the domesticated bohemian

Train Journeys

noreply@blogger.com (Philip) — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 12:25:00 +0000

York Railway Station

In a way, this is simultaneously every journey back to Hartlepool I've ever made. The scenery outside the window is familiar. I recognise certain fields, certain groups of trees that stand watching the trains slide by, as they have done for the last twenty five years. I trace time through fairly marginal changes to the landscape. Some of the fields have new looking buildings, and there seems to be a renaissance of free range pig farming.

I can feel that the train whips through the countryside a little quicker than it used to, but the people on the train are more or less the same. Until you start to look a little more closely. Despite the fact that I'm on the Newcastle train, there are precious few Geordie accents. There used to be a lot more ex-pat Geordies on the trains. Usually young men who had secured a manual labour job in or near London. Instead I hear a couple of foreign accents, which previously were a rarity, and even the Train Guard is French. Perhaps he got on the wrong train at Kings Cross. Another new thing is the dominance of the familiar, glottal stop ridden, Estuary English. The ugliest accent in Britain. This used to be a London thing but has spread northwards and seems to have reached as far as the midlands.

I've done this journey, or variations on it, many times. From Coventry, from Leicester, from Greenwich and other bits of London, and finally, most recently, from Kent. This train track has borne witness to my life. In the past we were close friends, regular companions. Of late, it's more "Hello stranger, long time no see." It's a long enough journey to have time to reflect without being so long as to slip into negativity.

The Cloudmakers of Ferryhill

One of my least favourite journeys was a long time ago, when my mother fell ill. It didn't look good, and I had to jump on a train and head north. I was frozen in time, my brain was ice as the train relentlessly ploughed through the dark. I knew she was dying, I just knew it. The train went through periods when it felt oddly stationary, as if a crowd of film technicians were whizzing the scenery past the window. It felt like days. I took a half bottle of whisky along to try and calm myself down. I drank almost all of it, but my nervous energy seemed to just burn it all off, and I arrived stone cold sober.

I've struggled for many years to describe those days I watched my mother cling on to life. Having considered all the possible forms of words, I've decided that only one word will do. Shattering.

We weren't particularly close. Like a lot of sons and mothers, the passage to adulthood was accompanied by an increasing emotional, as well as geographical, distance. But seeing a parent teetering on the thin line between life and death was unbearable. I felt that the world was being needlessly cruel to her.

I'm not sentimental about these sort of events, I won't paint this as a personal tragedy, but it was hugely formative and meaningful. After a particularly short reply from a doctor, my poor frazzled brain couldn't take any more, and I was set on punching him till others intervened.

Let her go. Let her go. Let her go.

Laid there in intensive care with tubes and wires hanging out of various bits of her body, her time had come and she'd had enough. There was one day that she was conscious, and she rolled her eyes as if to say "That's enough now. No more."

The reason for my journey this time was to do with another parent. My friend Ian's Dad, George. He'd died aged 84. I'd gone up to pay my respects and give what support I could. Going up to Hartlepool is always odd. I asked someone who wasn't from there to describe the place, and the word she used was "Stuck". I asked her to explain and she said "It's like the 1970's. But not the good bits."
I know what she means. As I walked round the streets there was hardly any change from when I was a kid. Many of the houses and shop fronts looked much as they had for many, many years.

The house that George lived in for something like 50 years looked almost exactly the same as the day I first walked into it, which must be at least 30-35 years ago. The external woodwork was painted black. The door is now a creamy beige colour, but the doorframe and all of the windowframes are black. I've never understood why anyone would want to keep their house painted black for decades on end and never change it once, not once, in any of those decades.

But there were other elements of the house which were comfortingly familiar. The furniture was reassuringly the same, and curiously the most familiar thing was the temperature. They'd never fitted central heating, and the upstairs was consequently as cold as whatever it was outside. But downstairs was so hot that it was like they were trying to hatch something. The heat came from the kitchen, from an Aga type thing. This was where me and Ian used to sit and talk during our teenage years, often until dawn.

After the funeral itself, I ended up stood in that kitchen, drinking whisky. I looked out of the familiar large sash window, with its wonderfully wobbly original glass still very much present in those four gorgeous panes. As I did so it occurred to me that I hadn't been out to the garden yet. George was a proper gardener, mainly vegetables. The thought of being here without going into the garden would be entirely wrong. In the end I went out there and watched George's grand-daughters Georgia and Jess racing to and fro. The ground was recently turned. He might have been 84 but he'd obviously kept on top of things. Once I was in the garden, I knew what I had to do before I left that day. I had to pay one last visit to George's shed. I've never been over the threshold and didn't on this occasion either. This was his territory not mine. But as I opened the door and looked around I could certainly feel his presence. The kids sunbleached photos on the shelf, the regimented jars of screws and nails, everything in it's place. Treasured tools hung from hooks all around, and liquids probably banned decades after he'd purchased them. There was his mobility scooter which he used outside as his walking wasn't great, and rather oddly the bright lights that he had to use indoors due to his failing eyesight, placed here so people didn't trip over them when they came back to the house. There were even a few parsnips on the bench. He must have pulled them out of the ground just days before he died. When I think of him, I'll think of him here, fiddling about with something or other, glad to be in his element.

The next day I was back on that train, wondering what the next northward journey might bring.

George's Shed

Charlie

noreply@blogger.com (Philip) — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 21:14:00 +0000

You'll see that on the top bit where you can select different pages I have one labelled "Charlie" the award. Back in late 2010 one of my favourite bloggers announced he was too unwell to continue his blog. He thought his end was near at that point, but as it happens he continued to periodically post, and kept going for more than a year. I emailed him and explained that I thought it was rubbish that people had to wait till after death for proper tributes. I told him I wanted to set up a sort of blogging Oscar. The "Charlie". Not to be given out like confetti, but only to things that are genuinely top class, in line with the criteria you can find on that page. I have awarded three since then. Go read the bits of writing that won them on the tab at the top, they are each unique and brilliant.

He died yesterday. I went to his blog today and left a comment. I was doing ok till I remembered he wouldn't be replying. I shed a tear for my friend Charlie. Charlie was witty, caustic, warm, and wise. His slowing down over the last couple of years was very sad, but does not in any way erase my memory of the sharp witted man I knew. Genuinely funny, he'd make me laugh out loud (and not in a facebook way). Genuinely loving, he'd make my heart glow with his love for Martha.

He leaves a big gap for lots of us bloggers who value the expression of truth, of feeling, of wit, and of love. He was so much better than so many of those blogs with bejillions of followers with people just spreading banal horseshit round the internet.

Please go and read his blog. Dip into the archive, read his "Best Lectures". It seems only right that I should award the 4th "Charlie" to the man himself.

He gets the award for this post, which at time of publication left me wet faced, Whispering To Martha .

After you have read that come back here and click on this Swan Song .

I don't believe in god, or an afterlife. But if I'm wrong, I look forward to laughing my arse off, whilst sat chatting on a cloud. With the one, the only, Charlie Callahan.

Decades

noreply@blogger.com (Philip) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 14:57:00 +0000

The tray that sits inside it needs a repair. The handle on the left hand side of the tray has come away, so I can't easily lift the tray out anymore. I have to grab the edge and try to lift the whole thing.

The body of the box itself is in fine shape of course. It was built to last, made of solid oak, half an inch thick, with good brass hinges. The box was bought in Greenwich, in an antiques shop. The tray was fitted a year or so later by Michael Turner. He was an old school kind of a man, he could turn his hand to most things. He crafted a tray to sit in the upper half of the box, made small wooden handles with which to lift it, and carefully applied wood-stain to achieve a perfect colour match to the box itself. It was an act of kindness and generosity.

That all seems a lifetime ago. I guess it was about 18 years ago. I always wanted to grow up to be one of those men with a small number of truly treasured objects, the kind of things that you carry through life, till the end of your life. Apart from my oak box I also have my my dad's box (which you can read about here). He used to store miscellaneous crap in his box. And now I seem to have one of my own. Mine serves as a solid oak toiletries box. It's about eighteen inches long, eight tall, and six wide, with a big brass handle at either end.

As I say, I always wanted to grow up to be one of those men who has such things, and it seems it has crept up on me.

I feel that a part of me is still the seventeen year old, planning what sort of a man he should be, watching James Stewart movies and learning. But here I am. I was forty six last weekend. I seem to have collected these little treasures without noticing.

I've got my radios. One in every room, including an old Sanyo from the 1950's that cost me 5p in a jumble sale. The box I've already mentioned. Then there's the old toy car that I've had since I was probably four or five. Good grief, that's over forty years. A battered old yellow E Type Jaguar, repainted, scratched and damaged, without its bonnet and with a wheel or two out of line, it's the closest I'm likely to come to owning a car.

Of course the reason I'm surrounded by these things is that I appear to have become an old bloke.

There's no escaping the fact. In my day job I come across people's dates of birth on a regularly, if not hourly, basis. There are adults who were born in 1994. I was born considerably before that. So, we've got the just under 20's who were born in the 1990's, the 20-30s who were born in the 1980's, and you've got the 30-40's who were born in the 1970's. Then you have the people like me, born in the 1960's. You get a fair few of most of the above. But, I'll tell you what, I don't come across many born in the 1950's. Which, frankly, concentrates one's mind. If I'm going to achieve anything I better get a move on.

Of course the thing about living through my fifth decade is that I am a bit more relaxed about it all. "Comfortable in my skin" is the saying isn't it? Well I've never been that. I have too many allergies. But I know what that phrase is getting at. I'm much more relaxed when talking to people, and people increasingly seem to open up to me.

Just the other day I was walking down an unlit road in Shoreham with someone who I only know a little bit.

"We are in the Milky Way." She said. "Our galaxy has something like 400 billion stars. Which is amazing enough." I looked up at the night sky and watched them appear in front of my eyes. She continued. "But there are at least 100 billion galaxies in the universe. Once you start to think about it, it makes your head spin."

I learnt yesterday that my lifelong friend Ian had lost his father, George. He had died suddenly of a heart attack. He'd reached a fair old age, but it is of course still a shock. George was a big Fats Waller fan and would treat us to some stride piano now and again. Years later Ian recorded him doing so. He put it on a compilation CD for me. Suddenly that CD has become something of a treasure. An instance of family joy that they'll have forever and that I'm lucky enough to be let in on.

I'll try and go to the funeral when it's arranged. I'll stand next to Ian. He has less hair than he used to, I have all of mine but it's flecked with grey and silver nowadays. I'll remember his dad talking to us scathingly about music, or those fantastic moments when we came across him listening to Ian's Nick Cave and New Order records and described them as "Not too bad."

I'll particularly recall his vegetable growing, since I do a bit of that myself. I'll remember the annual cycle of him planting, harvesting, drying and storing the onions. I'll think of him next time I do the same, and I'll look forward to the cycle of the coming seasons, and I'll settle in to the rolling motion of the decades.

Crumple Zone - A Story

noreply@blogger.com (Philip) — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 20:09:00 +0000

I'd known her for years by the time of the accident of course. We'd not exactly grown up together, but we'd gone through the dividing line between child and adult, side by side, shoulder to shoulder. Kindred spirits, both of us freaks, in a relatively freak free zone. I met her when I was 14 and she was a classic tom boy. She joined in the footie at lunchtime and had, frankly, been better than me. We got on alright then, but had grown apart by the time we got to 16. Then punk kicked in.

I remember that night in the pub really well. I'd been sat in the corner with a half of lager glaring over at the New Romantic boys who lived behind the park. I thought they were pretentious. With hindsight both me and they were pretty ludicrous. One of them had come to the pub dressed as Lawrence of Arabia. It was the same night I'd decided to wear my ripped up, and put back together, T shirt, and my jeans turned inside out. My hair was crazy messy, bit spiky, and a bit in need of a wash. This girl had come in with peroxide blonde hair á la Debbie Harry. I was entranced. Then I had a rush of recognition and realised it was Emily, my former schoolyard football teammate. I headed over.

"Alright Em - how are you doing? Great hair."

"Thanks." she looked me up and down till it clicked. "Fucking hell look at you!"

She broke into hysterical laughter. Not quite the reaction I'd been looking for.

"Well, you've always been the nerdy boy! Now you're all spiky." She gave me a hug, and I felt a combination of thrilled and shy.

She introduced me to her mates that night, and that teenage lust stuff started to turn to feelings of fondness. Admittedly these feeling of fondness were still punctuated now and then by being bewildered by just how great she looked.

______________

Over the next couple of years we were pretty much inseparable. My favourite bits were our regular sunday nights at the folk club at The North Eastern. If the music was shit we'd head for the Snug room for a bit of peace. Although Em didn't call it that.

