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Midweek

31 Oct

 

Now here’s hoping that the technical difficulties which assailed The Week (Mark 1) will not scarily attack again, like the weirdo monsters (varmints) who inhabit the minds of children in Neil Gaiman’s eerily striking fantasy The Ocean at the End of the Lane. This is my antidote to Stephen Fry’s mostly unscary, autobiographical tome so I have fact and fiction on the go at the same time. I combined the two last week by reading the sometime harrowing but ultimately empowering and wonderful The Narrow Road To the Deep North, a marvellous Booker-winner this year. Richard Flanagan’s homage to his father who, as an Aussie prisoner of war in 1945 survived the brutality of the Japanese internment camps as the Emperor’s henchmen forced ever-weakening prisoners to build the Burma railway. It’s a love story too.  Butchery and beauty in equal measure.

I have already digressed. I left you on Tuesday mid-lunch south of Tunbridge Wells and full of lamb burger. Needless to say I needed soda water and Gavascon later in the day but watched  The Missing to assuage my indigestion – it’s that not really about Madeleine McCann eight-parter fronted by the suitably Irish angst and facial contortion of James Nesbitt. Mind you he does ‘desperate’ brilliantly. I’m hooked, even if AA Gill savages it at the weekend.

I must backtrack because on Monday evening the Sorro siblings, now with sister in tow and partners abounding met up for another little probate party. Our lovely mummy didn’t have much  (thank God she spent it) but Sis funded the meal from bootfair takings. I have yet to dispose of the porcelain and silver but we could be looking at The Ivy . Meantime we were in Il Capriccio in Ewell Village, a smart Italian job chosen for no other reason than the other smart Italian jobs in Ewell (three of them) were closed on a Monday. Now Ewell nestles stylishly and quietly under the powerful and embracing wing of the bustling eagle market town  that is Epsom, famed for salts and thoroughbreds. This is where I grew up. Get the connection? Anyway I started with French, moules mariniere; continued with Italian, veal (yes, sorry I like it) al limone; finished with a nice British slab of apple pie. Now that’s Europeanism.

Talking of The Missing, last night, Thursday, I caught Gone Girl the movie. The frighteningly successful book was well-written and wholly unconvincing tosh. The film is better but still tosh. Tension was just about maintained, despite loud popcorners behind – and I didn’t fall asleep. Usually a good sign. And Rosamund Pike is very good. Ben Affleck plays Ben Affleck. Quite a lot of sex and a bit of hilarious violence. The multi-screen Odeon experience is one on which I shall comment further to but, characteristically, I’m ahead of myself.

As I relaxed after James Nesbitt’s first hour of losing his son I heard a Talksport argument about the epidemic of pushing and shoving in soccer penalty areas. It’s Shawcrossgate. For the uninitiated Ryan Shawcross is a burly Stoke defender who many think should be in the England team because he commits GBH on attackers and gets away with it. Well until t’other day. Now he’s been stood down as enforcer by manager Mark Hughes, while things calm down. In the blink of an eye he’ll be back beating shit out of pansies like Terry and Ivanovic who, in a breathtaking example of pots and kettles ran to mummy ref. when they were mildly stroked by two smaller Man Utd defenders. The Talksport argument was wonderfully clichéd and circular. I’m not sure how many inarticulate ex-pros are paid a good wedge to comment on the idiocies of modern football but the supply of dimwits seems inexhaustible. Personally I like the rugby tackle in soccer. It beefs up what otherwise has become a tame game for tarts.

Wednesday and the Festival Hall. First an early evening catch-up meal and chat with Al and Danielle, old, dear colleagues. TAS – the Turkish chap at the end of The Cut (you know, just up from the Old Vic) does a mean shishk and buzzes with mezze life. Danielle, being a classicist pointed out that Kristin Scott-Thomas’s Electra belonged to Sophocles. Of course Euripedes had also written an Electra. Of course. We moseyed to the RFH for an evening of Rachmaninov. Lest you are worried about my gentle move to higher status culture, fear not. An attempt to mask the philistinism in my DNA perhaps but I do love sitting in the Art Deco splendour of the Festival Hall.

We met up with grand old buddies from my harder working days. Vivien, who had been a stylish Senior Mistress at our large coed grammar school. Those were the days when such posts were seen as important and necessary rather than sexist and tokenist. Ho hum. Smiles and laughter with her hubby, John, who uses the word wanker with such punishing timing and weight that it’s a joy to hear the word burst forth. I can’t match him on this but I do a mean bollocks when I’m roused.

Into the great  auditorium at level 6, row N – top of the house and a grand view of all. I know purists like to see the pianist’s fingers and the mole on the first violinists chin but I’m happy looking at this glossy Busby Berkeley of a place. The chrome-rimmed boxes stick out of the like open cash tills. I settle into my seat and await the young starlet Pavel Kolesnikov. We had done the jokes about his name before he wandered on with conductor Vassily Sinaisky. He looked like a mop-haired pre-pubescent, certainly a Kolesnikov minor. Russians are good at music aren’t they, I mused to myself and settled in for a captivating bit of Rachmaninov. Pavel’s fingers were a blur from my distance but they danced like Ariel at breakneck speed across the ivories (pre 1947 so OK to talk about). The second piano concerto. Most of my fellows had agreed – their favourite. I agreed because I wasn’t sure what to compare it with. My mind wandered an I caught sight of a woman being sick – pretty much in Pavel’s line of sight. He was underterred. She was under the weather. Stewards ushered her away and mopped up noiselessly. Rachmaniov’s 2nd unaffected. Roaring approval at its conclusion. Wow.

