Street Fighting Man

Something happened on Saturday that is still giving me pleasure. I am turning it over in my mind, and admiring it from every angle. I was walking home from town, past the back of the multi-storey car  park when I stumbled across a bit of argybargy.  The air was full of the odd nervy energy that a heated exchange between strangers generates. A stationary car was blocking the traffic, and the driver was standing in the road, all veiny and tense, shouting at a man on the pavement, who was doing his best to shrink into a laurel hedge. His hand-knitted jumper, beard and glasses proclaimed him as probably not the fighty sort. Pretty easy to guess the rough details of what had happened. I reckon Beardy-Knit had been trying to cross the road, and Blood Vessel, frustrated and tail-gating to get into the car park, had not let him across. The one thing that is definite is that BK called BV a wanker. BV wasn't happy about this, and for a few moments things looked like they would escalate. But BV had second thoughts, and turned to get back into his car. But he wasn't leaving without the last word. His final flourish?

'If my wife wasn't with me, I'd come over there and show you what a wanker REALLY is!'

I don't think he'd thought it through...

(No images for this entry. Use your imagination.)

Chameleons and Stars

This morning at Bank station a middle-aged businessman has collapsed. He is curled on the platform, pale and vulnerable, like a shell-less snail. A woman is stroking his arm and station staff are hovering with radios; paramedics are on their way. Everything is in hand, there is nothing I can offer. But as the tube slides out of the station, I can't get the image of his face out of my mind.

The actual chameleon .  The actual road. 

A week ago I was on a Greek island, reading, meandering and snorkelling. I stared at stars, counted bats and saw a chameleon cross the road (ten fantastic minutes of crazy chameleon gait, rocking backwards and forwards like a VHS tape on pause).

Readjusting to normality has been uncomfortable. But I can still read. The weather is pretty good at the moment, and I relish autumn anyway. No snorkelling or chameleons, sadly. But the thing I miss above all else is the soft freedom to be as I want; not having to please anyone else or dress a certain way. Not having to prove my worth. I couldn't sleep on Sunday night, facing a day at the Cabinet Office on Monday. Watched as the hours crawled by, knowing that I needed sleep to be on my game, and knowing that thinking like this would only push it further away. A dog resisting a bath.

Optional

I'm over the adjustment now. I can feel my shell growing back. And I think that's why the man this morning strikes me. On that busy platform, amidst the hard carapaces of suits and job titles and trolley bags, he is a moment of unguarded humanity, soft and exposed and real. I wish him well, and am grateful for the reminder that the shell is a choice.

More chameleons, stars and snorkelling. Actual and metaphorical.

Lord of the Ring

Today someone I know posts a video on Facebook.  Mobile phone footage that she'd taken of a Bey Dance workshop held in Edinburgh's Bristo Square, where members of the public were encouraged to join in and learn the moves of Beyonce's iconic routines. After the first few seconds, the framing closes in on a middle-aged man in a red t-shirt.  Dancing out of time, arms flying in contrary motion to the rest of the ensemble. The sniggers of the phone-wielder are the only commentary, as she invites us to join with her in laughing at this sad sap.

Except that's not how I feel. At all. I think this man is EPIC. He's lost in the moment, giving it his all, a single
lady right here and right now. I am angry that someone feels it was appropriate to film and share this footage. Observing but not participating. How many people would see this and think twice before running the risk of stranger-ridicule? Another step towards bull-shitty self-consciousness.

Hooray for this man. Long may we all dance badly and in public without a care. I like it. I put a ring on it.

Dead Poet

Disproportionately sad about Robin Williams. The gap between the experience of life and an onlooker's perception is so great. In the midst of the Fringe, I'm so aware of the need of every performer to connect with their audience - to be valued by them. Few performers can hope to connect or be valued as much as Robin Williams. Although that's the grail that most of us chase (performers or not), it appears that it's not enough when you get there. External validation doesn't quieten that insidious internal monologue.

I once heard Russell Brand say that he found peace when he performed, because the intensity of his connection with the audience and his material silenced the voice in his head.

To a greater or lesser extent, all of us have the voice. All of us. I don't understand its purpose. It achieves nothing positive - it is not us, and it is not accurate.

RIP.

Disrupted by Bertha

The weather is volatile. Thanks to the tail end of Bertha, there has been lashing rain, pinging hail, and skittish gusts of wind.  Dark vampire skies clear to strangely inappropriate sunshine. Minutes later the gloom returns. The whole business has churned up the sulky August torpor, and it's made me feel restless. Can't settle or focus. Unconstructive. As I type, I'm being distracted by the pigeon tree. Out of the corner of my eye I can see it waving in wild and extravagant swirls. For once, there are no pigeons.  Maybe they are preserving their dignity, as the tree is more bucking bronco than restful stoop.