"This lot are shit Eddie. Fancy heading off to The Snuggery?"

"Sure. Although I don't know why you have to call it that. Isn't The Snug straightforward enough?"

"Nooooooo! I know it's snug. I know that. But it's kind of luvverly.." She snuggled into my shoulder "... and we go in there when we are bored to buggery!" She gave me that smile. The smile that just made me feel like I was in the best place in the world. Love is a word that is overused nowadays, and often confused with sex. We never did the sex thing. One of us always pulled back from that before we went too far. We appreciated what we had and didn't want to fuck it up. But I know that we did love each other. We do love each other.

We kept going like this for a few years, till she got a boyfriend and it started to change a bit. I got together with someone too. But we stayed close, although it was hard for me to see her with boys who didn't love her as much as I did. We still went to The Snuggery at The North Eastern now and again, much to the suspicion of our girlfriend/boyfriend of the time. It was all panelled wood and bevelled edge mirrors. The lights sparkled and shone, and reflected and bounced. Our eyes sparkled with the joy of honesty. And we knew it. The old blokes who used to come in and sit over a pint for an hour in the main bar were a mixture of bemused and amused at these two mad haired youngsters who had started to hang about in their pub.

But over time they became quite fond and protective of us.

"It's about time you made an honest woman of that lass."

"It's not like that Tom, we're just mates."

"Just mates? You daft bugger. You can't see what's in front of your own eyes."

_______________

After we left sixth form we were both on the dole for a while. We used to meet up in the park that summer. Em would go crazy for climbing trees.

"The views are amazing Ed. You can see the sea!" She shouted from dangerously close to the top of a large oak. I did my best but could only get a third of the way to her. I saw a few rooftops and not much else.

"You're a mad bitch Em. I love you and all, but you're a mad bitch."

_____________

Before I quite knew what was happening she'd managed to get a place at university, and I was left here on my own. I went to see her in Birmingham but it was all a bit odd. She had new mates who thought I was a bit thick. We didn't talk a lot that weekend, but we did dance. That feeling of joy was still there. She still sparkled in the light and we still knew how to be around each other, like no one else. At the end of the night we headed outside and, hitting the cold air, turned and grabbed each other. I kept my head over her shoulder so she didn't see my face. I think she did the same. When we pulled apart we had each sorted ourselves out.

"Let's get a cab mate." she grabbed my arm. I slept on her floor that night but I'm pretty sure we both were awake pretty much most of the night.

______________

A decade later I was engaged to be married. I'd not seen Em for a few years. I often thought of her. The very thought of her made me smile. She'd been through a couple of relationships and calmed down a bit. She was in Nursing now, in a neighbouring town. But from the snippets of info I got she was still a bit of a free-spirit. She'd got the travelling bug and her and her bloke had taken to biking around Britain on an old motorcycle. Typical.

Sitting here now it's a bit weird to think back over those times. I'm sat next to her chap, Ian he's called. He's nice enough. He knows me and Em's history. Considering that, he's been ok with me. The Doctor was in a while ago. She's still wired up of course. The Doctor mainly came for our benefit. Me, Ian, and Em's Mum. The Doctor said she was doing well, but it was early days. She'd taken a battering when she'd come off the bike. Ian had been lucky but Em had hit oncoming traffic. The Doctor explained that effectively she'd crashed at twice the speed he had. He explained that in these situations the brain structure itself has a big part to play. I looked at the picture he drew of the ups and downs of the surface of the brain. He explained that some people have more of these crenellations than others. More ups and downs on the surface. Gyri and Sulci, he called the peaks and troughs of the brain's surface. Apparently Em was lucky as she was blessed with more of these peaks and troughs than average. He said that just like her crash helmet, her brain too had a crumple zone, and that her's was bigger than most.

I suppose it's a good sign. If I'm honest I don't know what to think. I can't bear to see her like this. When I was alone with her I whispered in her ear:

"Em, I think you can hear me. I miss your dancing. I miss you climbing trees. I miss your.... what did they call it in the old days? Yes. Your derring-do, your att-it-tude. For christ's sake do me a favour and wake up."

The evening visits are the worst. People have come and gone and the nurses look full of pity. I wish I could make it all better and she'd wake up and say to me:

"What do you reckon Ed, should we head to The Snuggery?"

Hats, Games, and Gaps - A Christmas In Dorset

noreply@blogger.com (Philip) — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 19:33:00 +0000

It's either a yes or a no. Never a maybe. The person concerned may have been in the shop for some time, but you can see the decision being made within a fraction of a second. The facial expression drops into place just a fraction of a second after the hat.

It is no secret that I love a hat shop. I also love tempting people inside them. I don't mean a place you can buy a branded baseball cap or a shapeless hat for Glasto. I mean a proper hat shop. One that mainly sells men's hats, made of felt, or tweed. The act of trying on a hat is, of course, a leap of faith. Seeing this object, often quite an expensive object, and thinking "Well, there's no harm in trying".

But it's a gamble. The second the hat lands you know whether the answer is yes or no. Some people make the answer "No", more likely by pulling a face as they put the hat on. These are the hat novices. The ones more likely to make the purchase, avoid doing that and often adopt their best "I'm getting my photo taken" face. It helps a lot if the staff are assertive, as we often don't know what is most likely to suit us.

So it was with Nathan. In "Snooks The Hatter" in Bridport, the female assistant, years of experience under her belt, eyed Nathan up and down without him noticing as he browsed. "Try this one" she said, so assertively that he fell still. She placed the hat gently on his head. He turned to the mirror. I'd already made my mind up. I think Kelly and Sharon had too. "That's the one." I think I said. He wore his photograph face rather than a grimace, and practiced a few slight changes in facial expressions. It suddenly looked like it had always been there.

The Stingy Brim Fedora had apparently been developed in the 1940s in America when there was a national felt shortage (insert own joke here). Nathan is a hat natural. If you check out the range of profile pics he's used on his @mrlondonstreet twitter account, you'll see that his generic range of facial expressions revolves around quizzical. His right eyebrow is often lifted and this hat swept up just at that point to allow his eyebrow room to roam. What I found interesting was the instant effect it had on his posture. He remained relaxed, but was definitely walking in a more upright fashion. The hat seemed to embolden him and he cut quite a dash as we wandered round Waitrose shortly afterwards. Several ladies did a little double take. When I pointed this out he was quick to ask me "Were they hot?", and seemed to be satisfied with my measured reply - "Yes, moderately."

Nathan is, like me, unusually at home browsing around a gentlemen's outfitters. One of those places populated with tweed, waxed cotton, and jumbo cord. I can quite imagine an alternative universe where our paths varied slightly and we are sat in our Club in London, discussing our shopping trip round St James over a glass of something rather good. In fact I can imagine him doing that now.

The characters of my other cottage housemates for our week in Symondsbury were betrayed by their game-playing. I don't mean psychological games. I mean actual games. Although the word "games" is often associated with the word "play", which would fall short of describing the intensity of the activity when Sharon and Kelly are involved.

The games we played over endless amounts of food and wine were a board game called Junta, Scrabble, a word game called Bananagrams, and a card game called Canasta. Junta is a fantastically complicated game, but at essence it is about ruthless individuals prepared to wipe out all opposition. Which is much the approach Kelly and Sharon took to all the games. Which is of course another way of saying that they are natural winners at such things.

It reached its zenith when we played Canasta. You play in pairs if there's four of you. I wasn't Nathan's partner so much as his withered limb. My concentration was poor and I was often distracted by the available snacks to the detriment of our score. Kelly and Sharon however had the eyes of killers. I'm familiar with the intensity displayed by Sharon in such situations. The equivalent in Kelly was different in quality. The untelling eyes of the card shark in front of me were much like that of the actual shark we saw washed up on the beach one day. More lively I'll grant you, but they gave nothing away other than the likelihood of my own demise.

I'm back home now and there's some odd gaps I keep noticing. No Nathan to remind me of the red wine drinking schedule. He's the only man I know who owns a carafe and a wine filter. He is in short, a ponce. But he's my ponce. So in his memory I decanted a bottle of red on the first night home. Admittedly it was decanted into a large vase, but it's the best I could do in the circumstances.

When Sharon and I were talking about what to do today we seemed to find it curiously difficult to make a decision. This wasn't a problem on holiday as Kelly always seemed to come up with the perfect solution, one suitable for everyone. This is, I think, her true talent. She was the glue, the direction, and the personified generosity of our week away. This was exemplified by her explaining the need for whoever cut things into shares to take the last piece, thus ensuring generous measures for all.

As I settle into early evening here I think the thing I'll miss most for the next few days is the gently clever humour of our evenings together, talking rubbish and making bad jokes. Luckily I got to bring Sharon home with me and I get to keep her around all the time After spending a week with her, I think that Nathan and Kelly know how lucky that makes me.

To finish, I'd like to tell you about one of my highlights of the trip. We were having a look round an art gallery which was also a working studio. An artist was at work on a painting whilst we were there, and he took time to explain a bit about the various artists and the favourite subjects for their work. He then said "Do you paint?" I was down the corridor at the time, but close enough to hear Kelly reply "No, we're writers."

I better get on with some writing.

Memory Glimpse - Vertigo

noreply@blogger.com (Philip) — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 21:09:00 +0000

Anyone whose goal is 'something higher' must expect someday to suffer vertigo. What is vertigo? Fear of falling? No, Vertigo is something other than fear of falling. It is the voice of the emptiness below us which tempts and lures us, it is the desire to fall, against which, terrified, we defend ourselves.

Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

I'd seen it before of course. Mainly at night, as I'd suppose you'd imagine, often on an early evening in autumn. Usually I'll be expecting it. I certainly was when I walked over Blackheath on the way home. The flattened heath with the low slung web of stars seemed to be the place, for a while. But that never really made any sense. There was always a sense of disbelief, too many ways out. I haven't walked over Blackheath for many years now, but I doubt that I'd feel the same.

I think it's moved, you see. To a small village in Kent, not far from where I live. When we were exploring places to live, I trooped around a fair few places to get a feel of them. Generally my feelings towards places were positive.

But there was one place I couldn't possibly consider. I'd taken a day off to have a look round. From memory, I walked from a neighbouring village. It was a fair enough kind of a place, a very old centre surrounded by more recent development, a large village by any standard. I ambled along thinking it was fairly good value for money, but not very appealing. Not very "villagey", I suppose. Then I decided to check out the station.

Like a lot of Kent villages, the station is quite a way outside the village whose name it bears. This one was a good twenty to thirty minutes past the last house. I started to feel a bit uncomfortable once the houses ran out. I could hear the hum and pop of the M25 motorway, the cars' impact on pockets of air was an audible slap. Then a sign for cars to turn left towards the station. No sign for the solitary pedestrian of course, but I turned too.

Ahead of me was a mostly straight lane flanked by scrubby hedges. As I continued down the road I felt my heart darken and my eyes sink to the road. It was here. I was electric. I was buzzing. I was utterly aware. Every scrape of twig on twig in the breeze was bone scraping on bone, sinew clicking over cartliage. It was here. It had always been here. Blackheath was just a rehearsal, as was the field edge back in Hartlepool.

As the road approached the station I could smell it. Someone had opened a room that had been closed for thirty years and it was all around me. I was a bit unsteady now and the M25 was louder in my ears. As I walked into the station and onto the platform the motorway seemed only yards away and screamed in my ears, a mocking screech, punctuated by the drumming of cars. My head was full to overflowing.

The traintracks and the concrete platform, the steel and the sleepers. The sleepers buried in the not-ground, the broken split rock.

No train came while I was there, but I imagined them doing so. My buzzing ears felt the whump of the buffeted air. I turned around and left. I'd been stupid to come here. I knew that I could leave, that I could turn away. But I knew that it would still be here when I'd left. And that I could come back whenever I wanted.

Memory Glimpse - Seeing Things

noreply@blogger.com (Philip) — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 18:03:00 +0000

When I was a little kid my bedroom was my empire. It was the only place I felt I had any control over. But I didn't have physical control, nor did I seek it.

My room was the box room, probably eight to ten feet long by six feet wide. You can see the window above the door in the photo at the top there. When I was really young all I can remember, in terms of contents, was a bed, a carpet, and curtains. The bed was an old, iron framed, single bed. It certainly wasn't new. The mattress had a deep hole in it that I'd often lose an arm in. The dip around the hole was such that I'd feel half submerged when I went to bed, trying to keep my head above water.

The wallpaper in the room was some sort of flowery garden pattern. We had no garden of course, we had a back yard and a back street. But the wallpaper in my room was full of twirling stems and flowers. I remember following the shapes, looking for patterns, repetitions. My mind gripped firm the rhythm and pulse of the patterns, the seamless jump from one roll of paper to another. Those accurate joins were the mark of my father's undoubted skills as a decorator.