The interval gave way to his 3rd Symphony – plenty of light and shade and culminating in the sort of sound and fury I like. My eyes were trained on the guy playing the xylophone. Little to do but he’s got to be on the money every 10 minutes when the spotlight is on. Does he get the same cash at the end of the evening? The woodwind and brass sections would be seriously pissed off. The strings would be apoplectic.

We missed the train back by 39seconds, we calculated. I used the oaths previously italicised – and a few more. Luckily I had Stephen Fry in my pocket. The 30minute wait passed in a blink.

Strangers on a train from Staplehurst. Up to Town!

22 Sep

Staplehurst is a large and sprawling Kentish village with an enormous commuter car-park. It’s fifty minutes or so from the heart of the Kentish Weald to Charing Cross. The throng on the platform at rush-hour gives way to the blue rinse ‘Let’s go to the V & A’ set after 9. I board the sparsely-populated luxury of the 9.51.

When I was a smog-aware lad in the 1950s we called London,  ‘Town’ or ‘The (Big) Smoke’. The latter has been expunged from Southern vocabularies but I found myself using the former unconsciously when making arrangements with my daughter. London to her the centre of the universe, Staplehurst is part of a strange and shadowy hinterland.

Going up to Town still excites, despite a few years of commuting as a youngster and, more recently, watching humourless faces trudging to and fro Staplehurst. The size of the car park indicates the number of human ants scurrying daily to the mammon mound of the capital city.

As for me, I’m scribbling away in my notebook as countryside gives way to cityscape. Whatever is outside the carriage, occasionally diverting as it is, remains reliably neutral. My attention is taken by activity within.

A woman gets on at Paddock Wood, talking loudly on her phone. She’s late for a meeting and is trying to reorganise via, I’m guessing, a PA or secretary. She is flustered. Her child was feigning illness and refused school. The saga went on; she missed the 9.21. She hadn’t got home until 8.30 the previous night. Could her PA reschedule for midday? Her diary was full for the afternoon and she had promised a 6pm pick-up at the childminder’s. That meant catching the 4.40 – latest. Today (a Thursday) she was supposed to work from home anyway. More information rattled across the airwaves and our carriage. More business chat, some social – all of it wearying for her. All of it heard by the rest of us clutching our travelcards and pretending to read the Times.

A man opposite me has fallen asleep. 10.30am. He can’t have been up that long. Like babies we get drowsy with motion it seems. Now the ticket inspector or, more pompously, the train manager appears. ‘Tickets please!’ Ha! Another call from the inner ear of my 1950s nostalgia. This chap is recklessly upbeat. It’s have a nice day gone mad. The 50s certainly weren’t like this. He cheers his way along making a running commentary on his every interaction. “Travelcard, eh! Have a nice day out, madam;  lovely weather, mind you don’t forget your umbrella; sorry we’re a couple of minutes late everyone, thanks …and thank you..and …”

A smart-suited man can’t find his ticket. Cheery inspector waits politely. Then: “Tell you what sir, I’ll go away and check a few more and come back. That usually does the trick. You’ll find it in a pocket you didn’t know you had. It usually works. See you in a minute.”

It didn’t work. But a receipt was found. Back comes Mr Cheerful. Man in suit shows the receipt along with:”You didn’t believe I had bought a ticket did you?” Mr Cheerful’s rejoinder was a stunner.

“I’m a pragmatist sir. I don’t philosophise  about what might or might not have happened to your ticket but you have clear evidence that you bought a ‘weekly’ on Tuesday. That satisfies me – but wheter that receipt will satisfy my colleagues at the Charing Cross ticket barrier is another matter. You need a ticket to escape the station’s clutches.”

An entertaining riposte. Man-in-suit mumbles something inaudible in response to the elegant setting-out of the train manager’s position.

As I am enjoying this command performance we rumble into London Bridge. It is heavy with crane and concrete as it undergoes a huge facelift. The Shard, just a few yards from my window, rises up to heaven and is surrounded by a burgeoning glass city. At ground level high-vis jackets, cement mixers and building detritus litter the area inside and beyond the station. It is a relief when Southwark Cathedral and then Borough Market hove into view.

A stubbled 30-something who boarded the train at London Bridge is talking into thin air. Wires hang from his ears and he is unabashed as he looks around at his carriage companions chatting to someone in the ether. It’s a ‘Fuck this and fuck that and he’s a wanker..’ type of conversation. Funny and just a little disturbing. He catches my glance. I swiftly replace my rural, senior railcard demeanour of disapproval with a slick ‘shit happens’ sneer. I wish I hadn’t shaved. I’m in Town.

Strangers in some pain (in Maidstone). 5.