A large moth is outside, bumbling at the window, desperately trying to
get in. What is a moth doing in daylight? And why is it trying to get in? The natural order is disrupted.

I am picking things up and putting them down and flailing about. Unlike the moth, I need to get out.

 

Don't Blame The Ball

The signs are there.  Some literal - the local PYO is displaying a board that reads 'Closed - End of Season', and the high street is full of 'Back To School' window stickers.  Some less so. On my run yesterday I noticed blackberries and fledgling conker cases.

Balls don't kill people.  Golfers do.

(I'm surprised I spotted these, given that I put on a turn of speed to get across the golf course as quickly as possible.  It's a public footpath, but dotted with sinister signs saying 'Beware of golf balls and golfers'*.  I am warier of the latter than the former.  Although a golfer without a ball is a paper tiger, unless you're within stick radius.  A ball without a golfer is entirely blameless.)

Everything's pointing to autumn.  Confusing because I have yet to go on holiday - fifteen days and counting. I will be coming back to mushrooms and jumpers.

Wrong. This is going to spin me out, man.  

Know your enemy

* I note there are no signs saying 'Careful - Public Footpath'. It's pretty clear who calls the shots round here. With a Big Bertha, no doubt.

Felled By Bow

Bow Fell.  I fell.

In early May I dislocated my finger. High up in the still-snowy folds of Bow Fell, I skidded on some loose shale, and caught my hand on an outcrop of rock. My finger looked so wrong that without thinking I snapped it back into position. It went numb and white and I thought I'd killed my own finger - bungling the relocation so badly that I'd cut off blood-supply and nerves. But before I'd had the chance to go down the gangrene-sets-in-and-the-finger-drops-off-before-you-can-get-to-a-hospital path, I started getting some feeling back. Pins and needles, and then a fair deal of pain - unpleasant but far more reassuring than numbness. Away from the fell-top cold, my finger swelled up like a sausage under the grill. The knuckle was blue-tinged, but with force it would still bend. So I reasoned it wasn't broken, and chose tea shop over casualty. Probably the closest I'm likely to come to cake or death.

Six weeks later, and it's pretty clear I should have chosen casualty. The finger is healing curled, so although I can bend it, I cannot straighten it. Belated visits to doctors and hospitals ('Why didn't you come earlier?'  'I thought it was only bent because of the swelling' etc etc). General medical consensus: my finger is fucked. Angry with self.

Go to physiotherapy in last ditch attempt to sort this out. Jermaine sucks his teeth, and makes me squeeze a tennis ball. He is surprised I've not been given a splint.

The Oval-8 - best in breed

I go online and buy a selection of splints. It's a three bears game - one is way too large; one is way too small, but one is just about right. Within days I can put my finger flat on the table. But unsupported for longer than a couple of minutes, my finger slowly starts to curl inwards again. So I leave the splint on.

Until earlier this week, when I lose it. Fear of finger curl drives me to force the small splint over my fat knuckle. Not easy or comfortable, but once on, this is a game-changer. It forces the swelling to go down and the finger to be ruler-straight.  

Why am I telling you this? Because you need to know that the best splint isn't always the most comfortable one. And that if given the choice of cake or casualty, you probably shouldn't choose cake.

Tender Tarmac

Winning vista

A Good Friday decision to spend Easter in the Peak District.  With spontaneity comes a dearth of accommodation, which leads to the unexpected.  A Spanish-themed hotel, located on a dual carriageway, opposite a 24hr Tesco?  Yes, thanks.  I enjoy the check-in process, especially when the receptionist asks 'Would you prefer a view of the dual carriageway or the car park?'

Tough question.  Both have merits, obviously.  Car park wins, but I can't pretend it's an easy choice.

Mam Tor.  A brute.

Hills and lambs and primroses and cowslips. And landslips. At the bottom of Mam Tor, the road just falls away into a yawning maw. Odd to see the authority of tarmac and white lines overruled by nature.

Owned by Mam

The earth has swallowed some parts completely, and crumpled others.  Like you might effortlessly screw up the foil of a Lindt bunny.*.

Thick chocolate (apparently)

Back at the hotel, I marvel at the tender beauty of the dual carriageway and the car park.  So fragile.

(* I use this as a random example, and not because I am the sort of person who would eat a Lindt bunny in its entirety, especially as it is common knowledge that the chocolate in the ear area is particularly thick, so this would make consuming a whole rabbit an act of immense greed.)  

