Poppy
Tuesday 5 January 2010
Time to buy some jeans
I don't think I've ever felt so out of step. James Blunt was the biggest selling album of the Noughties, Top Gear apparently the best TV show. I don't understand either. Maybe it's something to do with moving to the countryside.
Even in the days when I used to be paid to be out of step, I never felt so distant. Mind, in those days I wasn’t ever out of step. Everyone else was. But now, now I don’t write about that stuff anymore and I’m just another winsome voice in the crowd and it’s all a bit… grumpy.
I should like Clarkson. Someone I used to work with – the lovely Rob Gore-Langton – used to share a flat with Clarkson and apparently he used to cut out my Independent stuff and put it on his fridge. The Independent – I wonder what might have been had I stayed there, had I not left to follow the muse. Maybe that's why I don't like TG. (Not so long ago - OK, quite a long time ago) TG used to stand for Throbbing Gristle. Oh well).
I don't want to come over like some of my students, but it's baffling to me and anyone who tunes in to either should be shot. It's just my opinion and I'm entitled to it and anyone who disagrees... they should also be shot.
In that very last year way, I posted the opening par of this ramble on my Facebook status. And this is what I got back: “The only people who don't like Top Gear are people who don't watch it. It is hilarious and irreverent in these po-faced times.”
Then I was sent me this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lsY5BaKhuQ&feature=related
Enjoy ... this is a Theroux-style deconstructon of middle america, so much more valid given clarkson's perceived right-wing stance; in truth its just bloody funny. C'mon you pussy-whipped hippies, get off your pilates mat and have a good laugh...
So I watched it. Three middle aged blokes driving through Redneck Central trying to wind up the locals by writing stuff like “Hillary for President” and “Man Love Rules” on the side of their cars.
I’ve watched Top Gear and simply don't get it. It's a one trick pony - the boorish geezer at the end of the bar persona, the don't-give-a-toss-about-the-environment, the anyone who disagrees is a killjoy attitude... it's dull. Compare Top Gear's humour with someone like Russell Brand who is genuinely sparkling and shiny and clever...
Rachel said this: Clarkson would love this... middle aged blokes with nothing better to do than debate his attributes. I quite like his irritating predictability and occasionally I do laugh like a drain.. oh no! I've got drawn in. JB..who cares...
That’s possibly right too. Rachel always was clever.
Even in the days when I used to be paid to be out of step, I never felt so distant. Mind, in those days I wasn’t ever out of step. Everyone else was. But now, now I don’t write about that stuff anymore and I’m just another winsome voice in the crowd and it’s all a bit… grumpy.
I should like Clarkson. Someone I used to work with – the lovely Rob Gore-Langton – used to share a flat with Clarkson and apparently he used to cut out my Independent stuff and put it on his fridge. The Independent – I wonder what might have been had I stayed there, had I not left to follow the muse. Maybe that's why I don't like TG. (Not so long ago - OK, quite a long time ago) TG used to stand for Throbbing Gristle. Oh well).
I don't want to come over like some of my students, but it's baffling to me and anyone who tunes in to either should be shot. It's just my opinion and I'm entitled to it and anyone who disagrees... they should also be shot.
In that very last year way, I posted the opening par of this ramble on my Facebook status. And this is what I got back: “The only people who don't like Top Gear are people who don't watch it. It is hilarious and irreverent in these po-faced times.”
Then I was sent me this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lsY5BaKhuQ&feature=related
Enjoy ... this is a Theroux-style deconstructon of middle america, so much more valid given clarkson's perceived right-wing stance; in truth its just bloody funny. C'mon you pussy-whipped hippies, get off your pilates mat and have a good laugh...
So I watched it. Three middle aged blokes driving through Redneck Central trying to wind up the locals by writing stuff like “Hillary for President” and “Man Love Rules” on the side of their cars.
I’ve watched Top Gear and simply don't get it. It's a one trick pony - the boorish geezer at the end of the bar persona, the don't-give-a-toss-about-the-environment, the anyone who disagrees is a killjoy attitude... it's dull. Compare Top Gear's humour with someone like Russell Brand who is genuinely sparkling and shiny and clever...
Rachel said this: Clarkson would love this... middle aged blokes with nothing better to do than debate his attributes. I quite like his irritating predictability and occasionally I do laugh like a drain.. oh no! I've got drawn in. JB..who cares...
That’s possibly right too. Rachel always was clever.
Tuesday 29 December 2009
CHAPTER SIX
Last night had started in typical Palace style. I was sitting on the fridge in the hall – don’t ask – just sitting there watching the world go by. Fag, glass, watch.
People come, people go, the fridge was a good place to hang out. The Palace equivalent of the water cooler.
A couple of characters came out of one of the rooms. Tonya and James. I love these two guys. They’re always on the look out, always game for it. Really I think the reason I liked them so much was cos I knew that they were a bit like me, part timers, not really part of the game. I don’t know how they ended up here, but they weren’t here for the long haul. Probably just hanging out till college starts or something.
Normally they play the club game, but tonight…. Tonight they looked special.
“How long have you been here?” I said to Tonya. I’d been there about six months and he’d been there longer than me. It’s funny. It sounded like I was asking about a prison sentence or something.
“Nah, I only came about a month or so before you. Sometimes it feels like forever but it feels like home, you know what I mean?”
“I know what you mean. You think you’ll know when enough is enough? When it’s time to stop the madness?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I think,” said James, “he means ‘What the fuck are we doing dressed up like this?’”
James had a point. Coming out of your room at The Palace was always a treat. You never quite knew what was going to happen. Tonya and James were sweet lads, an Aussie and a Brit. Both up for it, both nice boys on holiday. But James had a point.
They were trussed up in leather, in I don’t know, the sort of lederhosen you’d get in a sex shop if sex shops sold lederhosen. Maybe a Bavarian sex shop that catered for the S&M crowd. Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the only kind of sex shop you got in Bavaria.