6 Sep

Maidstone is the county town of Kent. It boasts some 100,000 souls. The unsightly, jammed roads feeding into it from the four points of the compass are warnings for those who enter: abandon some, if not quite all, of your hope. The tawdry and the chic nestle cheek-by-jowl; the former like seeding nettles overgrowing the latter. Moat Park, however, is a glory – so too the hidden quiet of the Medway towpath. The occasional grand mediaeval architecture rebukes the hideous one-way system. Benjamin Disraeli and Anne Widdecombe, perhaps surprisingly, thought well-enough of the place to represent the locals in Parliament.

My GP had sent me for an endoscopy – a questionable procedure involving a camera being shoved down your throat and pictures taken of your insides while the Nikon tube enjoys the ride through your body. My Renault Laguna approached the city from the south, negotiated the stop-go swirl of the one-way and headed for Maidstone Hospital along the Tonbridge Road. Papers informing me of the horrors of my impending appointment lay on the passenger seat along with the consent forms sealing my fate. It couldn’t be worse than the traffic, surely? The Maidstone NHS Trust had predicted ‘up to three hours’ for my little excursion to their medical nirvana. They didn’t reckon on car parking, for starters.

The hospital is on Hermitage Road – a highway clearly ill-equipped to deal with  the mass of sick humanity, their carers, their families and friends – and the frantic comings and goings to A and E (situated mid-hospital), of wailing ambulances. Early afternoon and car-park A was full like a Tesco Extra. I hovered, engine idling, waiting to ambush a departee. I was ambushed at my first park-slot-shimmy by a white-van man who was far too slick on his accelerator. An old hand, I thought. No matter, a slot two bays along appeared within seconds and I wasn’t going to be gazumped again. As I heaved myself out of my wagon I caught the eye of white-van man striding past. I was sure he fired a smirk in my direction.

Then into the Cathedral of Pain. A charming lady at the front desk directed me down this corridor or that and I strolled purposefully through the bustle. My parking delay had contrived to bring me to the Endoscopy and Urology reception desk, bang on time, rather than my usual, calm, ten minutes early. I had noted the light green fatigues that are now all the rage in the NHS. Doctors and others swagger down corridors looking as if they are about to paint the walls rather than save lives. Identity cards are clipped at rakish angles in unlikely places – usually about the hip. Whatever happened to lanyards (great word) around the neck. Oh yes, one or two admin people use those. I guess surgeons don’t want their plastic mugshots to get in the way of lifesaving surgery.

My receptionist was a smiling delight. She was a large handsome girl who had shoe-horned herself, unforgivably, into something designed for Audrey Hepburn. I was to wait on one on the red chairs, not the blue. I sat next to the water-cooler and surveyed the waiting room. About thirty people, I guessed, evenly gender-distributed,  waiting for ‘procedures’ of one sort or another. I estimated that around half could have done with losing more than a couple of stone. A calm, quiet concern hung in the air. It was a steamy-hot day. Not far away the rescue services were trying to sort out that huge pile up in Sheppey. Here, as there, no air-conditioning. The staff-nurses fluttered by. Eventually one alighted on me. Another charmer, a young Asian woman with nice manners and a winning smile. She checked the papers which the receptionist had checked. She checked that I had understood what I had already agreed to. She checked my blood pressure.’ And now sir, all we have to do is wait a little while.’

Well, the little while was a little hour but, I had been forewarned. Meanwhile I resumed my place by the water-cooler. No sooner was I back in position and opening my book than a man looking remarkably like Peter O’Toole boomed into the area. He had a rather cowed, bespectacled lackey in tow – clearly to chauffeur him away after his ‘procedure’. In a voice that the back row of the dress circle would have heard comfortably he announced himself to Audrey on reception and looked about the room as he addressed her. ‘We’re early, darling. We found a simply brilliant route through the ghastly traffic. I’m dying for water but I don’t suppose I’m allowed even a moistening of the lips, am I?’

Audrey charmed her way through his litany of camp pronouncements and, to my joy, I discovered dear Peter coming to join me just the other side of the water-cooler. I wanted to engage him in conversation but, knowing that the whole waiting room would hear his thespian boom, I shrank into my book. He dismissed his man to the café and shook a copy of the Times open. Within seconds he was making response-noises to items of news. A comment here: ‘…Well that’s just plain silly…’ ;a snort or harrumph there. An occasional giggle; a final ‘Oh, no!’ How wonderful to be unconcerned by those around; what fun I had in listening.

And then I was called. Clothes off, gown on and into the chamber. Three people: a smiling young trainee who cracked a joke I didn’t get as he sprayed a numbing anaesthetic on my tonsils; an older nurse, like an auntie who was going to hold my head as the camera entered my body; the taciturn doctor with an Eastern Euro name who was all efficiency and calm. The process of having the tube rammed down me along with concomitant retching, I need not describe. Ten minutes and a sore throat. That was all, really. I’d like to claim some greater hero-status but there are too many who have had the gastroscope to gainsay me. Mr Estonia showed me the pictures of my insides and explained the workings of my oesophagus. I was definitely impressed.