Numan Intersection

I must face the sad fact that the season for Brussels sprouts is coming to an end.  Last night's candidates were sorry specimens, starting to yellow and soften.  I have late-onset enthusiasm for sprouts, having scorned them for years.  Hence the zeal - making up for lost time.

Over the weekend I watched a documentary about Gary Numan, 1980s electro-robot.  Like sprouts, he has never appealed to me.  Easy to dismiss and ridicule in his tin-foil and eyeliner.

I have changed my position.  I'd failed to understand how radically he influenced music.  I'd disregarded how heavily he's been sampled and covered.  And how fresh his old tracks still sound. Not softened, not yellowing.

There's a Venn within all of this.  You work it out.  I'm not going to spoon-feed you.

 

Perfume Ponce

Today reality imitates art as Richard E Grant officially becomes a 'perfumed ponce' with the launch of his first

Essence of Petunia

scent.  He's been busy with PR, and I've read several interviews detailing his life as an ardent nose - sniffing everything from old exercise books to narcissi.  As a fellow nose, I understand this.  I think I care about smell more than most. I have even broken off associations on the basis that someone smells wrong.  Not necessarily bad, just wrong. To me.  Similarly, I occasionally find people who smell right.  Not necessarily perfumed, just right.  To me.

Handily close

I am free for the first day in months, and the air is full of cherry blossom, magnolia and hyacinth.  Closer to the market, it's bacon - from the breakfast van that serves early morning rolls to the traders.  Frying bacon in fresh air always makes me think of Glastonbury - mingling with wood smoke and crushed grass and grass smoke.  Undercut by the impressive tang of the long-drops.  Pity the foolish virgins who think they've bagged a good spot, conveniently close to conveniences.  I love the pace of festival mornings, as people emerge bleary-eyed, croaky-throated, in search of tea.  I've no interest in boiling under nylon, so I'm up and out, watching the site come to life.  

No tickets this year.  Having to make do with an alternative.  Here's hoping it smells right.  Not wrong.       

Sideways Move

Reminded how much
I dislike Garfield.  Prick.

I am very much enjoying one of the neighbourhood cats. Overweight and exercise-shy, with plumy tail. The first time I saw him, he was eyeing the garden gate.  He concluded pretty quickly that there was no way in hell he would be jumping over, so he attempted to squeeze through the gap beneath.  Optimistic.

This cat crawls better

He ended up sprawled and pancaked, like one of those Garfield toys.  And stuck.  After fruitless failed-marine attempts at crawling, he turned on his side and bicycled wildly with back legs, slowly winning ground.

I've just spotted him again.  He doesn't even bother with considering a jump or a belly-down approach.  He has learned from experience, and now goes straight to his Heath Robinson sideways bicycle move.

If I had a cat, I'd want one like him.

Penalty Kicks

This morning the machine in the station car park greedily ate my £7.40 and refused to issue a ticket. Unsurprisingly I didn't have a further £7.40 in coins (cards not accepted; change not given - helpful), so I had to sprint to WHSmith to break a tenner. Missed my train. Stood on dank platform, £14.80 down and disgruntled.

Left a note with the station supervisor for the car park attendant. Not holding out much hope for action, but feeling that I had to make some attempt - however feeble - to right wrongs.

A long and tough day. Approaching my car, I see the unmistakable yellow of a penalty notice stuck to my windscreen. I must have been in such a rush this morning that I forgot to display the replacement ticket on which I expended so much time, energy and cash. This is turning into a parking fiasco.

Open the penalty envelope.

Inside is a voucher for a day's free parking.

Sprouts of Recovery

The last two weeks of March have been looming ominously in my calendar for some time.  I oversubscribed myself some time ago, past-me pimping future-me in multiple acts of meanness.  I am in the eye of the storm right now, but as the phrase suggests, it's calmer in the middle than on the edges.  One week down, one to go.  And (scratched record) the intent not to do this to myself again.  (Although experience suggests this is much like a teenage boy saying he will no longer look at online porn - ie laughable.)

I will eat all the sprouts.  All of them.

Spent yesterday wrangling an 'introverted' group (frequently - not always - an excuse for being as cuntishly inconsiderate as those who proclaim themselves to be 'forthright').  After all the necessary wheedling and coaxing, I had to lie on the floor to recover after they'd left the room.  Spent.  On the way home I dropped in on a friend.  She'd spent the day pottering and was just considering doing some meditation.  I feel I've taken a wrong path somewhere...