Why? What? Did it matter? I asked and they started telling me about how they were going to check out the gay bars cos they’d met some bloke who told them it was an easy way to make some dosh and… and… and…
Sometimes I didn’t know whether we were on Candid Camera or whether it was for real. Maybe it was one of those Japanese game shows where you had to undergo strange acts of sadism. There was that Clive James used to present called Endurance, I think. I used to write about them, thought they were rubbish, laughing at the funny foreigners. Curiously, I went from writing about them to appearing on one of them once. No, but really.
People come, people go, the fridge was a good place to hang out. The Palace equivalent of the water cooler.
A couple of characters came out of one of the rooms. Tonya and James. I love these two guys. They’re always on the look out, always game for it. Really I think the reason I liked them so much was cos I knew that they were a bit like me, part timers, not really part of the game. I don’t know how they ended up here, but they weren’t here for the long haul. Probably just hanging out till college starts or something.
Normally they play the club game, but tonight…. Tonight they looked special.
“How long have you been here?” I said to Tonya. I’d been there about six months and he’d been there longer than me. It’s funny. It sounded like I was asking about a prison sentence or something.
“Nah, I only came about a month or so before you. Sometimes it feels like forever but it feels like home, you know what I mean?”
“I know what you mean. You think you’ll know when enough is enough? When it’s time to stop the madness?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I think,” said James, “he means ‘What the fuck are we doing dressed up like this?’”
James had a point. Coming out of your room at The Palace was always a treat. You never quite knew what was going to happen. Tonya and James were sweet lads, an Aussie and a Brit. Both up for it, both nice boys on holiday. But James had a point.
They were trussed up in leather, in I don’t know, the sort of lederhosen you’d get in a sex shop if sex shops sold lederhosen. Maybe a Bavarian sex shop that catered for the S&M crowd. Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the only kind of sex shop you got in Bavaria.
Why? What? Did it matter? I asked and they started telling me about how they were going to check out the gay bars cos they’d met some bloke who told them it was an easy way to make some dosh and… and… and…
Sometimes I didn’t know whether we were on Candid Camera or whether it was for real. Maybe it was one of those Japanese game shows where you had to undergo strange acts of sadism. There was that Clive James used to present called Endurance, I think. I used to write about them, thought they were rubbish, laughing at the funny foreigners. Curiously, I went from writing about them to appearing on one of them once. No, but really.
CHAPTER FIVE
Around me in the cafe, people are sitting reading the papers. And the scene is the same as everywhere else in the world. They are turned to the sports pages, checking to see how their boys have done.
Another cigarette. Having another cigarette wasn’t so much a decision as a move designed to put off having to make a decision because you know any other decision will probably be wrong and definitely not really worth the effort.
Last night. About last night. There was an acronym - A.C.E. – we used which made us laugh anyway. We’re going to have an ace night. A night out with acid, cocaine and ecstasy. Ace. Last night was supposed to be ace. But then every night is supposed to be ace. It got blown out of the water when Mark came in with some smack. That added an ‘H’. We should have known then. That made it an ache. But, it’s getting better.
More coffee arrives. People carrying umbrellas walk past. I’m wearing a pink sweatshirt cut off just above the elbow. It is emblazoned with the legend “Chanel - Paris” but no one can see it because it’s inside out. On my legs are a pair of Thai fisherman’s trousers held up by a brown leather belt. My shoes are local specialities called Jika Tabi - black canvas boots which fasten at the back with maybe 15 hook and eye things and which the big toe separated like a foot mitten. They are very comfortable and, to your eyes, a little eccentric. The whole ensemble is what you might call ‘witty’. Last night was still here...
..." "Don't let me stop you." So I wrote "... waiting for another coffee" and put my pen down again. You know where you stand with creativity.
------------------
About last night. I remember the way I used to go out. Say, for example, I was supposed to go out at 10. I’d have a bath at 6, a long bath, wash my hair and spend the next two hours poodling around doing my hair and sorting out which clothes to wear.
Where were we going? What type of people were going to be there? What impression did I want to create? Did I want a friend for a night? A job? A serious friend? A serious job? I had a suit for each and knew exactly which one would do for each need. The fact that they were all black and baggy and double breasted and made by the same geezer mattered not a jot to anyone but me. I knew and I felt right in each one in a different way. That took me up to about 8ish. Then I’d spend some time on the phone, checking out what the score really was and then I’d spend the next 30 or 40 minutes changing the suit to meet the new requirement. Five minutes before leaving the house, I’d change back to the suit that I always wore. The black baggy one. Dependable and comfortable. Sometimes I’d lay three or four out on my bed, each with a tie and compare and go through different combinations.
Here, things are a bit different. No, maybe that’s misleading. They’re not really different. There isn’t the clothing dilemma, largely because there are no clothes to speak of. How can you deliberate about which suit to wear when you’ve only got one suit? So what do you do? You end up trying to change your inside because you can’t change your outside. Drugs is the new deal. The questions are the old questions. Where were we going? What type of people were going to be there? What impression did I want to create? Did I want a friend for a night, a job, a serious friend? A tab of acid? Maybe a speed cap and half a tab? And a line of coke. A little bit of ketamine. Take half a tab now and half when you get there. And more speed. What the point? The result was always the same - to fuck up your mind. What do you want to do? Become someone else? Altered states. Jump around like a monkey. More or less the same as altered suits. More or less.
Another cigarette. Having another cigarette wasn’t so much a decision as a move designed to put off having to make a decision because you know any other decision will probably be wrong and definitely not really worth the effort.
Last night. About last night. There was an acronym - A.C.E. – we used which made us laugh anyway. We’re going to have an ace night. A night out with acid, cocaine and ecstasy. Ace. Last night was supposed to be ace. But then every night is supposed to be ace. It got blown out of the water when Mark came in with some smack. That added an ‘H’. We should have known then. That made it an ache. But, it’s getting better.