I took my prescription to the pharmacy and a Chinese-looking guy with perfect manners and English warned me of a twenty-minute wait. OK. I had only used up two of my three hours anyway. I sat and returned to my book – Life Class by Pat Barker. A nurse walked by and asked what I was reading – clearly a bookish girl. ‘Best to bring a book when you come to the NHS!’ she jauntily remarked. I protested that I always take reading material for any sit-and-wait experience…but my excusing the NHS got lost in her rushing to her next thing. I wondered if employees believe their own negative press.

A fat middle-aged woman appeared with a thin husband. Jack Spratt. She approached the same charming pharmacist. He apologised for the delay. ‘Twenty minutes!’ she screechingly repeated. ‘That’s not good enough.’ Before the young functionary could apologise more a nurse came in from A and E, by-passed the now-burgeoning queue and said firmly but calmly that she had to get supplies for an ambulance that had to go out on a call. She was allowed the jump the outpatient queue. Fair enough we all thought. But not Jack Spratt’s wife. ‘You’re joking,’ she whined – and then – ‘It wouldn’t happen at Pembury.’ The beleaguered nurse kept muttering apology and while I thought of a scything, bitter piece of sarcasm to wither the crone, I kept my rapier sheathed. More’s the pity.

Another charming chemist delivered my bag of sweeties and I walked with trepidation to the parking payment station. I passed Jack Spratt’s wife slurping tea in the café – having left hubby to wait at the pharmacy. A half-eaten piece of chocolate cake lay waiting for her final attack of the afternoon.

£3 for parking. A snip after two and a half hours. But wait. The queue to exit the place extended out of sight. No matter, my throat was easing. I was leaving a tad earlier than planned. I had been well-treated, with good manners – and entertained by the great British public.  My Renault Laguna headed south, hope intact, from the inferno.

Being bored with yourself…

21 May

Don’t we all get to the stage of tiring with who we are? I have been pretty teed-off that I stand 5ft 8ins in my stockinged feet and have had serious problems with sight lines at public events this last half-century. There is a considerable range of questionable traits, other than physical deficiencies, that I  possess and seem powerless to control. I’d like to be fashionably late; I am always irritatingly early. I delude myself that I am intellectually curious; idle is so much closer to the truth. I’d like to buy the expensive extra virgin olive oil in M and S but my 50s frugal gene pulls me towards the Tesco Basics range. I’d rather not be a slave to Match of the Day, during which I become grumpy at the merest interruption, but time and again my resolve to reinvent myself falters on the altar of the awful truth: I am who I am. I don’t want to continue to beat myself up but it would be so, so easy…and some of my deficiencies I could do something about – but I won’t. I was prompted to open up on this subject by re-reading my last blog. How dull, I thought. How self-consciously worthy, designed for the few readers to nod approvingly and click the ‘like’ button.

Now I am pretty sure that most people feel as I do. It’s all part of the well I’m stuck in this life and have no option but to grin and bear it syndrome. Recently I have noticed movement among the ranks. Some of us who are terminally bored with ourselves take up pointless hobbies and become near-obsessives. Cycling (lunch-box lycra pants, bright canary torso-hugging vest, silly flat space-helmet, shoes that click into pedals etc, etc); walking (printing out a plethora of online maps, plannning whole Sundays on the South Downs, always ending near a pub); yoga (soaks up an aweful lot of time doing not very much but drop it in to a conversation and you become ‘interesting’) and other silly activities such as pilates, zumba and, of course the gym (ugh!); going to ‘gigs’ – every generation now has ownership of some retro-band-hippie-arty open air jamboree; discovering our past with internet sites panting to get our membership money so we can discover that our ancestors were all illiterate farmers…And so the list goes on. I am a fully paid-up member of the next-fad-banwagon club.

For example, I have indeed cycled to Paris with all the pornographic gear on. Luckily the event was just long enough ago for me to have forgotten the pain and I might put my hand up for another helping. Like childbirth, I guess. I have, too, taken to walking. Indeed the only real joy here has been the pub-planning but I keep my real-ale excitement under wraps. I don’t want to offend the ramblers club who are countryfile devotees to the core. Mind you, they seem to enjoy a pint too.

Now I quite like physical exercise but the body complains rather more often these days, so following Ryan Giggs’s lead, I have enjoyed a few sessions of yoga. God it’s boring ..but undeniably good for you. My yoga class is next to a pub.

Talking of gigs, I have rocked at several stadia and Hyde Parked-it most summers. I consider myself quite cutting edge. I’ve been bookish and arty at Hay and Edinburgh, regularly check out art galleries and am a paid up member at the local cinema club. Culture is going well but my default position remains inert. I’d rather sink into a chair, a beer, a takeaway curry and the Eurovision song Contest. No delete that last bit. I did watch it last week but it even bored me into changing channels to watch the history of Origami or some such on one of those + channels.

As for ancestry (.co.uk) well there’s a time-soaking world to explore. My grandma comes from railway stock! Her Dad was a stationmaster, so too his Dad – and before that they were…farmers. My granddad was an accountant but  a cavalryman in the Queen’s Own Hussars during WW1. His Dad was a police sergeant and before that they were all….farmers. I confess to quite a few frissons of excitement looking through various censuses, so I am being just a tad disingenuous. You get the point, however.