The carpet was a dull grey with the occasional speck of a flower. So muted was the pattern so as almost not to exist. So threadbare in parts that it was down to the hessian backing. I remember hanging over the edge of the bed, and twanging the hessian strings, bereft of wool, as if they were strings on a harp. Some of these threadbare bits had isolated tufts of wool. As if part of a balding man's badly managed hair recession, they screamed to be pulled out or cut down.

This was a room of patterns. Patterns damaged by time or patterns that were just painful by design. The window had pointless net curtains. It also had the main curtains, which were a garish pattern of black brown leaves on a dirty yellow green background. If I'm honest, I can't confirm that; because my mind was too busy creating what wasn't there, rather than recording what was. I saw endless faces, profiles, front on, mostly devilishly angry, cast in shade, casting fear into the room.

I'd let my eyes idle and lose focus, and they'd magic up the faces. The looming foreheads and deep set eyes were curiously comforting in their familiarity. I doubt anyone else could summon them like I could. They were my world. Just mine.

There was no heating of course. The room was blisteringly cold. Over the few years I was in that room, my breath on the cold wall turned it black. The paper on this outside wall was covered entirely in black mould. In winter the window often had ice on the inside. To keep warm I had not just the army issue blankets but a candlewick bedspread and some of me mam's old coats. They'd slip in the night, and I'd fire out an arm before they fell to the floor.

But this room was a window to the world. There was a streetlight not far from my window, which kept half a wall bright all night long. The social club at the bottom of the street meant that I learnt about the adult world pretty quick. There was a backstreet opposite my window and I saw the fighting and the fucking. I saw the swearing and the tears. The wild, mad, animal, drunkenness.

So, my mind had the patterns and the outside stimulation. I'd sometimes pull all of this back into my head. Switching off the rest of my body, I was just ears and eyes. My body left behind as my mind went right back inside itself to make sense of the sights and sounds. Sometimes I'd willingly lose track of reality. One night I had the moon and the lamplight on the wall, and the patterns on curtain, wall, and carpet were all illuminated, my brain trying to make patterns of them all. It went one better and created something new. I laid on my side following the thread of light, almost aware that it was wave and particle as it collided with dust to create stars. And the single spot stars, that used to be dust, sparked out wings. Wings that fluttered and lifted, drifted and shone. My eyes purposely unfocused as the tiniest of these winged fragments hovered in front of my eyes. Or perhaps in my mind, as it played with the light and the fragments of matter that passed by in the movement of the air. I used to care whether it was real or not, this vision of winged particles. I don't care anymore. I just know that it matters that we find time to step into our minds, and that we value that most curious and beautiful of gardens.

Annie's Song - A Song Story (Fiction)

noreply@blogger.com (Philip) — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 16:46:00 +0000

I'd seen her as I walking down the pedestrian bit in the centre of town. She was just sat on one of the benches, doing nothing in particular. At first I just kept walking, but something drew me back. So as to look respectable I kept walking straight on for a bit, without looking back. Then I doubled back. I settled into window shopping gear and took a seat on the opposite bench. I felt a bit stupid to be honest, mooning over some stranger like a teenager. I took out my phone and pretended to check my messages, taking a quick glance up now and again.

If you ask me now what it was about her that caught my eye, I'd be hard pressed to explain. It was as if the other people were a blur and she was the only clear figure for miles around. Her picture was sharpened by the rest of them being out of focus. Her pose was almost classical. She sat slightly sideways on the bench, not really focusing on much in particular. There's a curious angle that people seem to assume when lost in themselves like this. The head slightly tilted to one side, their gaze downwards at about forty five degrees.

There was nothing spectacular about her. I just loved the lines her body drew. Not in a sexual way, she was just..... graceful looking. Her soft brown hair fell over her face a little, and her grey eyes looked out from under her hair. Her eyes looked down to the floor at a spot three feet from her boots. If I was a painter I might be able to do justice to the curve of her cheek, the smooth length of her neck. But I'm not. I tried to figure out if I was brave enough to talk to her. I put my phone back in my pocket.

Was there a sadness there? Or was she just bored, sitting there waiting for her mother or her husband. I sometimes have moments like that myself. You stare into the distance and suddenly realise that you've lost twenty minutes. As I was watching her a pigeon landed near her. I guess it had seen some crumbs or something. I hate the fucking things myself - rats with wings.

She adjusted her gaze slightly, rather absentmindedly, towards the pigeon, which was doing the peck-pecking thing. She was looking towards it, but not at it. She wasn't looking at it exactly, it had got in the way of her look is the best way I can put it. The pigeon didn't matter at all. I spotted it again, that slight edge of sadness. It was beautiful, and it was fascinating.

This lasted for a few moments before she came back to her senses. She then pulled her coat around her and stood to leave. The pigeon hopped politely to one side. She hadn't even noticed me. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, people rarely do. My teeth ground together as I felt the anger rising in me. I watched her leave, and made a split second decision to head after her. I hung back a bit, I didn't want her to notice me now. Not yet anyway.

The leaves jumped and tumbled on the pavement as she headed down a sidestreet away from the shops. I knew what I was doing was odd but I felt compelled to follow her. As commerce turned to residential the streets started to empty of people. I had to be careful not to be seen. It's exciting to follow someone, don't you think? To be so aware of them, their movements and what is betrayed by them, while they are completely unaware of me. Makes me feel alive.

As it so happened, she turned off onto a path I know very well, the scruffy dirt path down the side of the allotments. No one but me and her down here at this time of the day. I could do whatever I wanted now. I was in charge. I'd seen the sadness in her eyes. She didn't think anyone cared enough about her to miss her. Perhaps she was right. I could take that sadness away, I could help. I knew this path lasted for about two hundred yards. No hurry at all. I settled into a pace that would gradually catch her up, but not too quickly.

She hugged her coat close to keep out the wind. She looked like she should have a dog with her. A dog might have made all the difference. But there was no dog, just me. And I was catching up. My heart was pounding. Then her phone rang. As she stopped and reached into her pocket she must have seen me but didn't seem to give me a second thought. The ringtone on her phone was familiar but I couldn't quite place it. I was still trying to recognise it when I heard her say she'd be about ten minutes and then pushed her phone back to her pocket. I stopped and lent against the railings to look out over the allotments through a gap in the hedges on the other side. The song title was on the tip of my tongue when she started to sing.

You fill up my senses
like a night in the forest

The wind increased and as it howled down the lane it blotted out the next few lines. Then it came back on the wind.

Come let me love you,
let me give my life to you
let me drown in your laughter,
let me die in your arms
let me lay down beside you,
let me always be with you
come let me love you,
come love me again.

I'd forgotten how beautiful a song could be. She had forgotten about the man she'd glanced behind her and was now singing confidently to herself. All my anger melted, and a lump came to my throat as I remembered someone singing this to me many years ago. I felt ashamed of my hatefulness. My face was wet with tears as I jerked myself round to head back to town, my legs shaking with emotion. As I did so I could hear her singing as loud as she could.

You fill up my senses
like a night in the forest
like the mountains in springtime,
like a walk in the rain
like a storm in the desert,
like a sleepy blue ocean
you fill up my senses,
come fill me again.

There are still times when I see a darkness, when I feel more animal than man, I'd be lying if I said there wasn't. But one of the ways I pull myself back is to think of that day. I know, more than most people, that madness can turn to great beauty in the blink of an eye.

Click below for Annie's Song by Sunshine Club
Annie's Song

The Birthday Party 2091 - A Story

noreply@blogger.com (Philip) — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 21:10:00 +0000

I'm telling you Mae, that one's just a freaking weirdo. Comes in here all the time. Always sits in the same place. That one seems to be celebrating tonight. God help us. Twice as chatty as normal. Got some company along with self or something.

Yeah? The one at the back there? In the booth? That one looks ok to me. You're too hard on people.

But there's only that one doing any talking! The other one, whoever that one is, can't seem to get a word in. I ain't heard a peep out of that one.

Nathan smiled and nodded.

You were right, old friend, this is just the place to celebrate! Great place, fantastic noodles, and they brew their own beer too. What do you like the look of?............Hmmm? Crispy noodles? .............Well I suppose so. They do carry the sauce well but you have to be so careful with the sticks. Speaking of which, do you remember the old knife and fork? Old friend? Do you?............. Haha! I suppose not. Not that much use to you really. I kind of miss them. This left hand of mine is a little lost without them.

The waitings craned their necks trying to see past the screen to the opposite banquette, but had to hop back to their normal bar positions as Nathan leapt up to head for the bar.

Nathan turned back towards the table. You sure there, old friend, not even the one?.......Well, ok, then. I mean it's my birthday and everything, but ok.

Ladies! Ladies, ladies. Can I have another one of the Kaiwei, and two portions of Re Gan Mian if you'd be so kind.

They squirmed at his archaic language. No problem "Sir". Mae pulled the beer and scanned Nathan's pinky finger with her own. Nathan chuckled.

You know I'd forgotten you hadn't switched yet. He said.

Well you know how it is. The boss doesn't want to spend money. Pretty soon we'll be reading your mind. They both laughed and Nathan headed back to the rear of the bar. As he sat down he tapped the table twice to change the music.

Oh, this is one of my favourites from the old days. Romeo Beckham's song from 2032. You know, no one was quite sure if that one was a boy or a girl at the end. ......... You think so? Well I don't know. ........... I suppose it's not so important to people nowadays. I really can't tell them apart. I found myself on the Skytube (Copyright Virgin PLC) the other day just looking and trying to figure out the one opposite. That one had such a smooth face, just like Romeo, but a skirt, and hips, and ... oh I don't know, I can't fathom it. ....... I know a lot of people are midsex, but I like to know who I'm speaking to. .................You what? ......... Ha, yep I suppose so! I've never seen you in a skirt old friend. ....... I suppose it would, I suppose it would.

Mae got the message the noodles were ready and keyed in the location.

They're here! Nathan swiped his pinky over the glowing centre of the table, the hatch opened and the noodles rose to table level. Well, just look at this. Don't it smell good?........ You like sesame and chilli yourself? Well go on!....... Ok. He took his sticks and held them over the plate and the noodles leapt up and wrapped themselves round. Oh I never tire of that. ..... Hmm? ..... Good?....... Let me try a bit of these bad boys............ Hmmm, Mmm, Nom, Nom, Nom, Oh they're good. ...... Oh but they're hot. Woah!

Nathan tool a sip of his beer from his Staycold (Copyright StayColdCorp 2050) and lent back in his chair.

80 years. 80 years. It's been a good time...... Remember back in the early days? I was some drop out kid when we met. Studying 3D printing when it was new. ......... Yeah, true enough, I didn't see the value. Now we print it all don't we? ........... No, not you, fair point, not you. But .......... No, point is, you don't expect to wear clothes so it's kind of different. These noodles are very good you know. You want some more? ...... No?

Nathan gestured down to his own very fine suit. Hanfu influenced certainly, but nice vintage influences. Ordered it on the Cloudstream (Copyright AppleWorld) and printed it off at home. Of course in those days it took a day or two to print off a suit of clothes, not like those Fastprint Threads (Copyright Burton Ltd) you can get now. ........... I know, I know. ......... Hang on. Nathan swept his pinky once over his forehead and stared into the middle distance. Well it's certainly very attractive but somewhat costly, old friend.

I'm going to have another. Can I tempt you just to one? .... Ok, yep, just the one.... No problem, old friend.

Nathan headed over to the bar.

We can do table service from here, there's no need to walk over, you know. Mae flicked her eyebrows to the ceiling and accidentally dimmed the lights.

Oh well you know, I'm an old fashioned kind of a guy. And I like the contact. You ladies, you are ladies? You ladies are always so kind.

Mae softened a little. She smiled. What'll it be?

Two more Kaiwei please. For me and my good friend over there.

That one don't say much. Your friend.

You don't think so? Well, he's very softly spoken. We've been friends for almost 50 years you know. He looks after me. Nathan picked up the beers and returned to the table.

They both drank the ice cold beer in a smooth motion, a long luxurious draft of amber liquid.

Hang on! Nathan said. A toast, to you and me! He felt a twinge of pain as he stood. The leg is still not great. I know I've said so before ............... no, really, I insist, ............. I am truthfully entirely grateful to you. That Skatecar (Copyright CliveSinclair & Sons Ltd) could have killed me. You got there and you pulled me clear. ........... No, no, not entirely clear but thankfully my leg memory was strong enough for them to link what needed linking and this thing is better than the original. I'm so old I'm due another leg replacement! I swear we'll be made of metal and plastic in another twenty years.