More coffee arrives. People carrying umbrellas walk past. I’m wearing a pink sweatshirt cut off just above the elbow. It is emblazoned with the legend “Chanel - Paris” but no one can see it because it’s inside out. On my legs are a pair of Thai fisherman’s trousers held up by a brown leather belt. My shoes are local specialities called Jika Tabi - black canvas boots which fasten at the back with maybe 15 hook and eye things and which the big toe separated like a foot mitten. They are very comfortable and, to your eyes, a little eccentric. The whole ensemble is what you might call ‘witty’. Last night was still here...
..." "Don't let me stop you." So I wrote "... waiting for another coffee" and put my pen down again. You know where you stand with creativity.
------------------
About last night. I remember the way I used to go out. Say, for example, I was supposed to go out at 10. I’d have a bath at 6, a long bath, wash my hair and spend the next two hours poodling around doing my hair and sorting out which clothes to wear.
Where were we going? What type of people were going to be there? What impression did I want to create? Did I want a friend for a night? A job? A serious friend? A serious job? I had a suit for each and knew exactly which one would do for each need. The fact that they were all black and baggy and double breasted and made by the same geezer mattered not a jot to anyone but me. I knew and I felt right in each one in a different way. That took me up to about 8ish. Then I’d spend some time on the phone, checking out what the score really was and then I’d spend the next 30 or 40 minutes changing the suit to meet the new requirement. Five minutes before leaving the house, I’d change back to the suit that I always wore. The black baggy one. Dependable and comfortable. Sometimes I’d lay three or four out on my bed, each with a tie and compare and go through different combinations.
Here, things are a bit different. No, maybe that’s misleading. They’re not really different. There isn’t the clothing dilemma, largely because there are no clothes to speak of. How can you deliberate about which suit to wear when you’ve only got one suit? So what do you do? You end up trying to change your inside because you can’t change your outside. Drugs is the new deal. The questions are the old questions. Where were we going? What type of people were going to be there? What impression did I want to create? Did I want a friend for a night, a job, a serious friend? A tab of acid? Maybe a speed cap and half a tab? And a line of coke. A little bit of ketamine. Take half a tab now and half when you get there. And more speed. What the point? The result was always the same - to fuck up your mind. What do you want to do? Become someone else? Altered states. Jump around like a monkey. More or less the same as altered suits. More or less.
Tuesday 1 December 2009
A fantastic idea
It’s a fantastic idea. I’m going to write a book where all the lead characters have the same names as the literary critics of the major papers and magazines. They’ll all be fantastically good looking, rich, charismatic… the beautiful people. Journalists – critics especially – are all ego monsters. All that “I think this” and “I think that.” The idea that they are paid to give their opinions, how could they not be? I’m going to call it “The X Factor: My Story”. It’s a belt-and-braces thing here. You have a look in any bookshop and that’s all there is: books by The X Factor, books about The X Factor, books by The X Factor about The X Factor. Bless it and all, but all you’ve got to do is put his name on the cover and… well, he’s not going to complain is she? Max Clifford might but I figure as long as you don’t put a surname to it… could be any old X Factor.
I’m growing to love my new phone. Very touchy feely, all that fingers across the screen stuff. I can’t actually make any calls on it yet but I think sometimes we ask too much of technology. I’m sitting here on the train, we’re flying through the beautiful countryside and I’m listening to The Bays – my still new favourite band. What could be finer? I had been feeling a little jaded but a bit of The Bays….
Jaded. That’s it. The title of my new book. Jaded. Actually, I’ve been thinking. By the time I’ve finished the book – about 320 years time at the current rate. No, by the time I’ve finished the book and the thing comes out we’re talking about what? 18 months? Easy. No one will have a clue who Jade is, sorry was. It’ll be lost. She, bless her and all, won’t even be a footnote. What I need to do is think of the next Jade – or maybe the Jade of about three Jade’s time. 18 months? That’s about three Jades, no? Six months is possibly a bit generous, but hey, let’s go easy one her.
Hayward’s Heath. Home of the good idea. And I’ve got the good idea. We’ll call the book “Gordon Brown: My Story”. About as much chance as Spurs winning the Champions League.
I’m growing to love my new phone. Very touchy feely, all that fingers across the screen stuff. I can’t actually make any calls on it yet but I think sometimes we ask too much of technology. I’m sitting here on the train, we’re flying through the beautiful countryside and I’m listening to The Bays – my still new favourite band. What could be finer? I had been feeling a little jaded but a bit of The Bays….
Jaded. That’s it. The title of my new book. Jaded. Actually, I’ve been thinking. By the time I’ve finished the book – about 320 years time at the current rate. No, by the time I’ve finished the book and the thing comes out we’re talking about what? 18 months? Easy. No one will have a clue who Jade is, sorry was. It’ll be lost. She, bless her and all, won’t even be a footnote. What I need to do is think of the next Jade – or maybe the Jade of about three Jade’s time. 18 months? That’s about three Jades, no? Six months is possibly a bit generous, but hey, let’s go easy one her.
Hayward’s Heath. Home of the good idea. And I’ve got the good idea. We’ll call the book “Gordon Brown: My Story”. About as much chance as Spurs winning the Champions League.
So here we are
So here we are, sitting in a People-Like-Us café in Seven Dials. This so easily could have been our world. I’m not quite sure why it isn’t. I’m really happy that it isn’t, but still I’m not quite sure why it isn’t.
Four women, they all look like Gill or maybe Vicky – not as good-looking obviously – sit around having coffee. One is tapping at a laptop. A bloke walks in with a young child. He’s wearing slovenly jeans with stitching that’s probably most posh and a thick knit zip up cardigan. The jeans cost more than my entire get up, but that’s always the way.
I feel a mixture of deep frustration and sweet contentment. It’s a curious mix, each keeps the other in check. I’m comfortable in the café – the coffee is good, the people are nice to look at, one of the women – the one sitting nearest me – is kinda sexy. There’s a tantalising glimpse, a slither of skin showing between her slovenly jeans and thick knit zip up cardigan and I have a fleeting fantasy – also a slither – about her. But the slovenly jeans and thick knit zip up cardigan get in the way, and my fantasy gives way to a thought-stream about this People-Like-Us uniform.