The Rolling Stones are having one of their several last hurrahs this summer. They too seem desperate to stave off boredom. They appear to know who they are, however.

See you in Glastonbury. I’m taking my new camera.

Strangers on a train (3). A trip to London.

29 Apr

I boarded a District Line tube at Wimbledon and settled in my half-empty carriage to my book, The Junior Officers’ Reading Club by Patrick Hennessey. Seated, head down, phone off, I drifted through the pages of soldiers’ lives in Afghanistan. The boredom, humour and utter terror of a life I wouldn’t know. Someone was shouting into an android three seats away, desperate to connect before we went subterranean. Wanker. Otherwise all seemed OK.

Parson’s Green. Young black bloke gets on, announced by the tinny, high-pitched whistle of an iPod, blaring decibel-destruction into his own ears and irritation around the carriage. He sits opposite.  Nothing said. Stiff upper lips all round. Putney Bridge. A Marianne Faithful lookalike (40+ years ago anyway) gets on and finds a spare seat next to the noise. She has a copy of Paris Match protruding from a shoulder bag. Ten seconds pass. She realises her journey will be compromised. She gets up, hastily, haughtily even and marches to the far end of the carriage. Definitely French.

Fulham Broadway. Thick-set white, middle aged bloke in overalls appears. Bespattered. A builder? Rug of greying hair protrudes from his wide-open shirt. Bald. Big boots. He sits next to our DJ. The train moves off, the pulse and pitch of the music overrides all thought. I look up and see the new arrival showing active signs of discontent. Loud theatrical sigh. My interest piqued, I rest my book on my lap and wait.

Not for long. My builder-friend half-turns to our irritant and gently, carefully pulls an earpiece out. I was surprised at the lack of aggression and further, amazed, when he spoke. With no hint of menace, but with undeniable, firm imperative he breathed, “Turn that fucking think down will you mate?” I  held my own breath here. No one else seemed to notice the drama before us – but of course they all had seen and heard. We all play the weird game of locked-in-syndrome unless bold enough to voice discomfort, opinion. I had admired Marianne earlier but this polite, unrefusable request transcended any previous Gestalt of such situations. And  more, the young man responds!

” I’m so sorry; of course.” The accent, public school – or at least that place where Tony Blair sent his kids. The expected uncouth shrug or ‘innit’ voice no part of this young man’s behavioural vocabulary. And yet he knew what he was doing with the full-volume blasting of strangers, just as he knew how to apologise and kill the volume. Self-preservation? Or just manners.

I make it to Sloane Square without more excitement. I have to kill time. I am meeting my daughter. She will be late but I factor this in and allow myself to enjoy the freedom of time. The King’s Road. It’s plush round here. Knightsbridge a stone’s throw, designer shops to right and left, estate agents boasting eye-watering prices for modest flats. There’s a confused hubbub of languages about. It seems most conversations are being conducted in French or Spanish or, actually, American. Fewer Eastern Europeans round here? I head past the Saatchi gallery and turn right at Calvin Klein – I have spied a bookshop at the end of Culford Gardens and I need a browse in the quiet of a sensible store.

Most sole-trader bookshops struggle, don’t they? But here in Kensington and Chelsea this little place is bustling. Bookish people are asking if biographies reviewed in last week’s Sunday Times have come in yet. Smart uniformed prep. school children are quietly browsing in kiddies’ corner. A mother says, “Hurry up and choose, we’ve got to go home via M and S otherwise we’ve nothing for supps.” English, to my surprise.

I hear a conversation outside. A Spanish mother having one of those chats with a son which sounds like ferocious argument but is, in fact, a loving exchange. They come in. I turn and look.. and take her in. Silly clicky high-heels, skinny jeans, tight top, shock of dark hair, aviator sunglasses and…annoyingly attractive. Their conversation continues. Now the boy, also uniformed,  takes the lead and his mother gestures for him to go to the front desk. A perfect and polite English voice comes from the boy’s previously Hispanic gob, “Excuse me have you got the last Alex Rider book, please?”

I smile and head off for Starbucks, needing a bit of barrack room banter from my book to restore order in my head.

Sitting in the alcove at the front of the coffee shop, I have my window on the world. The traffic moves surprisingly freely outside and seemingly hundreds of buses pass, laden with workers going home or heading to meet buddies for beers. It is 6 o’clock. Hordes of pedestrians click by, so many ‘working’ their mobiles as if lives depended on connections made while walking from A to B. Ted Baker bags bounce around the arms of women; men in suits deep in business conversation amble by heading towards Colbert’s the posh new French place on the square or perhaps Pimlico for a gastro pub. There’s no shortage of choice here. Older school pupils rucksacked with cricket and tennis gear,  bantering away, head for home – and if they live round here they’ll be laying their heads in plush bedrooms tonight.

My attention is caught by an American woman ordering coffee – her accent is more Bronx than Boston but it is the expression Hot Latte that catches my ear. “I wanna get three hot lattes,” she demands. The attractive, pony-tailed young waitress (at last an eastern european accent!) smiles.