On the plus side, ROAST BRUSSEL SPROUTS!  A game-changer.  They - if nothing else - will get me through the next week.  Seriously.
   

Fathletic Prowess

Stop panicking, man

I've been banging on about this health assessment for some time. The results were far from expected. Turns out I have a heart rate that would make Hannibal Lecter look like he's suffering from an anxiety disorder. A stress-recovery response that puts me, hilariously, into the 'elite athlete' category. And a spine that could not score higher for regularity and flexibility.

Daisies before balls

Admittedly, I am hiding these Olympian gifts under a considerable and shameful blanket of blubber, but nonetheless they are there. And this is a revelation to me, and my sense of identity. I am the offspring of a fat father, and an asthmatic mother, and the currency in our house was words and music. So I trawled through the all the grades on piano and bassoon, and won awards for public speaking. I was fat, but so were all my family - and I accepted this as the natural order, picking daisies on the hockey field and staring blankly at any ball that came my way. It was almost a matter of pride that I was last choice for team selection.

With adulthood came the recognition that exercise was probably a good idea. So I started taking some, in a dutiful fashion. Never enthusiastically.

But now my feelings have changed. Who knew that I'd been hiding an engine like that under my shitty bonnet? Now I just want to know how fast I can go. This is better than a Viking hoard turning up on Antiques Roadshow.

We are not always who we think we are*.

(*Though would still ignore a ball if it headed in my direction.  So don't pick me for your team.)  

Stool Pigeon

Stools.  You owe me for this restraint.

As I mentioned last week, I am facing a health assessment. Part of which requires a 'stool' sample, which I harvested* this morning. There are more glamorous ways to start a day.

I think the experience has scarred me slightly. Wandering around H&M this afternoon and I become aware of the chorus of the bland R'nB track they're playing - 'Faeces in the crooo-wwwddd, faeces in the crooo-wwwddd.' I freeze by the leggings, half-sniggering, half-disbelieving, and wait for the chorus to come back round.

Realise that it's the strangled pronunciation that's misleading me. It's not 'faeces', it's 'faces'. Less of a bowel problem; more of a vowel problem.

Not a surprising mondegreen, though. Just a reminder that it's important where you put your focus at the start of the day. It can stay with you.

(*I am pleased by my choice of the word 'harvested' - it gives the whole procedure a bucolic glow.  All is safely gathered in etc).

No Jacket Required

Who knew?

Don't panic.  This is not a post about Phil Collins.  Just excited that I could wander around outside in
shirtsleeves.  An odd term, as you also need the front and back of the shirt, not just the sleeves - unless you wish to make a spectacle of yourself.

Today I have experienced that weird phenomenon where you decide that you are no longer interested in
something, and then that thing, whatever it is, starts dancing around in front of you (probably wearing nothing but shirtsleeves) turning somersaults and gurning for attention.

No.  Still no clearer.  Can you explain again, please?

I'm sure Brian Cox could explain it via quantum mechanics, but I wouldn't understand it any better if he did.
 
It is a test.  Do you give into the tiny dancing gurner, to the constant hem-tugging and gibbering?  Or can you tune it out, just enough to hear that small steady voice from deep within?

My dancing gurner comes with a full laser show, goodie bags and interval ice-cream.  No jacket though.  Not required today.

Not Getting Away With It

The temperature this morning disputes my belief that it is spring.  A good five minutes to scrape the hardest of frosts off the car.  Fingers still numb an hour later.

The sky is clear and blue, and the sun is bouncing off all the new gilding on Holborn Viaduct.  Dedicated runners pass me, huffing out cloudy breath, rucksacks of work clothes bouncing on their backs.  I retire to a coffee shop, to warm my teeth and fingers.

Still not completely back into my running. There's a new stabby pain beneath my right knee cap.  It's not serious, but it is a warning.  Last time I had knee issues, it felt like my knee cap was going to spring off, like one of those sucker toys.  Very unstable and weird.  I went through several packets of frozen peas and a lot of physio to sort it out.  Don't want the same again, so I'm going steady.

I'm just big-boned

Or that's my excuse anyway (nothing stopping me cycling or rowing, is there?).  I am being very sluggish in shifting the extra winter insulation. Next week I have a health assessment.  I will be weighed and measured and cholesteroled and blood pressured.  In my pants, goddammit.  I planned to have everything in hand by then - I thought the deadline would make me step up.  Interestingly, the closer the assessment comes, the more I find myself cracking out the toast in carb-based acts of rebellion.  I've always been a bit of a last minuter, as demonstrated by my eternal pre-Fringe writing panic.  A hairy week of weeping and pacing normally allows me to squeeze something out, and get away with it.