The comfort of the café and the comfort of my situation here never quite gets carried away with itself because every time it does… the anger about college rises to the surface. It’s a bore. I’ve been trying to invoke the Roy Keane/Thierry Henry framework – it’s happened, that’s the situation, get over it – but it’s hard. I’d leave in a jiff – or at least I think I would. I said last night that the glow I got from Joe doing well far outweighed the anger I feel about being dumped on and it’s largely true. Largely.
I’m also angry about what Gill told me about her evening last night. What sort of strange people are these? How can they disassociate themselves from life so entirely? And Ellie? It’s so hard to remember that she’s still so young. We demand so much from her yet she’s so young, so… unbaked.
Four women, they all look like Gill or maybe Vicky – not as good-looking obviously – sit around having coffee. One is tapping at a laptop. A bloke walks in with a young child. He’s wearing slovenly jeans with stitching that’s probably most posh and a thick knit zip up cardigan. The jeans cost more than my entire get up, but that’s always the way.
I feel a mixture of deep frustration and sweet contentment. It’s a curious mix, each keeps the other in check. I’m comfortable in the café – the coffee is good, the people are nice to look at, one of the women – the one sitting nearest me – is kinda sexy. There’s a tantalising glimpse, a slither of skin showing between her slovenly jeans and thick knit zip up cardigan and I have a fleeting fantasy – also a slither – about her. But the slovenly jeans and thick knit zip up cardigan get in the way, and my fantasy gives way to a thought-stream about this People-Like-Us uniform.
The comfort of the café and the comfort of my situation here never quite gets carried away with itself because every time it does… the anger about college rises to the surface. It’s a bore. I’ve been trying to invoke the Roy Keane/Thierry Henry framework – it’s happened, that’s the situation, get over it – but it’s hard. I’d leave in a jiff – or at least I think I would. I said last night that the glow I got from Joe doing well far outweighed the anger I feel about being dumped on and it’s largely true. Largely.
I’m also angry about what Gill told me about her evening last night. What sort of strange people are these? How can they disassociate themselves from life so entirely? And Ellie? It’s so hard to remember that she’s still so young. We demand so much from her yet she’s so young, so… unbaked.
Saturday 14 November 2009
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FOUR
Yeah, the old life. I can't remember exactly how it started, which particular conversation ended with me thinking "Enough". I don't even really remember who the conversation was with. Maybe it was a situation rather than a particular conversation. I don't know. Most likely it was a combination thing. It's strange. You start to think of these things and you think of something that at the time didn't seem death-ray pivotal, but it keeps poking its head into your thoughts. I remember there was this one exchange I had with Catherine ages ago. There were better ones in terms of fire and brimstone. There were funnier ones, sadder ones and ones that were more typical, but this one keeps raising its head. Maybe it’s just because of the stupidity of the whole thing. I don't know.
"Why can't we be more like the Aborigines?"
Ah, yes. The Aborigines. Why weren't we more like the Aborigines? If I was a betting man, I wouldn't have gone for the 66/1 shot that this would be an anthropological question. No, the clever money would be on the 4/1 on favourite. Grief. So, what critical jewel were we going to be treated to now? But that wasn't the real question. The real question was this. How to answer. Dull sarcasm?
"What do you mean? Volunteer to do the work of repressed minorities?"
Dull. A sharp stab with the fabled wit?
"Emigrate to Australia and volunteer to do the work of repressed minorities?"
Dull. A mildly disinterested nod?
"Oh?"
Ease of exit pointed the way to the mildly disinterested nod.
"Oh?"
"The Aborigines didn't have a written language so everything that they knew had to be passed on by word of mouth, by telling each other stories. Everything became a story and if anyone wanted to tell anyone anything or communicate anything they had to talk to each other. They couldn't send each other long, laborious letters full of circumstantial logic and circular truths. They had to talk."
We'd had this talk talk before. I had tried to explain that if we had anything to talk about, we'd talk. That was a stupid tack. It was easy for the row to follow. I had also tried to explain that it wasn't the quantity of your conversation that counted., it was the quality. What I should have done was said that we didn't talk to each other because we couldn't talk to each other because as soon as either of us opened our mouths, the other was gripped by a near murderous impulse. But I didn't say this. What I did was write letters. It had once seemed to be the only way to get a rhythm going, a flow. It was pointless. Rather stupidly, I noticed that I had left a window open.
"I read somewhere that the Aborigines were skilled painters."
I could never resist the dull sarcasm. And that was the end of that.
There were other conversations that came and went, but none of them ever seemed to do anything but confirm that doing what you wanted to do was the right thing to do. There was the work.
"I don't understand you. I mean, of course I understand that you want to travel and explore, but for you to do it now seems really stupid. You're just in the middle here. You've spent quite a bit of time, enough to get yourself known and to have a good reputation, but not long enough to make yourself indispensable. Why don't you reconsider, give it another couple of years. By then, you'll be able to call the shots, you'll be in a position to go away for a while and negotiate terms which will ensure you your job is waiting for you when you return."
Eminently sensible, every word. There was no arguing with the logic. But I didn't want sensible. I wanted out. Now.
"The dudong is fucked. I read only this morning that one was washed up on shore, death by oil. It's only the first one reported, but it can only get worse."
OK, I had a bit of a thing about dudongs. Dudongs and manatees – these beautiful subterranean creatures that, so the stories go, fuelled all those old tales of mermaids. Theirs was a singular beauty, a mother’s beauty, the beauty of age. The only thing was… my thing about dudongs was just another of those things we didn’t share. She considered it one of my strange quirks. I considered it vital.
I kinda knew that invoking the dudong was doomed, but – really, I mean this – it really did make logical sense to me. It was the type of logic that couldn't be argued against, unless you consider "Am I supposed to understand that? You don't want to talk to me? Fine. Don't talk to me." to be an argument.
"Look, I'm just being honest. All I mean is that if you stay too long in one place, you can get caught. If the dudong had kept an eye on the situation and been aware of what was happening, it would have been OK."