“All our lattes are hot!”

“Not from the last Starbucks I was in, they weren’t.” Caustic but not unpleasant. I released a smile, which the Yankie lady saw and reciprocated. I resolved to ask for ‘hot’ lattes in the future.

I looked outside again. Almost time to go but I had been enjoying the piped lazy jazz, Frank Sinatra… American Songbooky music that I would rarely buy but seemed perfect for a late afternoon in Starbucks. I glanced across the road. A flower-seller trading beneath a large umbrella, boasting the patronage of KnightFrank.co.uk, Estate Agents – stamped on the fringe of the canvas. An elderly man I had seen earlier, surely then with his wife, now solo, was making his way across the road. He stooped over various bucketed bunches below the canopy. A few seconds and a suitable selection was made. There was a smiley exchange between vendor and vendee and the older man shuffled away towards Sloane Square. He was almost out of Starbucks spying range when he stopped and waited at the pavement’s edge. A minute passed, two, three perhaps. Buses went by a-plenty, taxis too. A rater stooped lady, relying quite heavily on her stick, shambled into view and stopped just a yard from my perch in the Starbucks alcove. She looked up and across the road, scanning the bustle of life, searching. It didn’t take long for my flower-buyer to spot her. He raised the bouquet. She lifted her stick in response. It took a little while but he found a safe gap between buses and made his way to where she was waiting. The flowers were handed over with smiles and love. A fond kiss. A few words and, after a satisfactory rearrangement of bags and blooms, the pair moved off, rather elegantly,  together.

In Starbucks the music had changed to a more urgent beat. Drum and bass. A signal for me to move too.

Books on the Go.

15 Apr

I have taken to reading four books at once. Pretty pretentious, you might say. Hear me out.

Till recently I had never read Harry Potter. Shame! (Indignation) Shaaame (Sympathy). Well The Philosopher’s Stone sits snugly in my downstairs loo awaiting my next motion – or at least when I decide to use that particular venue. Inevitably, I suppose, I will link the young wizard with my basic functions but most books get lost in a different ether. At least HP is contextualised. After 50 pages I am still reserving judgement.

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn (bedside), riding high with nearly 250,000 sold, is an odd tale of a very odd couple – particularly the young wife whose mysterious disappearance is explained in the manner reminiscent of early Ian MacEwan: completely unbelievable…but plausible. It’s a Tom Sharpe maquerading as a Stephen King (quite a stretch) but this is bedside stuff. I admit to skipping Question Time to curl up with it. I didn’t skip anything but my Kindle pages for Jeffrey Archer’s Clifton Chronicles (three down and still two to go…I won’t make it zzzzz___) To be fair I was reading this for the sake of literary breadth; like reading the Mail and the Sun and the Guardian all in the same week. Archer doesn’t speak to any little bit of me, really but I am reminded of the speed reading course I did in 1971 and I can flash through 50 pages in as many seconds.

Aware now that I am sounding patronising – a development from pretentious – the quid pro quo for Jeff is Julian. Barnesie, as I like to call him, is my ‘go to’ man in a tricky situation. He makes me feel clean again; he dusts me down, engages me, surprises me, moves me. His latest, Levels of Life culminates in an extraordinarily touching examination of his grief for Pat Kavanagh, his wife. It’s a literary non-fiction, a documentary novella. The stories are imbued with a sort of giant metaphysicality which moves the reader intellectually as well as emotionally, to a place where he enables our view of human experience- love – via acute angles and towering perspectives. He begins: ‘You put two things together that have not been put together before. And the world is changed.’ So Part One (The Sin of Height) is the tale of early balloon flights coupled with the development of aerial photography. Then follows the improbable pairing of the stiff-upper-lip British adventurer, Fred Burnaby with the vampish actress Sarah Berhardt (On the Level). Finally we are alone with Barnes and his grief (The loss of Height). ‘When we soar we also crash; there are few soft landings,’ he says – and of his wife, ‘..the heart of my life; the life of my heart.’ It’s both poignant and invigorating – with a characteristic detachment as if he is viewing his beravement from a balloon drifting over the Channel.

At 116 pages Levels of Life is a handy volume for all public transport. Who wouldn’t  want to pull JB out on the tube?  I  certainly wouldn’t take Jeff. on the Picadilly Line. One has to be so careful in London. You can see that four books could easily become a minimum to have on the go. Crime/thriller novels are excellent palate-cleansers for higher and lower brow reading. And the effort of picking yourself up after that final page is softened by what’s in the toilet or your overcoat pocket. A friend’s wife used to carry three novels with her at all times and read, one page from each in rotation. She even chose novels of similar lengths. She argued, apparently, that the enjoyment of reaching the climax three times in quick succession…let’s not go there.

I shall be in London tomorrow and will report on my experience of Susan Hill (The Pure in Heart). I haven’t read much of SH but I’m a bit disappointed that she appears to have her tame regular ‘DCI’ Simon Serrailler. I am thus expecting to follow the well-trodden road of Banks, Rankin, PDJ, Val McDermid and the rest who latch on to a character and shake them till they’re dead. Mind you I quite enjoy the vibrations.