Cannot use the same approach for the health assessment.  Nowhere to hide when you're in your pants.

Oh, the shame.  The terrible, cringing shame.

Georgian By Choice

Too cool

I've had a week of contrasting environments. Last Friday I was at a big record label. Laconic, beardy, achingly cool - even with post-Brits seediness. Walls plastered with black and whites of pretty much every big star you could imagine. Floor to ceiling speakers.  Interesting lighting.

Too hot

On Tuesday, I was deep in the labyrinthine warren behind a massive supermarket. Stiflingly hot. No natural light. Endless corridors. Grey linoleum. Swing doors and lockers with stern notices - 'This area is often left in a disgusting state. Clean up after yourself'. Next to the lift, a poster titled 'Smile of the Week' - featuring snapshots of slightly happy staff.

Sort of cool/sort of hot.  Just right

Today I am in a Georgian mansion. Rooms with high ceilings, flooded with lights from huge windows, vast staircases (both wide and shallow). Staircases to glide up and down.  Staircases from which to make a Grand Entrance. If you shut your eyes you can almost hear the rustle of silk taffeta. The house is set in the middle of rolling park land, with old walled gardens (schwing), and a lake and a crumbling stable block.

Last Friday was a sleek showroom - tight and staged, effortful, impressive and slightly intimidating. Tuesday was bleak utility - the ugliness and grind behind the scenes. Today is peace and confidence. Nothing to prove. Nothing to hide. This place KNOWS it's beautiful.

Fallback Position

Ballsack

A crossword puzzle. I am faced with the conundrum of _ ALLBA_ _. My internal lexicon immediately offers up a solution: BALLBAGS. And now I'm seeing BALLBAGS, it's like I'm blind to any other possibility. But is this really likely on the MindGames page of The Times? Let's be rational and search for an alternative. Maybe, just maybe, the B is wrong. Which would leave me with _ ALL _ A _ _.

BALLSACK. This seems more feasible. It's the sort of down-to-earth term that Dr Christian would use on 'Embarrassing Bodies' to put a patient at ease. 'So Lee, I understand you're having problems with your ballsack?' Yes. Perfectly reasonable.

I'm about to ink it in when I realise, sadly, that the answer is FALLBACK. Not BALLBAGS. Not BALLSACK.

Of course, there is nothing to stop me writing the letters I want in those tempting spaces. Occasionally I choose to do this. The only bit I can manage in a cryptic crossword is the cross. They make me disproportionately angry. Like riddles and anything involving a man filling a bath with a dripping tap. But on a busy commuter train there is nothing I enjoy more that filling in a cryptic crossword at breakneck speed. With drivel and rude words. Particularly if I am respectably dressed.

1 Down - Spanish magistrate offers new deal after gangster gets caught (7)  PATATAS
51 Across - Move slowly, being at communion? (4)  ANUS
44  Down - Get very cold outside?  One needs shelter round start of evening. (3, 4) DOG LARD

To any competitive onlookers (and they do exist) I appear to be some kind of autistic savant.  Only those closest know the truth.

My fallback position is ballsack.  Always and forever.

Running In - Please Pass

Imagine with beard + overalls

Last week my car became due for its first proper service.  Not one of the silly intermittent one - which seems to be little more than an oil change and a flannel swiped round the privates.  For these I've been taking it to the dealership, in a scaredy-cat-not-wanting-to-risk-the-warranty's-validity way.  It's now out of warranty, but the dealership contacted me, so I asked for a quote anyway.

When they told me the price, I laughed, and then retched, and then laughed again.  Then I rang the local garage up the road.  I told the chief mechanic what the dealership had quoted me and he laughed drily.  'They would, wouldn't they?' he dead-panned, like a bearded Mandy Rice-Davies.

And with that, I woke from my dealership enchantment, slashed my way out of the forest of complimentary key fobs and showroom Nespresso, and came to my senses.  Back where I belong, in the garage up the road, where nobody raises an eyebrow at the tooth I've lost from my front grille, or the scuffs on my wheel arches.  Was going to get these fixed, but quite frankly they're the only thing that stops my car looking like Noddy's runaround.  Know who you are.  Know where you belong.

Anyway, I'm back.  And the title of this post is not actually about my car, but more about this blog.  I've been SORN for a long time - there's rust on my brake discs, corrosion on my exhaust system and a great deal of bird shit on my bonnet.

Nothing that a road trip and a flannel can't sort.

Good to be back.