"I don't know what a dudong is and I don't suppose it really matters. You're making as much sense as a 4-year-old."
“Well, they say that as we get older we become more childlike.”
Everyone has their tales of glory, their tales of woe. "He's an ordinary geezer, doesn't seem to have any grief". But it's not true. Everyone has their grief. Well, everyone here does anyway. Everybody everywhere does. Family grief. Parental grief. Boy grief. Girl grief. Body grief. Mind grief. Grief grief.
I knew how I'd got there. It was more or less the same story of why I was leaving. I don't mean the cold, I mean the unnecessary agg. It wasn't just the woman thing. There was also the other woman thing. Names are so unnecessary at this stage. They merge into one more often than not anyway. And then there were the times when there wasn't a Kate or a Karen – fictional, of course - to give the grief. Maybe that was more grief.
The road out was ridiculously easy. It was just a regular meal out at a regular place with a regular mate, but it was one of those days. Biorhythms or something.
"I'm pissed off" I said.
"You're pissed off? You should sit in my office for day. Then you'd really know about pissed off."
"Why should I sit in your office? I sit in my office. I know about pissed off."
"And the woman grief?"
"The woman grief you know about. The woman grief's the woman grief which is the woman grief."
"Doesn't help, does it?"
"Is it meant to help?"
"No. I don't suppose it is. I don't know. I just don't know."
“You know something,” I said. “Do you ever get to feel that something’s passed you by?”
“Sure. What was her name last week? Emma. She passed me by, and as quickly as her little legs would carry her.”
“No, I mean it. Do you ever feel that something’s passed you by? That the world has changed and you’re not there.”
“Are you going to get serious on me here?”
“I think so. Listen. Switch on the telly and it’s all Ibiza this and Ibiza that. Go into any record shop and all you see is kiddie music, smug middle-aged music and dance compilations and I’m not a kiddie and the thought of listening to the Eurythmics greatest hits…”
“And?”
“And do you know the difference between underground garage and progressive trance? Have you ever danced all night off your head on E? Have you ever been to The Big Chill and tripped till morning?”
“The Big Chill?”
“Never mind. I read a review in the paper a while back. Burning Man.”
“Look. I know what you’re talking about, but it’s called life. You do things, you get older and then you do other things.
This went for, I don't know, maybe three double espressos. And then...
"So what are we doing here?"
And that was it really.
You always feel that you're alone in your grief, that other people don't know. What do they know? What can they know, with their dinner parties and their Clariss Cliff pottery? But they know. In their own ways, they know. It's quite at shock at first, but then when you hear them say "So what are we doing here" in exactly the same way that you've just said it, the shock goes. All it takes is another few doubles and then you say it. "Let's go." You say it and they say it and neither of you really believe it. If you were that type of person, you'd have done it years ago. If you were that type of person, you wouldn't be needing to say it now. But then the word gets around and then they all laugh and then you think "fuck them."
I remember my old man said that once. "Going's easy. It's staying that's hard." But then again, what did he know? He was the one who said my life was too easy. "The trouble for people like you is that you've got too many choices."
Yeah, the old life. I can't remember exactly how it started, which particular conversation ended with me thinking "Enough". I don't even really remember who the conversation was with. Maybe it was a situation rather than a particular conversation. I don't know. Most likely it was a combination thing. It's strange. You start to think of these things and you think of something that at the time didn't seem death-ray pivotal, but it keeps poking its head into your thoughts. I remember there was this one exchange I had with Catherine ages ago. There were better ones in terms of fire and brimstone. There were funnier ones, sadder ones and ones that were more typical, but this one keeps raising its head. Maybe it’s just because of the stupidity of the whole thing. I don't know.
"Why can't we be more like the Aborigines?"
Ah, yes. The Aborigines. Why weren't we more like the Aborigines? If I was a betting man, I wouldn't have gone for the 66/1 shot that this would be an anthropological question. No, the clever money would be on the 4/1 on favourite. Grief. So, what critical jewel were we going to be treated to now? But that wasn't the real question. The real question was this. How to answer. Dull sarcasm?
"What do you mean? Volunteer to do the work of repressed minorities?"
Dull. A sharp stab with the fabled wit?
"Emigrate to Australia and volunteer to do the work of repressed minorities?"
Dull. A mildly disinterested nod?
"Oh?"
Ease of exit pointed the way to the mildly disinterested nod.
"Oh?"
"The Aborigines didn't have a written language so everything that they knew had to be passed on by word of mouth, by telling each other stories. Everything became a story and if anyone wanted to tell anyone anything or communicate anything they had to talk to each other. They couldn't send each other long, laborious letters full of circumstantial logic and circular truths. They had to talk."
We'd had this talk talk before. I had tried to explain that if we had anything to talk about, we'd talk. That was a stupid tack. It was easy for the row to follow. I had also tried to explain that it wasn't the quantity of your conversation that counted., it was the quality. What I should have done was said that we didn't talk to each other because we couldn't talk to each other because as soon as either of us opened our mouths, the other was gripped by a near murderous impulse. But I didn't say this. What I did was write letters. It had once seemed to be the only way to get a rhythm going, a flow. It was pointless. Rather stupidly, I noticed that I had left a window open.
"I read somewhere that the Aborigines were skilled painters."
I could never resist the dull sarcasm. And that was the end of that.
There were other conversations that came and went, but none of them ever seemed to do anything but confirm that doing what you wanted to do was the right thing to do. There was the work.
"I don't understand you. I mean, of course I understand that you want to travel and explore, but for you to do it now seems really stupid. You're just in the middle here. You've spent quite a bit of time, enough to get yourself known and to have a good reputation, but not long enough to make yourself indispensable. Why don't you reconsider, give it another couple of years. By then, you'll be able to call the shots, you'll be in a position to go away for a while and negotiate terms which will ensure you your job is waiting for you when you return."
Eminently sensible, every word. There was no arguing with the logic. But I didn't want sensible. I wanted out. Now.