They talked on for some time like this, mulling over the old times. More drink was taken. Eventually it was time to go home.

Nathan swept his pinky over the table, got the bill, and swept again.

Time to go home, old friend. He swayed slightly as he made his way from the table. He put his arm round the shoulders of his friend as they headed for the door.

I told you that one's mad. That one's talking to himself. Mae nudged Kay in the ribs.

To all intents and purposes she saw Nathan's arm hovering horizontally in mid air.

Nathan spotted the waitings staring but ignored the attention. He was quite used to it.

Come on old friend, let's head for home. As he said this Mae did a double take and pointed at the full length mirror by the door. Kay looked over and her jaw dropped at the sight of the reflection of a very real six foot white rabbit.

Nathan, as usual, sensed jaws dropping and guessed what had happened.

Ladies, Ladies, don't worry, it's my old friend here. Harvey, say hello to the ladies...

Mae and Kay kept looking on open mouthed.

Nathan and Harvey exchanged glances. Oh. On reflection.... Perhaps..... Yes you're right, maybe it's time we went home old friend.

Wikipedia's definition of Pooka

Midnight Moon

noreply@blogger.com (Philip) — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 00:05:00 +0000

I'm just back home after a night out. I walked back over the fields, down part of the North Downs Way. These words came to mind.

Midnight moon.

My crisp moonlight shadow lies sharply dark,

across the startling and brightly ploughed field.

The smell of lavender guides me back home.

"Any day you see the sea is a good day."

noreply@blogger.com (Philip) — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 13:17:00 +0000

Non league football may not be the sort of place you imagine to be the venue for melancholy reflection, but these things can take you by surprise. I was struck yesterday by the way that the whole thing is permeated by the passing of time. Seconds, minutes, hours; then days, weeks, months; and then eventually, years, decades, and lifetimes.

A goal or a tackle happens in a fraction of a second. The ball hits the back of the net, the player lays on the pitch, grimacing with pain before being taken off the pitch. The memories of games are made up of such instants. I remember lots of them, Sharon remembers them less well. Snapshots of goals, yes, but mostly not of goals, but of funny or emotional moments. The black and white world of Banstead Athletic on a January afternoon when Wade Falana (who wasn't playing that day) hurdled 3 rows of seats to join in the goal celebrations with his teammates. Billy Harding forgetting to tape, or lace up, his socks so his shin pads jiggled free of them every few steps, nearly tripping him each time, a feat of hilarious keystone cops shin-juggling. I remember with great fondness the day when at the start of the game one of our ex-players ran out for an opposing team and starting playfully punching an ex-colleagues arm repeatedly to try and give the skinny winger a dead arm before kick off. Then there was the invention of our inept, seldom seen substitute Bernard Labadie. He set up a game between the subs one particular half time. They each took turns to play keepy-uppy, juggling the ball from foot to foot trying not to let it drop. But if they did let it touch the ground they had to stand still while each of the others pulled a hair from their head. The memory of them wincing as they volunteered their head for their team mates always makes me smile.

Then of course are those longer periods. The play off finals we've had, the tension of penalty shoot outs. The joy of the win, the chaos of the pissed coach trip home. I remember one coach back late at night when I was talking to our player manager of the time, a seasoned ex pro who'd once been sold for a million. He told me that he reckoned this was going to be his last season, and that he was going to hang his boots up. If he played on a saturday he said he could no longer walk on a sunday, which wasn't fair on his family. He wasn't kidding by the way, he meant it literally, his knees seized up and he couldn't walk.

The football season is firmly in tune with the seasons. It starts just as the summer is about to wind down. Those late summer evenings fade into autumn chill and then onto winter frosts, as surely as the tricky winger loses his interest as soon as the rain starts lashing down and the pitches begin to soften. The season has its youthful enthusiasm, those heady days of optimism, with everything ahead of us. We head on through it's mid life crisis, and the players are no longer shocked by defeat or stunned by their own successes. Towards the end of the season there's a weird sense of adjustment, of acceptance, that feeling that there's nothing to be done but to accept where we are, and what we have achieved.

We've been watching Bromley FC for about a decade now. We've always been fascinated by the characters off the pitch almost as much as those on it. It's a true community. As such you are able to observe at close hand the rich mix, the odd diversity. We often have nicknames for people before we get to know their real names. Some of them are long gone now, some appear again occasionally. Whatever happened to Strange Solitary Woman? We haven't seen Mr Hair for a while. Funny Bloke makes an appearance now and again, with his mate Henry VII. They refer to me as Northern Bloke, so it works both ways.

Behind the goal we have watched players come and go. We've seen them running at full pelt, and we've recognised the sad moment when their legs have gone. You can see the realisation on their faces sometimes when this happens, they know their days are numbered. We've seen the boys behind the goal grow into husbands and fathers. Kids that were once only as high as my knee now tower over their grandfather, increasingly bent as he walks to the car after the game. They are men now, these boys, and it brings into focus that Grandfather won't be here forever.

As I write this I'm listening to Sandy Denny singing Who Knows Where The Time Goes. If an old man, and yes, an old woman too, doesn't turn up for a few games in a row, we start to worry about them. But then we'll see him, listing to one side as he makes his way to the stand, the smart old gent with his cap firmly in place, about to suck his burger to death. But we no longer see The Twins. For years they came together each week, identical dirty blonde grey hair, smartly combed, the same dark rimmed glasses and the same achy hipped walk. One season, there was suddenly only one of them. He looked so lost it was unbearable to look at him. He still comes occasionally, but I sense that it is not the same any more. One particularly old couple have looked frail for the whole of the last decade. Their visits gradually got fewer, now he comes alone and looks tired and lonely. And so it rolls on. There's new kids on the front row this week. They look about ten. They can't keep still. They have their arms round each other, swaying and singing. Politely throwing the ball back to the opposition keeper. They'll hopefully grow with us. They'll discover girls, and beer. They'll be less polite to opposition players, and much ruder to the referee. In time they'll be married and have children of their own. One day perhaps they'll remark to each other that they haven't seen Old Northern Bloke for a while.

The title for this post comes from a line in The Spider Truces by Tom Connolly that got me thinking about time passing, sons, fathers, and associated matters.

The Sensual World - A Love Story (Fiction)

noreply@blogger.com (Philip) — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 11:16:00 +0000

My friend 'Lando (short for Orlando) loved women. I came to realise this fairly soon after we met. But he wasn't one of those lecherous blokes. None of the "Look at Her!" "Hello darlin'!" sort of stuff. I mean he genuinely loved women, more than anything else in the world. I was one of the few men he spent much time with. I've always felt kind of honoured by that, and by being able to just sit there and listen to him. He talked so enthusiastically about women. Women of all types, not just your predictable "women men like". I've known him to waffle on for hours about Germaine Greer, how she was now and how she was in the sixties.

"See, you know she's getting on a bit, but she's hard to put an age on, isn't she? She's so much her own woman that she's no age and every age at the same time. Of course back in the sixties she was such a strong woman. Not just her principles of course. Lovely arms...."

And so it would go on. Sometimes it would be one of those conversations over a beer that would take a surprising turn.

"There's a lot to be said for a woman that could beat you in an arm-wrestle." He said one night.

"You what 'Lando?" I put down my pint, waiting for further strangeness.

"You know, Martina Navratilova, the Williams sisters. They'd all win an arm wrestle wouldn't they? Serena would be quicker than Venus, but Venus would do it with more style."

The sun that pushed amber through his glass, also illuminated his smile. Although tinged with suggestiveness it also contained pure admiration. He knew Martina batted for the pink side and he respected it. He was sort of doffing his cap, in admiration.

_______________

One rainy November day I was walking out of the office with him at the end of the day with both our collars up against the wind.

"I'm giving up playing squash against Katie. I just can't seem to compete with her."

"I don't understand. You said she was rubbish."

"She is rubbish!" he turned to me like I'd missed the point. "But I can't fucking concentrate. Don't get me wrong, she's a good mate, and that's all, but when she runs past me I get this waft of her. I just stop and inhale. She hits the ball and I'm anchored to the spot. How do they do that? I've tried Boots at a lunchtime, sprayed the perfume, the body sprays, the deodorants. Don't get me wrong it's all good stuff. But it's not the same. When Katie goes past me I smell absolute beauty, absolute woman. I smell warm skin. The sort of warm that only women seem to get. No offence mate but if you go past me when we play squash I just wish you'd shower more often. But when she goes by me, I'm drinking it and the squash game is forgotten. She thinks it's funny of course."

He never did play squash with her again, although he did let slip once or twice that he really, really wanted to.

_______________

He was also an expert in the field of admiring an obscure body part. Never one to be predictable was our 'Lando.

"I even like the back of their knees you know." I was in the middle of trying to pot a particularly tricky red at the time. I stood up from the shot knowing that wouldn't be possible till I'd heard him out. "They're exquisite, aren't they? There's a softness, a freshness, that you just don't get with a man's knee. Then of course there's the calves. I love a calf..."

"'Lando, for christ's sake will you just shut up for one minute!" I never did pot that red.

_______________

Towards the end of summer the following year he met someone special and I gave up on trying to shut him up.

"I can't believe she's that into me. She could have any man she wanted. The figure of a supermodel, and just a beautiful heart. Really, a beautiful heart."

For all his talk he was a gent and didn't normally talk about the sex. But he did a little with her.

"I just can't get over her skin. It's like my fingers are more alive when I touch her. She doesn't shave much or anything, but even her armpit hair is just so fine and downy. Just so... perfect. Just, love her so much. She's her own person, you know, a proper strong woman, not one of these pink wearing idiots with too much make up. She's real."

After this initial descent into reverie, it levelled out for a while. Then he went uncharacteristically quiet.

_______________

We'd been walking to the train station when it occurred to me that he hadn't mentioned her since we left the office.

"Orlando, is there anything up with you and Lara?" He just looked straight ahead for a while before replying.

"I don't know mate. I think she might be dying."

I took him by the arm to stop him and he turned to me, visibly upset.

"That can't be right 'Lando, she's as fit as a fiddle isn't she?"

"I don't know. I'm not one for prying but I saw this letter on the table. From the hospital like. She hadn't told me about it so I had a look and she has to go for some tests. She says it's nothing but I'm not so sure. She said something about checking out that she was ok to have kids, but I reckon she made that up."

I explained to him that I was sure that she'd tell him if it was anything serious.

_______________

He was down for weeks. He didn't even really watch much of Wimbledon, which was normally his favourite time of the year, specially when the Williams sisters were doing well. But his mind was elsewhere.

I'll never forget the day it all came out. I hadn't seen him much for the last few days and he asked to meet up after work. He was sat with a pint when I arrived and jumped up to get me one as soon as I came in.
We'd barely sat down and taken the first mouthful when he sat up straight and looked me in the eye.

"I've got something to tell you"

I didn't know what to expect.

He dropped his voice "It's about Lara. You know I said about those tests. Well she's ok, and I'm so relieved." he paused and just stopped tears coming. "But. And god I know this is going to sound weird, but - she's a man."

"What?"

"Look, she hasn't got a dick or anything," he quickly whispered "she's a woman. But she's a man."

"You have, entirely, lost me."

"She's got this condition. Hang on." He put his hand inside his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. He unfolded it on the table and read from it.
"Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (AIS). She's got XY chromosomes so she's genetically male." We just looked at each other for a while. I didn't know what to say and he seemed to be waiting for the next words to come to him.

"She didn't respond to the Testosterone like you or me did in the womb, so she stayed female, sort of. But she's a man genetically. Bizarrely the testosterone thing is why she is such a womanly woman. Tall, curvy, you know.

He stopped and picked up the piece of paper, folded it carefully and put it back in his pocket. He looked at me, waiting for a response. I wasn't sure what to say at first.

"So. Has she got the right bits and pieces? Sorry."

"She has, but inside her body she's like a man. Outside her body and inside her head she's a woman. She is a woman. It freaked me out a bit at first but I'm ok with it now. But, no kids. That's never going to happen. Not on the agenda at all."

Once he'd got this out in the open we talked about it some more so I could understand a bit better. He told me about her telling him. Them both laughing madly and crying for ages before they just laid down and held on to each other. He told me it was the biggest moment of his life.

_______________

It's been a weird time since then. He's changed an awful lot. Some funny things have happened. He's switched from just loving women to saying similar stuff about men. At first I thought he was taking the piss.

"It's opened my mind" He said one Saturday while we were watching the match. "For instance, their number nine there, he's got fantastic thighs hasn't he, and for a big man, he's really graceful."

That wasn't a one off either. He started talking about himself in the same way.