Strangers on a train (2)

6 Feb

There are some trains for which a first class ticket costs barely a farthing more than cattle (or ‘standard’) so why not go for it? And so here I was again at Manchester Picadilly, a couple of weeks on from my last visit, enjoying the delights of the Virgin first class lounge which sits, like a mobile TV studio above platform 1, with a view to die for…or from. I positioned myself as Gabby Logan did when overlooking the Olympic Park.

As I was settling in to my machine cappucino, iced water chaser and Wolf Hall, I noted my fellow loungees. Asian – Indian husband, wife, daughter. Well-behaved, quiet. Two smart 30+ladies, all business suits and laptop bags. Two younger men, one power-overcoated, the other thin grey suit, thin grey tie. Top buttons undone – both.

Thomas Cromwell’s wife, Liz,  had just passed away when a thought occurred. None of the noises off in the room were being spoken in English. I thought that I recognised Malayalam – the Keralan dialect – from the stern Indian father;  the smartie ladies were definitely French; the boys were bantering in a growly eastern european way, between iPadding, iPodding and playing with their androids. I cast my eyes over the seething mass of rush-hour Manchester.

And on to coach H, seat 05. The 18.55 under way. I turned pages. Cardinal Wolsey’s position getting dodgy and Thomas More serving notice that he’s a smarty-pants. I was restless, however, since my evening tastebuds were telling me that it was past wine-o’clock. Ears wandered. More strange sounds. Russian? And Chinesey? Certainly more French. Then the train manager intercommed. I think I caught Stockport, and Crew but missed Wilmslow and Milton Keynes. He spoke with the fast asian certainty that his passengers could understand every word. His voice was light and comforting and impenetrable. I have a lovely friend in Cochin with whom I have spent many hours of delightful whisky-laced conversation: he in the certain knowledge that I understand all his rapid-fire RP English; me in that exhilarating state of second-guessing and linguistic ‘catch-up’ where the game of jigsawing sentences or knowing grunts and gestures becomes an art. I didn’t get to meet the train manager. Pity.

Shortly a drinks trolley rattled in, prodded onward by a tall blond hunk of a young waiter – all Third Reich and noble bearing. A step behind was a gorgeous dark-and-olive waitress looking as if she’d just shoe-horned herself into her unform after jetting in from Mauritius or Hawaii or wherever else these visions are created. I waited for the language hit. From the mouth of Adonis came the uplifting harshness of South London –Looks like you could do with a stiff one, Sir – no word of a lie. What do you suggest? said I. Nothing better than the Cab. Sav, if you like a bit-o-red…and why not have it in the tumbler, y’never know how long the food’ll take. Well the deal was done and I was showered with undersized packed of pretzels and Tyrrels’ crisps. Bloody silly these piddling little packs. Barely get a mouthful. I was all agreement and gratitude.

Then he rumbled off and Aphrodite appeared with menu and pencil and when she opened her mouth out came Joanna Lumley, Moira Stewart and Fiona Bruce all rolled into one. Too shy to ask her where she hailed from, I restricted myself to mumbling my preference for the chicken and stuffing sandwich, fresh fruit and coffee later. And so I sank back into the arms of Hilary Mantel and the crimson warmth of the Cab Sav.

While my ear struggled with the sounds around me I was buoyed by the crisp and surprising clarity of my attendants. On delivery the sandwich turned out to be a white-Sunblested nightmare. The packaging sported an image of Nelson. I wouldn’t have advertised the Englishness of this product; the great admiral would have spat the thing out. Aphrodite was all apology and offered me another banana. Adonis reappeared near Milton Keynes to announce that I needed a double top-up to see me through to Euston. You’re very chirpy at 9pm on a Friday, I offered. Easy job,  I like people, got the weekend off. Well it’s easy if you smile, I said. You make it look easy. Well, Sir, the way I look at it is that life’s too bloody short, innit?

Too right.

That Was the Week that Was.

13 Jun

Ned Sherrin’s easy-read autobiography, which runs to nearly 500 pages of TV, radio and theatre name-dropping from the second part of the last century, has reminded me of the satirical frisson that the ground-breaking TW3 gave us when it hit the screens in the early 1960s. Those who grew up post baby-boom have seen the cutting edge of satire dissipated by the air-time challenges of reality shows, nights at the Apollo, and the meteorites of goggle-box giggling Norton, Fry and Wossy. The legacy crumbs of Frost, Levin, Rushton, Millie Martin, Ken Cope, Bird and Fortune et al are spread far and wide – their collective is impotent. Humphreys and Paxman, Rory’s imitations and Have I got News For You hardly constitute the full frontal assaults on our political consciousness of an hour of TW3 each Saturday night, 50 years ago.

I had forgotten that Ned had conceived and produced the show and, subsequently graced various media with his wit and incisive intelligence. Loose Ends saw him out six years ago and, like John Peel, his voice lives on in the heads of avid radio devotees. This recent read and the aforementioned show made me ponder on the Week that Was, Jubilee.