"The dudong is fucked. I read only this morning that one was washed up on shore, death by oil. It's only the first one reported, but it can only get worse."
OK, I had a bit of a thing about dudongs. Dudongs and manatees – these beautiful subterranean creatures that, so the stories go, fuelled all those old tales of mermaids. Theirs was a singular beauty, a mother’s beauty, the beauty of age. The only thing was… my thing about dudongs was just another of those things we didn’t share. She considered it one of my strange quirks. I considered it vital.
I kinda knew that invoking the dudong was doomed, but – really, I mean this – it really did make logical sense to me. It was the type of logic that couldn't be argued against, unless you consider "Am I supposed to understand that? You don't want to talk to me? Fine. Don't talk to me." to be an argument.
"Look, I'm just being honest. All I mean is that if you stay too long in one place, you can get caught. If the dudong had kept an eye on the situation and been aware of what was happening, it would have been OK."
"I don't know what a dudong is and I don't suppose it really matters. You're making as much sense as a 4-year-old."
“Well, they say that as we get older we become more childlike.”
Everyone has their tales of glory, their tales of woe. "He's an ordinary geezer, doesn't seem to have any grief". But it's not true. Everyone has their grief. Well, everyone here does anyway. Everybody everywhere does. Family grief. Parental grief. Boy grief. Girl grief. Body grief. Mind grief. Grief grief.
I knew how I'd got there. It was more or less the same story of why I was leaving. I don't mean the cold, I mean the unnecessary agg. It wasn't just the woman thing. There was also the other woman thing. Names are so unnecessary at this stage. They merge into one more often than not anyway. And then there were the times when there wasn't a Kate or a Karen – fictional, of course - to give the grief. Maybe that was more grief.
The road out was ridiculously easy. It was just a regular meal out at a regular place with a regular mate, but it was one of those days. Biorhythms or something.
"I'm pissed off" I said.
"You're pissed off? You should sit in my office for day. Then you'd really know about pissed off."
"Why should I sit in your office? I sit in my office. I know about pissed off."
"And the woman grief?"
"The woman grief you know about. The woman grief's the woman grief which is the woman grief."
"Doesn't help, does it?"
"Is it meant to help?"
"No. I don't suppose it is. I don't know. I just don't know."
“You know something,” I said. “Do you ever get to feel that something’s passed you by?”
“Sure. What was her name last week? Emma. She passed me by, and as quickly as her little legs would carry her.”
“No, I mean it. Do you ever feel that something’s passed you by? That the world has changed and you’re not there.”
“Are you going to get serious on me here?”
“I think so. Listen. Switch on the telly and it’s all Ibiza this and Ibiza that. Go into any record shop and all you see is kiddie music, smug middle-aged music and dance compilations and I’m not a kiddie and the thought of listening to the Eurythmics greatest hits…”
“And?”
“And do you know the difference between underground garage and progressive trance? Have you ever danced all night off your head on E? Have you ever been to The Big Chill and tripped till morning?”
“The Big Chill?”
“Never mind. I read a review in the paper a while back. Burning Man.”
“Look. I know what you’re talking about, but it’s called life. You do things, you get older and then you do other things.
This went for, I don't know, maybe three double espressos. And then...
"So what are we doing here?"
And that was it really.
You always feel that you're alone in your grief, that other people don't know. What do they know? What can they know, with their dinner parties and their Clariss Cliff pottery? But they know. In their own ways, they know. It's quite at shock at first, but then when you hear them say "So what are we doing here" in exactly the same way that you've just said it, the shock goes. All it takes is another few doubles and then you say it. "Let's go." You say it and they say it and neither of you really believe it. If you were that type of person, you'd have done it years ago. If you were that type of person, you wouldn't be needing to say it now. But then the word gets around and then they all laugh and then you think "fuck them."
I remember my old man said that once. "Going's easy. It's staying that's hard." But then again, what did he know? He was the one who said my life was too easy. "The trouble for people like you is that you've got too many choices."
Wednesday 4 November 2009
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER THREE
I was exactly the kind of guy who’d be seen at a place like this. It's 4.15pm and it's Sunday. Limbs ache, wishing they were 22 and not 32 and I feel like whatever it is I've been doing, well maybe it's about time I stopped doing it. The grief is that I know that if I feel like this next week, it will be a bonus. A right result, as we might have once said. The coffee I've been waiting for still feels like the first of the day, even though it's the third (or maybe fourth) cup of the day. Or maybe not even the first. Next comes the toast. It was only an idea to eat. Sustenance. As far as ideas go, it wasn't a bad one. Ideas.
“Did you order me a coffee?”
Alison. She looked how I felt. Actually if I looked how I felt I’d be happy.
I stopped writing and looked up. Good. She looked how I felt and though I probably also looked how I felt, it made things seem so much better. Loneliness is a terrible thing.
“This bread… it’s something else” I said to her. “It’s your worst white slice nightmare. It looks like a real loaf of bread but there’s nothing there. It’s air and water. Where’s the flour? Where’s the yeast? Where’s the…”
“The soul. Go on, say it. Where’s the soul. Then, when you say that, you can have a bit of a rabbit about how it’s a reflection of Japanese society. Looks good, contains nothing.”
“And bread is the food of life and… “
“Yeah yeah. Bollocks bollocks bollocks. Did you order me a coffee?”
“Of course I ordered you a coffee. You asked me to order coffee, so I ordered coffee.”
“Good. I guess it’s that empty cup there.”
I smiled and she smiled. A familiar scene.
“If I order myself another one then you can have it. We’ll be quits then.”
“OK. So if you do that, I’ll order you another one and you’ll still owe me. You know I like it that way.” We’d talked ourselves into a corner neither of us knew much about and neither of us cared about and there wasn’t anything to do but drink the coffees. Somehow on a day like this, writing gibberish letters to people who’d know nothing of their contents seemed a suitable task.