"You know when you lay in bed on a sunny day, and the sun comes in the window? Isn't arm hair beautful?" He held his arm up to show me. "The way the light catches it, the way it moves as your skin temperature changes". I just lifted an eyebrow and left it at that.

I noticed that at the end of the evening the hug was tighter and longer. I also noticed from then on that when I saw him shake hands, he always did it with real feeling.

_______________

I was on the phone to him later that week. He'd been for a trip out to the seaside with Lara and another couple. He was talking about how he'd sat on the beach with them. I was really moved by what he said.

"I felt like I loved every bit of every one of them. Their words, their smiles, their conversation and their miraculous bodies. His jaw, and the way it was so much part of how he smiled, her legs that had a smile and an ease about them, Lara just being an inch from my skin. All these eyes twinkling at each other. Made me smile, just to be alive."

"You used to say this stuff before, you know. But only about women."

"Ha! I suppose you're right there. I just feel lucky to be able to see all this beauty."

_______________

A year or so later I was stood in a church with 'Lando.

"You ok there?" I asked.

"Just thinking."

Lara was walking down behind us and he turned to look over his shoulder. She looked like a miracle. I suppose she was a miracle. Orlando put his hand on my shoulder and left it there for a moment. He kept looking at Lara.

"I'm the luckiest man in the world."

Give The Game Up Son, You're Rubbish.

noreply@blogger.com (Philip) — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 14:06:00 +0000

I'm not much of a one for all male company. I generally prefer the company of women. But there is one main exception to this - The Snooker Hall.

Only very rarely will you see a woman in a snooker hall, it really is a cave full of blokes. If I describe to you the reasons why I like these places it might well sound like a list of reasons why you shouldn't go. But I have an odd affinity for them. Let's start with the entrance. The main entrance is usually at ground level, and the tables are either on the next floor up or in the basement. You'll find that this front door is locked. If you look around you'll see a grimy buzzer somewhere. Once pushed, someone will have a look at you through a camera somewhere, and then you'll be buzzed in. Congratulations, you've passed the test. You are the sort of person they let in. I dread to think what sort of state you'd need to have been in for them to refuse entry. Drunken, raging, half naked axe murderers are probably persona non grata, but other than that I think you'll be just fine.

Once through the door the next thing to notice is the very particular scent. The smell of a strong disinfectant failing to cover a heady mix of sweat, stale drink, and stale tobacco. And this is just the corridor I'm talking about. It's as if the building had actually soaked up decades of rubbish male behaviour. There are of course varying degrees of this smell throughout the place, stronger in some than others. Just when you think you've adjusted to it, there will be a sudden whiff of stale tobacco (even though the club has been no smoking for years). The smell is best described as the utter and absolute opposite of feminine.

After you've gone up, or down, the stairs you'll come to the bar area, which is the only place you'll find any actual staff. It's all a bit slapdash of course. There's an unecessary amount of handwritten signs advertising crap food. The signs are all dog eared and promise much that is unappetising. You'd only ever contemplate it if you were truly desperate.

I worked in a snooker hall when I was 18/19. I saw this food from the other side, and believe me, it wasn't pretty. I was so appalled by the "preparation facilities" and the dodginess of the food that I used to pretend there was none left. I didn't want to be held responsible for anyone's death. There are of course plenty of eminently normal people that go to snooker halls but when I worked in one I soon figured out that they attract more than their fair share of the world's troubled souls. Supasnooker, as I think it was called, was open till 3 in the morning, and I did the 11pm to 3am slot. Peak post-pub drinking time. Some people would come for the snooker and barely drink anything. Others would hire a table as a means of allowing them to continue to drink at the same phenomenal pace as they had been for the rest of the evening.

One of the results of this is that identifiable characteristic of the snooker hall - the spilt pint. The floor is covered with large stains which fuelled the stale beer smell that lingered throughout. By the time anyone finds these spillages, they have long ago seeped into the very fabric of the building. Imagine a bottle of Newcastle Brown Ale, all drank apart from one teaspoon, right at the bottom. Now, put it to one side for a year, then come back and sniff it. Voila - Eau De Snooker. These stains leave the carpet resembling the camouflage trousers of a psychotic ex-soldier about to massacre his neighbours.

Snooker halls never have windows where the tables are. Generally they have a similar layout, one or two floors each housing 8-10 tables. Remember, these things are massive, 12 feet long, 6 feet wide, so the rooms are big. Next to each table is normally a scoreboard, a small table, and two chairs. When Dan and I went to play last week the place we went to has an unusual addition - an armchair. Regulation table and two chairs and then an old armchair. Each table had this set up. A proper rubbish old armchair that they might have rescued from the rubbish dump.

We came to the conclusion that these chairs looked a bit sad and empty. What each of them needed was an old bloke. Someone who'd just sit there and scowl at you while you played, issuing unhelpful advice, and criticising your choice of shots.

"Blue! You're having a laugh son. It's not like your long potting has been any bloody use so far tonight, now is it?"

"My left arse cheek could have played a better shot than that!"

"You know son? My wife is a better snooker player than you are. And she's dead."

I like the idea of each table having its own particular old bloke, with his own particular character. So if you want barbed sarcasm, you'd book table three. Whereas if you fancied repeated tutting and shaking of the head you might perhaps go for table four. I like the idea of this team of 10-12 old blokes queuing up outside for work each day.

"Who've you got on your table today then Bert?"

"Two idiots who don't know one end of a cue from the other. How about you?"

"Similar really. They've seen it on the telly and think they can play. Useless, the pair of them. Get on my sodding nerves they do."

Then, in they'd file, clocking in, changing into beige slacks and a frayed cardigan with unidentifiable stains, before making their way to their respective armchairs. This antithesis of modern customer care would, I feel, find a natural home in Britain. We love to be miserable. None of this "Hello, how can I help you today?" or "Thank you, have a nice day now." We'd be more at home with this caustic cat calling.

As Dan and I finished off our game and started to collect the balls back into the tray, I turned to take a last look at our armchair. I smiled at the thought of what would undoubtedly be Bert's farewell words:

"Give the game up son. You're rubbish at it."

Pathways

noreply@blogger.com (Philip) — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 06:15:00 +0000

I bought a new pair of shoes this week. Proper shoes. I've wanted a new pair ever since I moved from Shoreham to Otford. Now that I've got them I feel much better equipped. Because they are very fine shoes, I know that, if I take care of them, they'll be around for some time.

I'm very much a pedestrian, very much a walker. It's funny how that word "pedestrian" has come to have some negative associations. "Pedestrian, at best." now describes a situation where progress was painfully slow. When did pedestrian become a bad thing?

All of my life I've walked. Well, not all of it, clearly. But it's very odd to think of there being a stage when I didn't. My earliest memory involves walking. Or rather it involves the desire to walk. I was on the beach with my dad. I'm sure other people were there too, but in my memory it's just me and him.We had a football with us, and the ball ended up being pulled out to sea by the waves. I was left to watch it drift away as I stood powerless at the water's edge. I couldn't go after it. I've been walking ever since.

I remember the first time I began to think about how, and why, I walked. In the space of a couple of weeks Mr Amos, my English teacher, had blazed enthusiastically about two things. First was the value of the everyday ritual. The buttoning of a shirt, tying your shoelaces, and brushing your teeth. He talked about the space for reflection within such rituals, the way that the sheer familiarity of the gesture freed the mind. He quoted a writer or poet who had said that the inventor of the zip fly had contributed towards the destruction of man's capacity for reflective thought. This was a revelation to me. I tend (like most men) to shave in the same pattern each time. Not that I shave much nowadays, as I have a beard. Some people say "wear a beard" don't they? I've always found that odd. It would make it sound like I pulled my beard from the dressing up box. But when I did shave regularly, it was always the same. Right upper cheek, left upper cheek, right lower, left lower. Then above the top lip, under the bottom lip. The chin. Right upper bit of the throat, same left, then the rest of the throat before going back to the face to tidy up round the edges. Even as I write this I find my mind drifting off somewhere else.

The other thing he talked about was the opening section of Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. In particular how walking in the streets at night was seen by the authorities as a radical act, something to be suspicious of. I loved the idea that the simple act of walking could be seen as a challenge to authority. I've found, over the years, that this is truer than I first suspected. If you walk at night, on your own, in a manner which betrays your lack of defined destination, you are quite likely to be stopped by the police.

One of the most ridiculous ideas that the last Conservative government came up with was a law and order measure. They attempted to promote the idea of citizens "walking with a purpose". Basically this meant looking out for other citizens, who might be criminals up to no good. But they forgot that walking on your own was, in itself, inherently suspicious. Imagine if it had caught on. Hundreds of people tramping around, eyeing each other suspiciously. I much prefer the idea of walking without a purpose, or perhaps a better way to put it would be walking with the sole purpose of walking.

One of the consequences of combining the walking thing with the ritual thing, is that my feet have developed their own memory. The same way that the buttoning of a shirt allows momentary reflection between each twist of a button, walking leaves a gap between each step that leaves a comfortable space for a thought. Walk for a while and those gaps can add up to a whole lot of reflective time.

The australian aborigines talk about "Songlines" or "Dreaming Tracks". It's an elusive concept, somewhere between a story and a path. Part of the definition of who they are. A combination of place and thought, space and time. I'm just making my new paths in Otford. A simple process that involves the repeated placing of one foot after another. Developing familiarity with the individual cracks in the pavement, remembering to swerve past the bramble, knowing where the rabbit is most likely to appear, and which direction the robin's song is most likely to come from. When each of these, and others, are firmly in place, I will have my new songlines.

One of my very favourite paths is the path across the fields from Shoreham Station to Crown Road. Over the last few years I must have been down that path thousands of times. I have walked it in the morning, in the afternoon, in the evening, and at night. It is at night that this songline sings most strongly. My mind is freed, the memory of my feet takes over. Without streetlights, and in the shadow of trees, even the starlight is blotted out, and in places you can't see your hand in front of your face. But I don't need to. My feet know every nuance of that path, They feel the contours of the compacted soil. My foot finds an edge of a familiar exposed tree root and I know to trust my foot to rock over it, I step forward with confidence onto the flat area that I know is beyond it. My feet feel the ground and recognise this as the point where I should duck slightly. I see no branch of course, but I know it is there. I slow by the bend where the path widens, my feet remembering that this is where the fox lives. We have met several times at night. Neither of us make a sound, he goes his way and I go mine. While one part of my brain is doing the foot memory thing, another part of me is floating elsewhere, filling the gaps between steps with thoughts, given freedom by the familiarity of the path.

The experience is a curious mixture of holding on, and letting go. A very firm sense of place with a feeling of being nowhere. For me, such mental freedom is only possible with the support of familiar ground.

It's early in the morning right now. In an hour or two I'll be working saddle soap into my new shoes (Dr Marten shoes are notoriously hard to break in). I'll massage the soap into the leather. I'll follow the usual pattern, and as I do so I'll be freed from where I stand, and will think of all the paths that are out there, waiting for me and my shoes.

Carrington 2 - A Story

noreply@blogger.com (Philip) — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 21:27:00 +0000

I'm posting episodes from a bigger story under the heading of Carrington (not necessarily in chronological order!), have a look at previous posts if you'd like to read more. These are all first drafts that I'm planning to revisit, edit and connect.

Danny had slipped out early. He'd heard a few people tut as he'd done so.

He walked out of the church, swayed slightly and caught his balance on a gravestone. His hands shook slightly as he fished in his pocket for the makings of a cigarette. Golden Virginia, Green Rizla, and a box of Swan Vesta. It had been the same for the last thirty years. His fingers and his lungs were a testament to that. Taking a long drag, he felt the smoke fill him up. He exhaled and coughed, and his back shook as he did so. He took another drag and looked down at his shoes. His shoes on Irish soil.

It was a mistake to come back.

All those in the church, the ones that didn't know him from Adam, and the ones that did, but didn't want to. There was nothing for him here. You like to think that funerals are about the person in the box, but they're not. They're about the people in the church, the people by the grave.

The grave will be round here, ready for her.

He walked round the church and found it. Leaning over, he felt his jaw tighten and his lips tense. Then the tears came. Great big drops of sorrow, they ran down his face and caught in the grey stubble at his jaw line and chin. He wiped them away with the back of his hand, but still they came.

Crying like a boy

He wiped the snot from his nose and turned from the grave. It seemed to him that she must still be a kid. He'd last seen her thirty years ago. The dark eyes and the dark hair. That laugh.

Should never have left, should never have left.

The tears came again and he swung away, punching a gravestone as he did, bloodying his knuckles. He had to get away before they came out. He didn't want to see their "told you so" faces, or those ones looking at him as if he was the stranger. He'd lost the one he'd lit by the grave so he rolled another. The smoke calmed him a little.

