skeletons.  Seventeenth century veins, arteries and nerves - stripped out, dried and pasted onto wooden boards.  Delicate tracery that looks like relief carving.  So strange to think of a life that once ran strong through these brittle spidery webs. 

Upstairs there's a more modern bit.  There are video loops of surgical procedures.  As chance would have it, I am treated to a show of the very operation that saved my life.  I see the scalp being peeled back, the holes being drilled in the skull, a bone plate being removed, so the brain is accessible.  My fingers involuntarily seek out the dents left by the holes, the plate ridges, the long jagged scar that when pressed causes a nerve below my left shoulder blade to jump.  I'd always wondered exactly what happened.  Now I know. 

Through Soho up to Oxford Circus.  The Christmas lights are on.  This year they have a new sponsor.

Marmite lights.  Not for everybody. 

Rather like the Hunterian. 

Day 355: Turmericity

  I have finished a jar of turmeric.  In advance of the 'best before' date.  Does this make me unnatural?  (Aren't spices meant to go out of date?  Like most people, I've got some mace from 2006).  I don't know anybody else who eats that much turmeric. 

Turmeric isn't the only thing that disappears fast.  I can get through a jar of horseradish with indecent speed.  I will also eat mustard straight from the jar. 

My latest find it Chipotle Tabasco.  I like to shake it onto the back of my hand, and lick it off.  Try before you judge.  A smoky fiery slap that'll perk you up instantly.  

Anything with heat (mustard, wasabi, chilli) is addictive - that's well-documented.

But turmeric?  Niche.   

Day 354: The Metaphor Continues

Today my laptop dies again. I am with a new client - groovy canal-side warehouse offices, pool tables and street clothes, but an underlying sense of control-freakery and tension.  The woman doing the organising panics.  A lugubrious IT man is summoned.  He calls it, and pronounces time of death.  And does not disguise the pleasure this brings him.     

I get home, and do the 'fix' suggested to me last week by the man at PC World.  The laptop turns back on.  All is fine.  I believe in the power and the glory of 'static build up'.  Amen.

Then it goes again.  I have not rubbed the laptop with a balloon, or carried it whilst shuffling around on a nylon carpet.  I'm not even touching it.   

I have lost faith in the power of the 'fix'.  I should have known, as the clue is in the name.  It is just that - a 'fix'.  A short term answer to a far bigger problem.  The temporary relief allows you to kid yourself that everything is sorted.  It isn't.  And the 'fix' is needed on an increasingly regular basis.  What was intermittent now becomes weekly.  Daily.  Hourly. 

Back to PC World.  This time I want a replacement.  Or a radical repair.  I do not want another 'fix'.  I've got junk, but I'm not a junkie.  As The Killers might say. 

 

Day 353: Mind Your Language

In my groups today I have people from America, China, Turkey, India, Norway, Sweden, Germany, France, and Russia.  The topic is personal brand. 

China explain that he is uncomfortable with considering the self, and that every strength is also a weakness.  He goes on to add something very poetic about duality and the dark side/light side of every element.  (I feel like arranging flowers simply and banging a gong as a dragon enters.) 

Sweden references Ikea (seriously), and smiles a lot.  Continually.  If he is the light side of the Scandi coin, his neighbour, Norway, is the dark side.  Dry and sardonic and wintry.   

India talks cricket.  Fast.  America has great dental work and a positive approach.   Turkey is emotional and voluble.  Germany and Russia argue.  France goes out to make a phone call. 

Why do I feel like I'm part of a terrible 1970's sitcom? 

Day 352: Limelight

Foolish young lime

I have lost a lime.  I know I bought one, because I remember weighing it, and putting it in my bag.  Maybe it made a bid for escape on the way to the car.  Maybe I'm turning into a 'character' and I've put it somewhere ridiculous (fridge/under my pillow/sock drawer).  The issue is that I am in the middle of making a Thai green curry.  Limelessness is not an option. 

Experienced lime

In the fridge, I find the ancient corpse of a long-dead lime buried deep in the silt of the salad crisper.  Exhumed, it is an ugly sight.  Dull and leathery skin spotted with pestilent buboes.  I cut it and lick the surface cautiously (as all great chefs do).  The Spirit of The Lime remains!  I squeeze it quickly, before it has a chance to pass to the other side. 

Time Lime Team

A lime bought back from the brink.  A last chance.  A starring role. 

I cannot tell you how much joy this brings me.  Later I find the errant younger lime rolling around in the boot of the car.  I have placed it carefully in the salad crisper, where it can become older and wiser. 

 

Day 351: Bladder Kicking

Today is the first day that feels properly, winterly short.  I'm in a building in one of those crooked cobbled City backstreets, and by half three the afternoon light is fading.  In the gloom it's easy to imagine this old lane in bygone eras.  This is something I do a lot - all over the place, but particularly in the City.  Today it's a toss-up between medieval guild apprentices, kicking a pig's bladder through straw and shit, and the decorous promenading of Regency couples, all poke bonnets and buckskin breeches. 