Our coffees came and the relief that they brought dried up the conversation. Part of the relief. So we drank our coffee and looked at the toast which seemed no more appealing now than it had done when it was first brought over. Big thick lumps of bread. Sometimes the idea of food is better than the food. Maybe one day I’ll find a restaurant where you can order food and you don’t eat it and you don’t pay for it. You could order wild vegetable dishes or exotic and body distressing local specialities without having to endure the eating or the next day grief. A few coffees later and we’d got no further.
So now the rain was coming down. The rain in Tokyo is different to the rain anywhere else. It creates a mirror everywhere. The cars, all clean and shiny reflect against the shop windows which are all clean and bright and they both throw back the reflection of the garish neon which exists in even the sidest of side streets so that everything reflects on everything else and into everything else. Vetrification they call it in the floor cleaning game. You know those floors made of marble slab tiles that are impossibly shiny and sparkly? That’s vetrification. They lay ordinary marble and take the top layer off it with a major wire wool rotating brush so that it all clean. Like a reptile constantly shedding its skin. Like Tokyo.
One slice, maybe two inches thick and cut into three pieces, like cubes of hot bread or angular doorsteps. I tear into it lethargically - biting is impossible. My mouth is the wrong shape.
Around me in the cafe, people were sitting reading the papers. And the scene was the same as everywhere else in the world. They’re turned to the sports pages, checking to see how their boys have done.
Another cigarette. Having another cigarette wasn’t so much a decision as a move designed to put off having to make a decision because you know any other decision will probably be wrong and definitely not really worth the effort.
I’d probably go through the old Apocalypse Now thing if Alison hadn’t beaten me to it.
“Tokyo. Shit” she said.
I was just thinking that. Martin Sheen and helicopter fans. Tokyo. Shit.
“When I was there I couldn’t wait to get out. When I was out, all I could think about was how to get back there,” I said in my best Martin Sheen voice. His own mother wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference if she’d had been sitting in her own bedroom. My mazel, it would probably turn out that she lived somewhere closer than Japan.
“What?”
“Apocal ... nah, doesn’t matter. You just got up?” I said.
“If I’d had got as far down so I needed to get up I wouldn’t have been able to get up at all.”
I only knew what that meant because I felt the same way myself. That old ACE feeling.
“So what’s the story then. Letters day?” she said. “Yeah, it’s important to keep in touch with the old life.”
I was exactly the kind of guy who’d be seen at a place like this. It's 4.15pm and it's Sunday. Limbs ache, wishing they were 22 and not 32 and I feel like whatever it is I've been doing, well maybe it's about time I stopped doing it. The grief is that I know that if I feel like this next week, it will be a bonus. A right result, as we might have once said. The coffee I've been waiting for still feels like the first of the day, even though it's the third (or maybe fourth) cup of the day. Or maybe not even the first. Next comes the toast. It was only an idea to eat. Sustenance. As far as ideas go, it wasn't a bad one. Ideas.
“Did you order me a coffee?”
Alison. She looked how I felt. Actually if I looked how I felt I’d be happy.
I stopped writing and looked up. Good. She looked how I felt and though I probably also looked how I felt, it made things seem so much better. Loneliness is a terrible thing.
“This bread… it’s something else” I said to her. “It’s your worst white slice nightmare. It looks like a real loaf of bread but there’s nothing there. It’s air and water. Where’s the flour? Where’s the yeast? Where’s the…”
“The soul. Go on, say it. Where’s the soul. Then, when you say that, you can have a bit of a rabbit about how it’s a reflection of Japanese society. Looks good, contains nothing.”
“And bread is the food of life and… “
“Yeah yeah. Bollocks bollocks bollocks. Did you order me a coffee?”
“Of course I ordered you a coffee. You asked me to order coffee, so I ordered coffee.”
“Good. I guess it’s that empty cup there.”
I smiled and she smiled. A familiar scene.
“If I order myself another one then you can have it. We’ll be quits then.”
“OK. So if you do that, I’ll order you another one and you’ll still owe me. You know I like it that way.” We’d talked ourselves into a corner neither of us knew much about and neither of us cared about and there wasn’t anything to do but drink the coffees. Somehow on a day like this, writing gibberish letters to people who’d know nothing of their contents seemed a suitable task.
Our coffees came and the relief that they brought dried up the conversation. Part of the relief. So we drank our coffee and looked at the toast which seemed no more appealing now than it had done when it was first brought over. Big thick lumps of bread. Sometimes the idea of food is better than the food. Maybe one day I’ll find a restaurant where you can order food and you don’t eat it and you don’t pay for it. You could order wild vegetable dishes or exotic and body distressing local specialities without having to endure the eating or the next day grief. A few coffees later and we’d got no further.
So now the rain was coming down. The rain in Tokyo is different to the rain anywhere else. It creates a mirror everywhere. The cars, all clean and shiny reflect against the shop windows which are all clean and bright and they both throw back the reflection of the garish neon which exists in even the sidest of side streets so that everything reflects on everything else and into everything else. Vetrification they call it in the floor cleaning game. You know those floors made of marble slab tiles that are impossibly shiny and sparkly? That’s vetrification. They lay ordinary marble and take the top layer off it with a major wire wool rotating brush so that it all clean. Like a reptile constantly shedding its skin. Like Tokyo.
One slice, maybe two inches thick and cut into three pieces, like cubes of hot bread or angular doorsteps. I tear into it lethargically - biting is impossible. My mouth is the wrong shape.
Around me in the cafe, people were sitting reading the papers. And the scene was the same as everywhere else in the world. They’re turned to the sports pages, checking to see how their boys have done.
Another cigarette. Having another cigarette wasn’t so much a decision as a move designed to put off having to make a decision because you know any other decision will probably be wrong and definitely not really worth the effort.
I’d probably go through the old Apocalypse Now thing if Alison hadn’t beaten me to it.
“Tokyo. Shit” she said.
I was just thinking that. Martin Sheen and helicopter fans. Tokyo. Shit.
“When I was there I couldn’t wait to get out. When I was out, all I could think about was how to get back there,” I said in my best Martin Sheen voice. His own mother wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference if she’d had been sitting in her own bedroom. My mazel, it would probably turn out that she lived somewhere closer than Japan.