No particular destination in mind, he found himself walking down the old roads, the old paths. The hills were the same of course, and the older of the houses were recognisable. The walking was harder than it used to be. His shoes pinched and the hills were a bit of a struggle.

As he got to the edge of the village things became less familiar. He should have known the way but he didn't. This roundabout was younger than he was. No road but this new road. He set off down the pavement.

An unnecessary addition if you ask me.

He knew all about walking the streets. Hands in the pockets, head down, just walking. After a while he raised his head to see where he'd got to, and there was a path off to the left. For the want of anything else to do, he headed down it. It was only a short path that came out onto an old disused road. The tarmac was shot to bits and the road was properly weather worn.

There was a sudden realisation. This was the old road. He took off his jacket and folded it over his arm, and looked around. He'd found his church. The farm in the distance, the wood to the right. Yes, this was the road he'd expected to leave the village by. She and he used to walk out this way. Not up to no good or anything, they'd been too innocent for that. Just young love in search of some privacy. The fields still looked the same.

He walked along the road, choosing the same side as they used to choose. She held his hand then. He always thought he was the luckiest boy in the world. Danny remembered how their arms looked next to each other. Her beautiful smooth skin next to his arm, his usually scratched to bits from working in the fields. He stopped again. It was all too much. Him an old man, and her dead, strangers for these past decades. Swallowing back his tears he wiped his face and moved onto a path into a field. There had been an evening here. The field had been full of early summer flowers, and they'd talked and they'd laughed. She'd been pestered by a bee and he'd shoo-ed it off. But the bee wouldn't go away. She'd been laid on her side, taking her weight on her elbow when it had came back and settled on her breast. Right where her nipple would be. Then it wouldn't move, and neither would she.

Get it off me! she'd screamed. They'd both laughed like mad, tears rolling down their cheeks as the bee stayed just where it had settled. And then, just when he thought he had no more breath, it had flown off. She'd punched him on the arm for not getting rid of it earlier. They'd laughed, her eyes, her eyes, just burning into him, the joy, and the love.

He sat there silently. The joy of that memory was face to face with the pain of the loss. Danny reached inside his jacket pocket. He pulled out the small bottle of White Horse, and flicked off the light metal top. Danny raised it in a toast, his swollen knuckles holding it tight, as the sun shone as if through amber.

To my beautiful, beautiful girl.

Time's Arrow

noreply@blogger.com (Philip) — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 20:05:00 +0000

The notion behind the idea of Time's Arrow is that time is linear. That it goes in one direction. A smashed plate does not re-form, if we fall we can't "untrip", an unborn baby is born, but a person that ages and dies cannot reverse the process.

Another way of putting it is that we can remember the past but not the future. Time's Arrow says so. Well, I have another angle on it. Remembering the past is actually an act of imagination. I haven't got a photographic memory, nor have I some sort of internal recording mechanism that allows total recall of conversations and events. I may recall some of my past, but in reality I imagine it. I conjure it up. I am my own film director and scriptwriter, although it is of course based on a true story.

I do so in a way that is not unlike how I might interpret the events in front of my eyes during this very instant, this present moment. I also act as I do right now, not just due to past experience, but because of the future I envisage, the future I imagine.

My life is peppered with events, places, people, emotions, sensations. Some are familiar. I remember, I imagine, the first such experience. I imagine the next.

At the weekend I went to the seaside with Sharon, Nathan and Kelly. We were in Broadstairs on the Kent coast. I've been there quite a few times. There were a few moments that seemed oddly displaced from their place in time. For instance I noticed that a beautiful old fashioned restaurant had closed and turned into a run of the mill chain restaurant. I have such startlingly clear memories of that restaurant, that it seems impossible for it not to exist anymore. In fact I could rebuild it from memory. I could recruit a waiter that was five feet six, sixteen stone, with what used to be a floppy fringe but was now a combed-back wave. I could go round vintage stores to ensure he had the right uniform. I can imagine that there is someone else that feels just the same. So I could come back next week and it might be there again. Or maybe my memory is just imagination? I've created this place in my mind, my dreams, and the only place it can exist is in the future. I best get working on it, otherwise it won't ever have existed.

I passed by a bandstand with Sharon, Nathan and Kelly. It was every time I'd ever passed a bandstand rolled into one. I was walking past a bandstand with friends, like I'd done before. With different friends. It was new and it was old. I looked over the fence and so did they. How many people had done the same before us? Friends, looking down at the beach, possibly hundreds of thousands. They had felt the warmth of camaraderie that I was now feeling. I felt a deep fondness for my companions. A comfort that was beyond this instant, that was curiously eternal, shared with my past, present, and future.

Then we headed down to the beach. I love the sea. I come from the seaside and can't not put my feet in the water. So, shoes and socks came off and the paddling commenced. This was the moment. This was my everytime, my eternal moment. By the sea with friends. Each being entirely themselves. Nathan, shoes and socks firmly on feet, the third eye of the camera taking in the scene. He was his own metaphor, recording the moment, spotting and capturing the detail, doubtlessly to be set down in writing at a later date, the supreme observer. I was the dancing fool, stepping too far into the wave and getting his rolled up jeans wet, the big kid playing the fool and not caring how stupid I looked. Kelly was the social connector, the bridge and the cement, enjoying everyone else's enjoyment and keeping us all in touch. Sharon was torn between the land and the sea, wanting to be in both places at once, wanting, as always, to make sure that everyone was happy. This was a moment that was so heightened and vital that it couldn't be just this instant. It was also my past and my future. Always on that beach.

No Chips For Me, Thank You - A Story.

noreply@blogger.com (Philip) — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 15:46:00 +0000

I hate chips. I've hated them for years. I used to love them when I was a kid. Crispy on the outside, soft in the middle, with loads of salt and vinegar. But for reasons you will shortly begin to understand that was only till I was about ten.

Now, I can't stand them. Nowadays, the sight of an accusatory potato digit just freaks me out. They even set off a little twitch under my eye. Surely it's child abuse to put a kid off chips?

You know when you're on the night bus home and some drunken git has their fast food sin bucket on their lap? That smell? Most people seem to experience a weird mixture of hunger and revulsion. My emotional reflex is a sense of humiliation and embarassment. This falls on me like a bucket of iced water from a malicious clown. I can almost hear the clown, laughing his fucking head off at me. My head drops, I'm a naughty schoolboy being told off by the headmaster, a kid caught wanking by his mother. I hate it but I can't help it. All because of her.

Our Nana always did have ideas above her station. She really got on my mother's wick. But my mother put up with it because it meant we were sometimes off her hands for a bit. "Your Nana's coming round" were scary enough words in their own right. She'd sit there in judgement about the state of the house, our haircuts, our clothes. My mother dreaded her visits.

But these little home based torture sessions were nothing compared to "Going out for a bite to eat." I suppose she meant well, it was sort of generous, I suppose. But she just couldn't..... just couldn't.... be normal. Without fail she'd ruin it, completely and utterly. She'd humiliate some poor sod who was doing their best to meet her impossible standards.

If she got a job at the Olympics she'd be stood by the Pole Vault. She'd be the one that waited till the competitor was in the sky before raising the bar five feet above where they were heading. Then, just after they landed on the crash mat (having gone under the bar), she'd Tut at them and say "Call yourself a Pole Vaulter?"

The worst of her meal-spoiling acrobatics were due to her bizarre dietary needs. I actually start to physically tremble at the very thought of the two sentences "I do not eat salad" and "I do not eat potato products of any kind". Me and my two brothers would start to sink in our seats as soon as these things were uttered, as they inevitably were at the start of each and every order.

She'd also, now and again, try to be funny. She'd ask us what we wanted to eat. We'd mumble our uncertainty and without fail the reply would be "Well boys, the world's your lobster!" Then she'd laugh that laugh. How can I describe that laugh? Imagine the noise a rabbit might make if anally penetrated without warning, growing into the noise a donkey might make if it had soft feet rather than hooves and had just stood on an upturned electric plug. No one else would laugh of course. The whole cafe, restaurant or whatever, would just turn, jaws dropping to try and identify the crazed animal noise disturbing their meal.

She kept that particular gem to herself on the day she ruined chips forever. We'd gone into a seaside cafe sort of a place. She's immediately beckoned over a waiter, a smart older chap.

"Good afternoon Madam."

"Good afternoon. Before we order, I would like to tell you something. I do not eat salad and I do not eat any potato products. Of any kind. Do you understand?"

His bottom lip twitched very slightly and his eyes betrayed his confusion. "Certainly Madam."

"Mind. I am very insistent about this. No salad of any sort, and no type of potato, must be on my plate. What-so-ever. Is that clear?"

A bushy eyebrow was raised "Very. I'll be back for your order in a moment." At the start he was quite unfazed.

We studied the menu. When I was a young boy menus were like school playing fields. There was lots of nasty stuff you could walk right into if you weren't careful. There was always one or two items that were strangers to the potato, places untouched by salad. But, of course, she wouldn't fancy those. She'd come up with a convoluted variant on one of the salad/potato based meals.

The waiter came back. "So, what will it be then?" He smiled the smile of the condemned. We held the menus white knuckled, eyes on our knees.

"Well boys, what will you have?" Nana asked.

We had a pre-set way of behaving in these situations, and would pick the easiest option. The least fuss. "Fish and chips please" we all said together, and then, in a manner befitting of synchronised swimmers we gracefully plapped down our laminated menus. Then we waited.

"I'll have....."

and waited.

"I think I'll have the..."

I saw from the corner of my eye one of my brothers raise his face, the shame and the fear all too apparent.

"I'll have the fish and chips. But obviously, not the chips. You'll remember my earlier comments. So I would like, not chips, as I do not eat potato products of any kind, but vegetables of some sort." She put down her menu and held the waiter's eye for a moment.

"Fish and chips," he scribbled "no chips, vegetables. Certainly Madam." He turned towards the kitchen.

"I am not finished."

"I'm sorry Madam." he turned back.

"I do not require a garnish of any type - is that clear?" A woman at the next table stifled a laugh.

"Certainly Madam." he scratched at his pad with his pencil "No garnish. At all." I detected a faint shake of the head as he headed off.

We sat mostly in silence, which was broken only by admonishments to sit up straight or to get our elbows off the table. Eventually the food arrived. Me and my brothers fell upon it like boys taking part in an amateur dramatics production of Oliver. Nana paused to survey her plate and found it to contain fish, broccoli, carrots and sliced courgette. She nodded approvingly and tucked in. The sound of silent munching carried on for some time, undisturbed by any further pontification by Nana who was enjoying her food.

This was always the good bit of course, the meal successfully on the table and everyone eating. But there was an indigestion-causing sense of dread that approached as the meal dwindled to the last morsels. As we cleaned the last mouthful from the plate we knew we were heading for the next dangerzone. The Bill.

"Can I have the bill, please?"

"Certainly Madam." The waiter cleared the plates and headed to the kitchen. Me and the other two boys allowed our eyes to drop back to our laps.

The waiter returned with the bill set on a saucer and placed it on the table, before heading off again to leave the polite gap for consideration prior to payment.

Our eyes flicked up and down, trying to pick up signs from her. There was an almost inaudible "Tut."

The waiter returned. "Was everything satisfactory?"

"Yes certainly. But unfortunately there appears to have been a mistake on the bill."

"I'm so sorry Madam" he leaned over to inspect.

"As you can see it records that we had Fish and Chips four times. Whilst there were certainly three occurrences of that meal, there was certainly no fourth. You will remember that I myself did not have Fish and Chips but Fish with vegetables," Her certainty and conviction drove us further into our seats. If there were three trapdoors under our chairs we would gladly have pulled the lever ourselves. "I would be grateful if you would amend the bill accordingly."

"The price for that item is," he said with a touch of restrained annoyance "a standard price Madam. We just substituted vegetables for chips and charged you the standard price."

"I understand your point of course, but my bill says chips, so it follows that I have been charged for chips. I would like the price of chips deducted from my bill as I did not have chips. Indeed," she said with quiet anger "I do not eat potato products of any kind at all."

"But Madam, we have in fact not charged you for chips. We..." he tried to continue but she raised her hand, palm outwards and stopped him in his tracks.

"Then Sir, chips should be removed from my Bill. How much do chips cost?"

"But we don't have a separate price for chips, they are in with the unit price for the standard meal"

"Oh what rubbish. Clearly the chips component has a price otherwise the overall meal itself would have a value incapable of calculation. Kindly call the Manager." She turned away from him back towards us. We didn't look up at this point and were waiting for the end to come. It did not matter whether the end was in the form of a resolution to the debate, or the end of the actual world.