Guild apprentices win, as I follow the imaginary bladder through the streets to the station.  The journey home is peppered with fireworks,  My hands are crabbed with cold.  I am wearing a poppy.  Yes, it is November

I realise that this it is a year since I started writing this.  Not really of any relevance, but I feel I should say it.  There is no plan or point to this blog.  It does not lead to the station. 

I'm just kicking the bladder around.   

Day 350: I Want You, Back

Wake to heavy rain, and the need for a Sunday paper.  Which means braving the heavy rain to walk up to the shops.  Normally I would nimbly dodge between the rain drops, but today my back still so immobile that I am shuffling like a pensioner, and making involuntary 'ooouff' noises. 

I convince myself that the walk will loosen things up.  It doesn't.  As I stiffly hobble across the road to the newsagent, I anticipate but am not fast enough to avoid the sheet of water kicked up by an impatient car.  Soaked in a mixture of rain-water, WKD and teenage vomit (we're right outside St Albans' premier 'nite spot'.)  Bad.  But a clear-cut opportunity for some classic fist-shaking.  Good.  

I can't wait for my back to return to me.  I will bend extravagantly.  Unnecessarily.  I will twist and lift, carelessly.   I will revel in the luxury of taking it for granted again. 

Whatever I said, whatever I did, I didn't mean it
I just want you, Back, for good.

Day 349: Animal, Vegetable, Mineral

Who he?

In the supermarket the lad behind the till looks baffled, as my shopping travels towards him.   

Till Boy:  What is this?

Me:  A leek.

Till Boy:  A what?

Me:  A leek.  (Pause)  You're not a veg man, then?

Till Boy:  No...

(Time passes.  He's pretty proficient at scanning stuff with barcodes - cheese, oil etc.  Then we get to a bulb of garlic.  He puts it on the scales, and I see the lack of confidence.)

Me:  Garlic.

Till Boy:  Oh...  What's the difference between garlic and onion?

Me:  Same family.  Different taste. 



(Quite excited by this level of interest - could it be a turning point?  Will I be a vegetable Professor Higgins to his non-veg Eliza Doolittle?  I warm to my task.)

 

Me:  Also related to leeks.  All alliums.  (Then I catch his eye.)  Have you entered it as an onion?

 

Till Boy:  Yes.  It's coming up as 5p.  Is that OK?

 

Me:  I'm fine with it, if you are.

 

Know them

(Exit with criminally underpriced garlic bulb throbbing guiltily in my bag.)

I think it's fair to say that he does not know his onions. 

Day 348: Parable Overload

Laptop issue solved.  A 'static build-up' is the culprit, caused by proximity to a negatively-charged surface.  Apparently. 

Not powerless.  Too much absorbed energy of the wrong kind.  Trapped and leading to a malfunction.

Simple answer is to force a complete shut down, and then remove the battery.  Reinsert, switch on, equilibrium restored. 

I hear you.  Loud and clear.  Now please stop parabling me.

Day 347: Metaphorce Feeding

Powerless

Today my laptop refuses to boot up.  The power light is flashing, although everything is plugged in correctly, so I wonder if the cable is totalled.  I try a spare one.  Still no joy. 

Dust off the back-up laptop (again).  With a crank of the propeller, and the chocks removed, it gamely sputters into life.  Although I have to balance it on a couple of paperbacks to allow for undercarriage ventilation.  Only simple tasks can be undertaken.  Anything more triggers a terrible whining noise, which heralds an abrupt and non-negotiable shut-down.   



Pointless

Building on yesterday's metaphors, I realise I am now both spineless AND powerless. 

What will tomorrow bring?  Do I own a boat that could, perhaps, lose its rudder? 

There's one thing it will bring for sure.  A trip to PC World. 

Hooray.   

Day 346: Straws And Camels

Relentless in Milton Keynes.  A succession of rain, roundabouts, hotel coffee, and a steady stream of participants on back-to-back, overscribed sessions.  Barely time to wee, and no time to eat.  By the end of the day I am catatonic. 

Home to the receipt of some materials.  Incomplete, ill-considered, not fit-for-purpose.  For Monday, FFS.  When I will be either a) wearing the shame or b) using everything I have to get away with it.  Neither is a feel-good option, but in many ways, b) is the worst.  It's the one that comes at the greatest personal price, sucking up a huge amount of energy and leaving an unpleasant aftertaste.  Feel desolate inside.  Sleep does not come easy. 

Overnight, for the second time in my life, my back spasms.  I am left gingerly, carefully rigid.  This is not normal for me.  I have a strong back, and am pretty robust physically. 

After a day in Milton Keynes

Interesting that at the point where I reach a perceived limit mentally, my body decides to give me notice physically.  My friend Andrew would say that I am acting out.  Straws, camels, backs.  Loss of backbone.  Any number of metaphors. 

Appreciate the reminder.  When I get a physical note-to-self, I know that I've gone too far. 

Duly noted.