It began with the Derby. The sun shone and Epsom Downs is free. Dodgy burger and Lager; a terrifying inverted ride at the funfair; the tattooed rubbing sholders with posh frocks and champers; the ground- shakes as silks and hooves thunder past; check the big screens to see the replay of Camelot’s charge to victory. Oh yes and spot Queenie in her stand smiling benevolently on all she surveys. So far so good.

Day 2. Rain. Great decision to watch the ‘Pageant’ at home. The BBC let us down didn’t they? How boring was it; how inane? I still like Sophie Rayworth though. The Queen still smiled (through gritted teeth) on all she surveyed. Prince Phillip’s jaunty dance to the Hornpipe finally did for his bladder. Arguably he went to a better place for the rest of the holiday.

Monday 4th June. I played golf . Good weather, good choice..and I won. Back in time to settle in  for the Concert Royale. Actually fun! Cliff still pratting about and all celebs in good voice save for the hapless Cheryl who can’t sing a note. Charlie boy makes us smile and cheer for Dad in his private room. ER smiled on all she surveyed but had the sense to arrive halfway through. Lip-reading I noticed her saying,” I wished I’d bloody well arrived late yesterday.”

By this stage in the proceedings I had spotted that Camilla likes cosying up to her Her Majesty – she’s always within curtseying distance. Brown specks all over her nose. Harry’s always making little boysy jokes and trying to make Kate snigger inappropriately. William tends to be more worried these days – weight of responsibilities and all that. In particular, contemplating how to manage the imminent comb-over must take quite a lot out of him. Still he seems to be eating Kate’s left-overs at breakfast, so when she eventually falls pregnant he’ll be the one eating for two.

Tuesday we took to London and joined the throng having watched the St. Paul’s thing at home. Glad we did this because Huw and Simon finally gave us gravitas, language and historical perspective. Not too much to ask. Even scurrilous Sharma on ITV did a fair turn. Matt Baker please stay in your One Show and Countryfile boxes. The Mall was friendly, packed chaos. Couldn’t see a thing until the Red Arrows did their thing. Not enough screens around, thought I. Never got near a sight of the balcony party. No matter really. Union Jacks, multi-racial and multi-national bonhomie abounded. The Ship and Shovel at Charing Cross still serving top beer. All was right with the world. And the Queen smiled on all she surveyed all day but she must have been glad to kick off her shoes when she came in from the balcony.

What would Frost and co have made of all this on TW3? One thing is sure. The Queen was watching or surveying then, and still is today.

 

 

Maurice Upperton

14 May

I arrived at Cuddington County Primary School, Worcester Park, aged six or seven and was dropped into Mrs Thorburn’s Class. New faces, little tables; feeling alone. Class 3, elder brother put in class 5.

Three weeks’ later promotion to Mr Upperton’s class 4. Mrs T had spotted something in me. Times table dynamism, no doubt. Astute woman – severe but astute. Mr U didn’t want a 35th or 36th member of the class when the uncompromising Head, Miss Iris Smith forced me upon him. He pouted like a spoiled child. A spare desk had to be found. I was placed in an alcove, separate. Not only was I new and a year young but now, also, in a recess. I felt odd. I was an inconvenience. Mr U was odd too.

Later, in class 7, our 11+ year, he was my teacher again. I have a stronger recall of this time. 1961. Mr U was a formal, suited man – usually brown or green tweed – quite dapper as befitted this neat little, pinched specimen. Half moon glasses over which he peered, perched on his nose precariously – his forefinger regularly prodded the specs back up to the safety of the bridge so he could relax into his piercing study of the individual under scrutiny. A decade earlier it would have been a pince-nez below his slicked Hitleresque hair. A strong but squeaky voive, a fob-watch running from lapel to top pocket (or on smarter days a waistcoat chain), a shiny dome and thinning hair, mirror-polished brogues which squeaked, not unlike his voice – are amongst many  impressions I retain of a man I didn’t like much.

He much preferred girls- their hard work, their general lack of interest in sport or being naughty, their desire to please. They fussed tirelessly over wickerwork and lino cuts, cried when they got the 15times tables wrong and pleaded for more sessions of country dancing. Boys he found tiresome. We didn’t have much time for him either – save for that lingering fear that smart, pinched, stern, controlled, neat, small men-with-strident-voices, can engender.

But. But…he could tell or read a story like no other. Most afternoons saw me tripping home in a glow of Huck Finn’s tribulations, Gladys Aylward’s heroics, Just William’s impishness and so much more. Uppity’s squeaky hectoring voice metamorphosed into a child’s aural delight as he navigated his way through the narratives: accents, gender and age-related diction, a brilliance of drama and timing, breath-holding and release – the story-teller’s power crackled across the classroom as we lay our heads. Occasionally I would be moved to glance up, intuitively knowing that it was the time to meet that extra grimace of expression, the edge of meaning that a facial contortion can give. Uppity rarely failed to satisfy.

For all his buttoned-up suits Maurice Upperton opened up new worlds each afternoon. Forty years later I met him at a past-pupils’ function. He was in his 90s. He didn’t remember me. His voice still squeaked. I still didn’t like him but his Huck Finn voice remains so strong in my ear.

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