The waiter trudged off, the shaking of the head undisguised this time, and mumbling to himself under his breath.

Some moments later the Manager arrived.

"I understand there was a problem with your meal?"

"No. There was not a problem with the meal. There is a problem with my being charged for chips I have not, and would not ever have, eaten. Please remove the cost of the chips from the bill."

"But Madam we charged you the standard price. I understand you had vegetables instead of chips, within the price of the standard meal." He was visibly struggling for multiple explanations of what he thought was a fairly simple concept. "We do not have a till item for vegetables instead of chips."

"Oh. You tiresome little man. Did I have chips?"

"No, Madam."

"Are chips recorded on this bill as having played a part in my meal, and do they have a price next to them?"

"Well..."

"Are you blind man!" She stabbed at the bill with her finger, indicating the offending line. "Will you agree to remove the price of the chips or will you not?"

He drew himself up to his full five feet eight. "No. I am afraid I cannot do that."

"Well there appears only one way to settle the matter. You have charged me for chips and I have had none. The only way for us to balance the bill in these circumstances is for you to bring me my chips. I shall not leave until you have done so."

"But you said you don't even like chips?" He wasn't the first of his type to be left floundering in her wake.

"Bring. Me. My. Chips!" She slammed her fists onto the table and the placemats left the table like frightened flatfish on the sea bed troubled by a passing shark.

"Some people." He turned from the table and shouted towards the kitchen "One portion of chips for table eight! Now!"

She pressed her lips together suppressing something which was half grimace and half smile. We sat there for a further five minutes with the rest of the customers muttering under their breath some horrified some laughing behind their hands.

Finally they came. A large portion of chips heaped unceremoniously in the middle of the plate. The Waiter placed them in front of my Nana. "Would Madam like any sauces of any kind?" he said with thinly disguised sarcasm.

"No." She smiled her best polite smile, she was not going to be defeated "They are fine as they are." She waited for them to cool for a little while.

Then she pushed the sleeves of her cardigan up to her elbows, and began to pummel, twist, and batter the chips with her bare hands. She was full of chip destroying fury, a woman possessed. Every now and then a small snarl would escape the side of her mouth. When she was satisfied she had destroyed every chip she cleaned her hands with the serviette and placed this on top of the heap of massacred potato.

"You may take my plate." She said. Then gestured us out of our chairs, into our coats, and out through the door. I looked back to find the manager and two waiters, hands on hips looking with disbelief at our table.

That was Nana for you. No salad. No potato products of any kind.

I am not much of a one for family occasions really. I'm especially not fond of family trips to restaurants. I tend to eat alone. My therapist says I'm doing really well. I like going to see him each week. I think he gives pretty good value for money really. But I always make sure I check the bill very carefully.

Thanks to Sandra Godwin for telling me about the real event that sparked this off.

Long Time No See

noreply@blogger.com (Philip) — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 21:00:00 +0000

I've got a story on the way, honestly I have. But in the meantime I just had to tell you about this book. I finished it last night.

I was in two minds at first whether to buy it, but decided to chance my arm. It fitted it with my "reading Irish Stuff" thing that I've got going on at the moment. I had read an interview with Healy a few months ago and found him odd, elusive, and interesting. The book itself took a little bit of adjusting to. It has a very spare style. Sparse dialogue, short factual descriptions with unexpected poetical bits leaping in when you last expect it, he takes us into the everyday lives of oddly memorable characters. I say "oddly memorable" because nothing is spelt out. You are left to figure it out yourself. The story is told by moments of everyday kindness, and by events of a rare strangeness.

What I love about this book is that for the entire duration of it, it's the bits that the author doesn't say that are the most important. The stories are hinted at, half told, and let your imagination fill the gaps. Just like in real life you look for the hints in the words the characters use when talking to each other, you look for the hints in the choices they make, the emotions that might be bubbling under.

One thing I though about it after finishing it is that there is an awful lot of love going on but the word is never used. I think that the characters may not even know they love, and if they sense it then they are not sure what is causing it.

Mister Psyche, Joejoe, The Bird, Anna, and the rest of them are still very much in my head. I also really enjoyed reading a book that was both a cracking read and a lesson in writing. Please read it, you'll not regret it.

Damn Those Old Dogs....

noreply@blogger.com (Philip) — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 22:05:00 +0000

I'm sitting on a gnarly old pine bench at the end of a very fine sunday. I'm at The Rising Sun at Twitton, just ten minutes walk from where I live. A very fine establishment, at the mouth of the valley

On the way there I got passed by a 1950's Massey Ferguson tractor with dad and daughter sitting in it as it chug - chugged down the lane. Ten minutes later a woman with a kid in a pushchair caught up with me. I heard her say "Daddy and the tractor will be there before us, we better catch up!"

I couldn't help but ask her how and why they got the tractor. It transpired that they have some trees to shift. As well as that, it's a top notch way to get to the pub. No camera I'm afraid, which is a crying shame, as I can't show you the kid on the tractor as I'd like to.

I'm now in the pub garden, listening to the larks in the neighbouring field of wheat. The valley has been at its most astonishing today. We had a barbie in the garden and everything was jaw droppingly beautiful.

Grandson, The Edster, came and circumnavigated the garden from a crawling position. We ate and we drank, and the sun shone.

The sun is not really my thing so I ensured my bit was in the shade. Then, when all had departed, I laid down in the shade of the bench and listened to the radio, as the late sun warmed me.

I left Sharon to watch the grand prix on iplayer and headed for the pub. Frankly I was half way drunk before I got here, so the two pints I'm planning to have will find me either fully drunk at home or in a ditch halfway there.

The air has been astonishingly clear today. This is what I believe they call Sky Blue (real sky photo from my garden today):

In the distance I can see a path up the eastern side of the valley, striking upwards, bold and bright in the sun. Crying out my name.

When I moved to Shoreham, a tree on the crest of the eastern side of the valley caught my eye. It rose higher than the others, and wasn't afraid of doing so. It was the one with the crazy hairstyle, the rebel. I wanted to get to know it.

So, one morning I struck out to do so. I figured out which path it was closest to, and headed up it. I also figured out which way I'd need to turn at the top of the hill. When I got there I was startled by the flatness of the top of the hill. I could see the path to the tree, but there was an odd plateau. I found out later that there was a decoy airfield round here, designed to draw the german bombers during the second world war. Shoreham was the most bombed village in that war. Not because of strategic importance, or the failure of the decoy airfield, but simply because the germans tended to dump their bombs here on their way back from abortive missions to London.

Bombed so much, the locals needed to find ways to deal with the damage. One product of the bombs was an enormous amount of broken crockery. With little else to do with it, they dumped it, often on the fields or the allotments. I still turn up a considerable amount of blue and white pottery, and one of my allotment neighbours is collecting it for a mosaic.

But, as usual, I digress. As I speak an elderly golden retriever is padding round the pub garden. Just me and her out here at the moment. The dog is already very familiar with the terrain. This is its regular, its territory. I'm the newbie round here. But I feel a bit like that dog. Sniffing my way round the place. Looking for sameness, difference, friendliness.

The dog snuffles round the margins of the garden. It's a bit deaf. I call it but it only hears the upper bits of the ways I try to call it.

Martin the cat went AWOL today. We last saw him yesterday morning. No sign in the morning. Much as you like to think he's on temporary walkabout, you can't help but worry. He was one of two kittens when we got him. His brother Murray got run over when young. I'll never forget the ten days or so that Martin kept vigil outside the back door, calling to his brother every night for an hour. It broke my heart.

I sometimes wonder if he remembers his brother now. I see him sat outside the back door. Just looking. I don't know how his head works. He's mostly dim.

Speaking of which, I just made friends with the old retriever. Me and her sat together looking out at the view. I don't know what she was thinking but I felt myself moved as I sensed the dog welcoming another summer. Recognising the certain angle of the sun, that distinctive warmth. I also noticed the whiteness of her coat, and her poor sight. These are her last few years in this valley, in this garden.

The Massey Ferguson in the car park is older than me, and the path up the hill is even older. But I like to think that, as much as this valley is leaving its mark on me, I am leaving a mark on it. Naming it, showing it, kissing it.

Martin came home.

Sunday Afternoon, Not Writing But Thinking.

noreply@blogger.com (Philip) — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 16:36:00 +0000

If you've been reading this blog recently you've probably seen the frequent appearance of the word Carrington. Carrington House was a large lodging house for single men in Lewisham. It has become a bit of an obsession for me. I'm particularly interested in the life stories of some of the men who lived there. I thought I'd just tell you a little bit about why this matters so much to me and how I'm approaching writing about it.

A lot of the men were Irish men who came over to England to work. I've taken one of the men as my jumping off point for a longer piece of work (What I am writing is not his story, but his story is one of the main building blocks). These men are forgotten, often fallen on hard times, living as exiles from their own country and culture. Their story is curiously tragic yet also oddly noble. Often the men were treated abysmally by their employers, their landlords and by their English hosts. Often working casually, the men found that, once they'd got too old for the hard manual labour, they had nothing to fall back on. No pensions, no home of their own. In their later years, in places like Carrington House, many of them would own little more than the clothes on their back. Yet in my experience they continued to have strong ties to each other, to look after each other and to always have time for a chat, a laugh, and a smile.

I've always admired that strength of character whenever I've met it. I also found the experience, and hard earned wisdom of these men to be an inspiration. Periodically I come across films, art, music, or stuff on the internet that brings it back to the front of my mind. Recently it was finding out that a film had been made about some men who lived in a similar place. The documentary film "The Men Of Arlington" looks at long term residents of Camden's equivalent of Carrington. It also looks at the work of the Aisling Project (pronounced Ashleen) who help Irish people based over here reconnect with Ireland, whether to return or to just visit. I really recommend a visit to their website which is inspirational. The Aisling Project

So after being inspired by these two things, I've been doing a lot of reading over the last month or so. I've read I Could Read The Sky by Timothy O'Grady, An Unconsidered People - The Irish In London by Catherine Dunne, and An Irish Navvy - Diary Of An Exile by Donall MacAmhlaigh. Next one up is McAlpine's Men - Irish Stories From The Sites by Ultan Cowley. I've also just ordered an amazing book called The Dictionary Of Hiberno-English, which is a fascinating study of English as spoken by the Irish. Not as dry as it sounds, it contains examples of how words and phrases are used in sentences.

I've also been listening to Irish music, and to Irish voices. I want to feel my way into this. I'm in no hurry. I'm learning. I am thinking about contacting the London Irish Centre and similar organisations to do more research and possibly interviews, to inform what I've got planned. The story writes itself. It has been in my head for years. It's about work and dignity, about resilience and character. My research is to add flavour and authenticity. I used to doubt I could do this, but I'm increasingly confident that I can.

I came across something amazing yesterday. I'd like to share it with you. Take a look at this clip. Hear the music in these voices, the natural storytelling ability. Then, if you will indulge me for a moment imagine these boys and girls grown up and trying to find their way in a foreign land that may not be that welcoming.

Carrington 1.

noreply@blogger.com (Philip) — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 20:12:00 +0000

Danny looked over at his brother. He was still sound asleep in the bed. The bed they had shared for more than a decade. He'd slipped out from under the covers as quietly as he could so as not to wake Rory. Not much chance of him waking by the look of things, fast asleep with his hair dangling over his eyes. He wouldn't tell him to his face but he was sort of beautiful. Too young to worry. All his life ahead of him. He'd have a good summer ahead of him, with the girls paying him a lot of attention. They were all good looking, the boys and the girls in his family. They took after their mother, a stack of black hair in her younger days, over some arched brows, and those special eyes.

Danny had already packed, his case was downstairs by the door. He'd been up since the crack. The water he'd boiled for shaving waited steaming in the bowl. It would be strange to shave in front of another mirror. Come to think of it, he'd not just had his first shave, but every shave in front of this mirror.

He lathered up, warmed the razor in the hot water, and pulled it down his right cheek, rinsed it in the bowl and did the same again. Always the same pattern, three strokes on this side, three strokes on that, then to the top lip, down to the chin and the throat, before going back to tidy around. Not that there was much beard going on. It'd be a few years yet till he'd have the blue-face like his father.

As the mirror misted, he watched his father's face appear. Softer and younger of course but the same deep set eyes and jutting chin. Thankfully softened by his mother's blue eyes.

But better looking by far. Than the both of them. He smiled to himself as he thought this.

His Mam would be up by now. She'd promised to make him a bit of breakfast. It was more so she could say goodbye really, he knew that. She'd already had Michael go off on the boat. He'd let them all down by not keeping in touch. Danny had promised to her it would be different with him. He'd write, and be back at least twice a year, Christmas and Easter. After all, it would only be for a couple of years. Things were bad here and there was no money to be made pulling turnips for the local farmer, not the sort of money that keeps a family going.

