Cardiff

Chapter One


So here we are, sitting on the train flying back to the warmth and safety of Brighton. Wales, we've been in Wales, the land of Sir Fynwy. It's the 5.55am from Cardiff and the sun is coming up over the green and pleasant land and I'm listening to the new Moby album (does work ever stop?) and I'll be back at maybe 10am. It's Tuesday morning, the morning after the night before and the night before was... Kylie at the Cardiff International Arena. And you thought you had all the fun.
Check into hotel (Ibis, all Kenco coffee and no porn channel). Three hours to kill. Opposite the hotel is a cinema. The rare luxury of going to the cinema on my own, a treat that was a staple of my youth but one of those things (like... just about every selfish pleasure) that had to move out to accommodate The Baggage. You'd have thought that The Lord would have forseen such things and made our lives bigger as we went on. You know, you start off with 24 hours just for yourself but then you're expected to take on board a wife, kids, a job, the dogs, the cats, the kids' friends, a mortgage, the garden, a new kitchen, knocking out the back wall and sorting out a conservatory, the "what are we going to do about Elly's school?" question... The Baggage in that same 24 hours. And it's worse, because when you were younger you had more energy (or at least more drugs that gave you more energy) so your youthful 24 hours lasted longer than your mature 2 hours. Would it have hurt The Grand Scheme if we were given, say, an additional 5 hours a day with each extra child? I wonder if Brighton Progressive Synagogue's got a Suggestion Box? Maybe one day I'll find out. If I ever go there. Anyway. So I went to the cinema by myself.
"What's the next film to start?" I said to the assistant, kinda hoping it wasn't The Scorpion King or ET Special Edition.
"About A Boy" he said. "It starts in three minutes".
That'll do, I thought. I remember Allan Hunter gave it a good review. Didn't actually read the review, but... Allan's a top man. Knows the game. Wee, popcorn, in. Opening credits. Great Badly Drawn Boy song. What can I tell you? If I could remember the last film I walked out of, I'd say it was the first film I'd walked out of since whatever it's called. OK, so I figure I walked out near the end (Hugh Grant joins the boy onstage at a school concert... don't ask) and I did want to get something to eat before it was time to see The Singing Bottom, but a walk out is a walk out. It counts. What a pile of trite, see-through, mendacious, moralistic bollocks. In the old days I'd have called it fascist, but we don't do that now. You can't be happy without a job, a wife and kids. If you don't have these things you're worthless, vacuous, a "nothing". What offensive Thatcherite/Blairite (same nonsense) piffle. It was strange seeing Toni Collette in what was essentially a one-off BBC comedy-drama, but that was about it. The last film I walked out of (and I know you want to know this) was The English Patient.
Chapter 2: The Small Joys Of Life
9.10am. We 're approaching Gatwick. "We'd like to apologise for the late running of this train. This was due to a previous points failure."
Bitch. That means instead of a 15 minute gap between this train pulling into Gatwick and the Brighton train pulling out there's now only a five minute gap. Not enough time to run upstairs to Cafe Costa or whatever faceless coffee shack is sitting smugly there with its long tall skinny lattes ands I could really fancy a nice cup of coffee. 5.20am alarm call and all. Anyway, life isn't so bad. The God Of Small Pleasures has made the Brighton train before the Brighton train I was supposed to get late - a previous points failure probably - so what happens is this. I get off my train on Platform 3 and gently stroll over to platform 5 where my Brighton train is sitting, waiting. The joy. OK, so I don't get a coffee yet but still. I get home 30 minutes earlier than I was going to (30 minutes? You didn't think my original Brighton train was on time, did you?)