A lot of the lads were heading over there now. Not a matter of choice, a matter of food and mouths. Too little of the first and too many of the second. At least his Mam wouldn't have to worry about that so much.

Danny put on his shirt and his suit jacket. He popped the razor into his pocket and made a mental note to put it in the suitcase when he got downstairs. Combing his hair he turned and looked out of the window. A lovely morning, the birds singing and the mist just starting to lift. The mist habitually rose from the river down the spine of the valley, before lifting and fading into the new day.

No dallying now. Time to go.

He composed himself and straightened the suit. One last look at Rory and, trembling slightly, he opened the door and stepped through it. Closing it gently he headed downstairs, ready for his departure, his last morning in Ireland for some considerable time. The third step from last creaked as he went down to the kitchen.

"Good morning Mam."

She looked at him in his fine suit and turned away, to the window, suppressing the tears, determined not to upset the boy's big day.

photo was taken by

A Sobczak-Piskorska

An Early Morning

noreply@blogger.com (Philip) — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 21:43:00 +0000

I had to get into, across, and out of London for work today (from Otford in Kent to Hemel Hempstead). I'm rubbish at getting out of bed, so I set my alarm crazy early to give me a bit of slow rising time. Unfortunately I awoke awake. Bright eyed and bushy tailed, with lots of time to spare. So rather than doss about aimlessly, I got ready to set off, and was out of the house shortly after six.

The place we have just moved to is just along the valley, so the scenery is much the same, just from a different angle.

I was born and raised by the north eastern coast, some 350 miles north of here. The North Sea smashes into the land like a drunken hippo that's tripped on its shoelaces. Further inland the countryside is fairly rugged too. I was introduced to the Pennines (hills) and The Lake District (hills and, unsurprisingly, lakes) when I was a kid. Rocky outcrops with tumbling slate and stony paths. The Lake District is a widescreen, cinemascope, kind of a place. "Wow" becomes one of the most used words in your vocabulary. You also tend to notice that your default facial expression is a relaxed smile of wonderment, rather than the usual, office inspired, frown and furrowed brow. That would be a great name for a city pub. The Frown and Furrowed Brow. It would doubtlessly be sited near a major train station, and be full of lagered up city boys with expensive suits, expensive phones, and cheap manners.

The local Kent countryside and the Darenth Valley in particular, is quite different. As I walked down the road to the station, the view to my left was of the wide mouth of the valley. In the middle distance the valley narrows as the river approaches Shoreham. Flanked by the low hills of the North Downs, the valley at this point is a wide level section of farmland, tracks, paths, and tributaries feeding into the small river. The turf is soft underfoot, and the paths are worn smooth.

Even at six in the morning the valley (which runs south to north) is bathed in sun. The Darenth Valley has always seemed to me to have a quality of light that is entirely its own. It seems to me that the nature of the cloud formation in the valley, the way the early morning mists form and hover over the spine of the river, and the glorious dappling effect of the trees that sit on the valley walls, all contribute to the light almost hovering tangibly over the valley in a curious warm glow.

Looking into the valley leaves me with a sigh. The sigh evaporates as the train I board speeds towards London. I'll spare you the details of the urban bit of my journey. I ended up at Euston very early and sat outside on the benches. Oh, I beg your pardon - The Piazza. Whatever. But I will credit those benches for giving me an hour to write this up, and for the acquaintance of two scouse (Liverpool) train staff who I chatted to whilst scribbling in my notebook.

"Yer writin' yer novel in that then mate?"

"Yeah. Sort of."

Leaving and arriving

noreply@blogger.com (Philip) — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 20:40:00 +0000

Well we've done it. The day of the move went smoothly enough. Some neighbours actually dropped in during the move to give us cards. Our namesakes (henceforth to be known as The Shoreham Sharon and Philip) even gave us a bottle of vino.

Our plan was that we'd get the move done and then go back to the old house to clean up. However things didn't go to plan. When we went back to the house the next day, we couldn't get in the door. The key wouldn't go in. When I checked the lock it seemed like there was a key in from the other side. This transpired not to be the case, but we had to come back the next day and use a key that was left for us to get in the back way.

So, we had to clean the house from top to bottom in two and a half hours, as Sharon's mother Pat was due to visit in the afternoon. My main job was the kitchen. I'd already done a bit, but basically I had to clean from the skirting boards to the ceiling light..... and every little mucky bit in between.

Sharon was similarly occupied in other bits of the house. At one point I had one knee on a work surface and the other on the draining board, whilst hanging on to the top of a cupboard as I stretched to wash down the ceiling. I was astounded to find that there was still some white under there. Little kitchens don't half get dirty. I think I must have washed off two years of dirt. OK, if I'm honest, it was probably the full four years, as I can't remember being in that physical position on any other occasion.

We had to get in and out of the house via the back door because of the lock (thanks to Keith leaving us a back door key). When we'd done, I went back round to the front. I patted the front door and placed a kiss on it before leaving. The house (apart from a bit of wear and tear) looked much as it did the day we moved in.

All that life had been lived there. Yet there wasn't a trace. Empty rooms and blank walls. The household gods all packed up and moved on. We'd lived and loved in that house. We'd laughed and we'd cried. I'd been the happiest I've ever been living there, been sad too of course, but been sad in the safest place in the world.

Both myself and Sharon had started writing in that house. We'd written our first stories, weird to imagine now that neither of us had written before that.

As we were in the process of preparing to move someone had said to us:

"I believe that Shoreham takes you in and holds you close, and then, when the time comes, and you're ready, it lets you go."

We went back to Shoreham on Saturday, as the allotment we still hold there needed watering, and there were peas and beans to pick. As we drove past The Two Brewers we spotted Derek sitting outside nursing a pint. We stopped and shouted over.

"You here for half an hour? We're just going to water and then we can come and join you?"

"Who are you?" he said in his best mock serious voice. So off we went to water and then joined him. As we sat chatting Dobbin came past on his motorbike and gave a genteel wave. 30 seconds later he'd done an about turn and joined us. Along with Derek's brother in law, who came along too, we passed a very fine hour. A very Shoreham hour. Then we headed home. Home. Our new house is not Home quite yet. What isn't in doubt is that our home is the Darenth Valley. The valley that contains Otford, Shoreham and Eynsford. I don't aim to leave the valley. I aim to live and die here, and to spend the rest of my life feeling lucky.

Au Revoir

noreply@blogger.com (Philip) — Sat, 14 May 2011 16:34:00 +0000

If you have been reading this blog much over the last couple of years, you'll know how much I love Shoreham. I've always said that I live in the best street, in the best village, in the best place in the world.

Well, in just over two weeks me, Sharon, and Megan are moving out of the best street, in the best village, in the best place in the world. To say it will be a wrench is so much of an understatement that I'm left struggling for words. I've been close to tears on several occasions over the last few days.

When I went next door to tell our friends, neighbours, and landlords the news, Keith said: "It's like all the nice people are moving out." I had to swallow hard to hold back the emotion. Not at all easy.

I'm dreading telling some people for fear of weeping. I truly love this place. The last few years here have been a privilege and a joy. I hope the news leaks out from the couple of people we've told so far. The bush telegraph doesn't take long in a small village.

Leaving this street for the last time. Gulp.

The strange thing is we are not going far at all. 2.5 miles to be precise. For other people this would seem a ridiculously short distance. It takes us out of Shoreham to the neighbouring village of Otford. So we are still in the Darent Valley. We'll be keeping the allotment that we've worked so hard on. Doubtlessly we'll still frequent the same pubs and annoy the same people. But we won't live in Shoreham, and that is unavoidably sad.

We won't live here anymore because we can't afford to. We rent our current house and can't afford to buy in Shoreham. Believe me, we have tried. But we can afford to buy in Otford, and stay in the valley. It's a lovely house, with a magnificent garden. An exciting new start for us, a house we can live in for the rest of our lives. I'm planning to grow exotic trees and plants. Almonds, peaches, apples, cherries, walnuts, and apricots. The large garden will give Martin (the much loved cat that is often mistaken for a brown bear) the retirement he deserves for his later years. It'll give The Edster (grandson) a garden to run about in. A new place to write. A new place to cook, to love, to sleep, and to dream.

Oh - I also plan to buy a tricycle. To travel those 2.5 miles by three wheels. Bringing back food from the allotment (perhaps after a swift beer in a Shoreham pub) as I continue to live in the best valley, in the best place in the world.

To finish, here are some of the photos of Shoreham that have featured on my blog. It's not goodbye, it's Au Revoir.

Worth Talking About?

noreply@blogger.com (Philip) — Thu, 05 May 2011 20:59:00 +0000

The British Parliament is an oddity. You probably know that, whether you live in Britain or elsewhere. We have an elected chamber and an unelected chamber. We still can't decide who should be in charge. Both swear allegiance to a monarch. Something of an anachronism in the modern world.

The Queen's speech is given at the start of each parliament. The Queen sets out what "her government" (not ours, notice) intends to do. The House of Commons (the elected chamber) is often seen on TV at times of national importance. Set piece debates, with hundreds of MPs roaring support behind either The Prime Minister or The Would Be Prime Minister.

The chamber is crammed on such occasions, and noisier than most pubs on a Friday night. I sometimes suspect they might have drank more as well. It's an astonishing spectacle, but more often than not it's a disappointing one. Facile partisan debates played out over hours, when the outcome is entirely predictable due to the numbers involved.

It's a bit like one of those war games. Each player has banks of soldiers to send into battle, with little room for individualists. They clash, blood is spilt, and usually, due to strength of numbers, one emerges victorious.

But it's not always like that. Politically, I am not a great believer in our political system, but I do appreciate that some people enter it with honourable intentions.

Some of this was displayed today when I watched a debate live on my laptop. Today is a rare day in British political history. We have a referendum on the voting system. But the debate in parliament today was about something different. It was about social housing (public housing) in London. The debate was not connected to any government bill, so it was always going to be poorly attended. Being on the day of the referendum, this made a low turnout even more likely.

There are seventy three constituencies in London. During the debate MPs came and went, but the highest number I saw on the benches at any one time was thirteen. Ten on the opposition benches (all Labour I think) and three on the Government benches (all Tory I think). Maybe another twenty came and went (not sure as I missed the start). Sounds depressing doesn't it? Curiously, it wasn't.

Perhaps due to it being outside the set piece debates, the event went rather differently. There was a sensible, intelligent debate. Admittedly, the number attending was small. But it is to the eternal credit of Jeremy Corbyn MP that he initiated the debate. It saw civilised individuals on both sides of the house raise concerns about the working, and non working, poor of London. It looked into the history of social housing in London (you might want to read a couple of my posts over the last month if you haven't already).

There are enormous numbers of people needing affordable housing in the UK generally, and in London in particular. I work in the sector. If this housing is not provided we end up with homelessness, overcrowding, poverty, and despair.

Thirteen MPs out of a possible seventy three cared enough to turn up. The only people who did have to come were the minister and the shadow minister. I don't know for sure whether those two came willingly or not. But there were, I suspect, no party instructions to attend. So the rest were there because they wanted to be. There were passionate and informed speeches from both sides. Refreshing. All those present told stories of the difficult circumstances of their constituents. All wanted improvement. This is what I do for a living, it matters to me a lot, that those in charge of purse-strings and policy know what they are doing. I listened to well told stories of ordinary people trying to make their way against all odds. I heard tales of poverty and despair.

I listened to a tiny minority of MPs talking about housing. They cared. Demonstrably they cared. They disagreed, they waffled. There was a depressing lack of concensus. I myself think it is simple and so I will offer my solution. People need places to live. Whether they rent or buy. But some people can't afford the home they need. This has resulted in a housing market that led to the near collapse of the economy. In previous decades we controlled rents so that people could afford them. Governments regularly fiddle with interest rates as a way of managing the economy. This results in the fluctuation of what people pay for the homes they have bought. Let's control rents and let's also control the price of houses for sale so borrowing to pay for them becomes affordable. Otherwise we quite simply continue to say that 5% of our people can rot in hell.

Honestly. It's gets me angry thinking about these things. We can, as a nation, spend millions going to war. We can design the fuck out of profitable industrial processes. We can put a man on the fucking moon. But can we ensure that ordinary people in one of the richest cities in the world have a civilised place to live? Apparently the answer that most London MPs give is, by virtue of their absence from the debate, is No. Well I'm the last to defend an MP, but thank the lord for the dozen or so who were prepared to stand up and talk today. I didn't agree with all that was said but at least they fucking turned up.