“What?”
“Apocal ... nah, doesn’t matter. You just got up?” I said.
“If I’d had got as far down so I needed to get up I wouldn’t have been able to get up at all.”
I only knew what that meant because I felt the same way myself. That old ACE feeling.
“So what’s the story then. Letters day?” she said. “Yeah, it’s important to keep in touch with the old life.”
Chapter Two
CHAPTER TWO
It was clear from the off that they knew Graham. Whoever these people were, and there were a lot of people in this place, whoever they were… they knew Graham. And they were steering clear.
I could see them looking. I could hear them talking. Some just turned away. Others pretended not to have seen anything. Others were more upfront.
“You’re back, are you? Didn’t think I’d see you again.”
There were a few like that. A couple of faces said “What you got? I’m in Room 24.”
Mostly though, people said stuff like “Hi” or “Good to see you” or “You stayin’ long?” and all the time they all meant “Just leave me alone, please. Just leave me alone.”
I didn’t get it really. OK, he was a bit mad, a bit of a loose canon, but people reacted to Graham like he was a serious bad man. Dunno. He was OK with us. He sorted out a room for me and Ben “Listen, I’ll get you a room, be OK if I just leave my bags there for a bit, yeah?”
“Yeah, OK. Sure.”
Looking back, we were so stupid it was almost funny. We knew he was a drug dealer yet “Sure we’ll look after your bags and if the place gets busted, course we’ll take the rap. No problem. Fancy a tea?” It was like we’d turned from hip, smart, media players into Forrest Gump.
I went for a walk. There were two floors. A big kitchen and a lounge area with a few beat up chairs and a telly. The Kirk Douglas film Spartacus was on and maybe there were six people hanging around.
It was like a student nightmare – The Young Ones, maybe – but there was a different vibe, a lack of care. It was a nonchalance borne out of displacement. Mostly if you’re not playing the game, you can measure your personal rebellion against your peers and your culture. I’ve never been in prison but I’d imagine it’s the same sort of thing. You’re all just passing through, you’re here but not here. And here was like some ‘holding tank’, somewhere you were waiting. But the thing here was that everyone was from some other culture so there was no ‘home’ to measure yourself against. And your peers were the same as you and the ‘home’ culture was Japan and that was so weird that you could be some green thing from Mars and you’d still be more normal than them.
He sorted us out a room. A room. It’s a curious word really because if you asked anyone what that place had, the last thing they’d say would be ‘room’. The rooms at the Palace were either three mat or six mat. A mat – a tatami mat – was about one metre wide by two, so a three mat room had room for a mattress and not a lot else. Me and Ben were sharing a three mat room. That was cosy and there’s nothing like cosy for getting to know people well.
Later that first night we were settling down. It was late. Cheap Japanese whisky had been drunk. Cheap god knows from where dope had been smoked and the night was done. And then all hell broke loose.
The noise came from the kitchen. I walked out into the hallway to see what the commotion was about.
“I’d steer clear of that” someone said.
“Oh, I’ve got to have look” I said like a tourist.
“It’s gonna be messy. I’ve been here before when Graham’s been in town and, believe me, it’s gonna be messy.”
Messy was one word. Graham was chasing some blonde bloke round the kitchen holding the biggest knife. I don’t know what he’d done, but I was glad I wasn’t the blonde lad. What can I tell you? It didn’t end well.
I’d love to say that was the last time I saw Graham. But it wasn’t. He came back a few times – different stories – but it had all changed. It didn’t take me long to turn into one of those people I saw on my first day in the Palace, one of those faces that said “Hi. Good to see you” and shuffled along.
What’s he doing now? No idea. Really, I don’t know. It doesn’t really matter. Odds on he’s dead now. I heard some story from Pauly about Manilla and you don’t fuck about in Manilla. Still, bless him. He brought me here.
Anyway that was all a long time ago. Now it’s today and today’s a grey miserable day. One of those days when even the rain can’t be bothered…
“Aren’t we supposed to be falling today?”
“Nah, stuff it. I’m going to stay in the cloud today. Watch a bit of telly.”
“Yeah, maybe you’re right. No one ever thanks us for falling anyway. Fancy a beer?”
It was clear from the off that they knew Graham. Whoever these people were, and there were a lot of people in this place, whoever they were… they knew Graham. And they were steering clear.
I could see them looking. I could hear them talking. Some just turned away. Others pretended not to have seen anything. Others were more upfront.
“You’re back, are you? Didn’t think I’d see you again.”
There were a few like that. A couple of faces said “What you got? I’m in Room 24.”
Mostly though, people said stuff like “Hi” or “Good to see you” or “You stayin’ long?” and all the time they all meant “Just leave me alone, please. Just leave me alone.”
I didn’t get it really. OK, he was a bit mad, a bit of a loose canon, but people reacted to Graham like he was a serious bad man. Dunno. He was OK with us. He sorted out a room for me and Ben “Listen, I’ll get you a room, be OK if I just leave my bags there for a bit, yeah?”
“Yeah, OK. Sure.”
Looking back, we were so stupid it was almost funny. We knew he was a drug dealer yet “Sure we’ll look after your bags and if the place gets busted, course we’ll take the rap. No problem. Fancy a tea?” It was like we’d turned from hip, smart, media players into Forrest Gump.
I went for a walk. There were two floors. A big kitchen and a lounge area with a few beat up chairs and a telly. The Kirk Douglas film Spartacus was on and maybe there were six people hanging around.
It was like a student nightmare – The Young Ones, maybe – but there was a different vibe, a lack of care. It was a nonchalance borne out of displacement. Mostly if you’re not playing the game, you can measure your personal rebellion against your peers and your culture. I’ve never been in prison but I’d imagine it’s the same sort of thing. You’re all just passing through, you’re here but not here. And here was like some ‘holding tank’, somewhere you were waiting. But the thing here was that everyone was from some other culture so there was no ‘home’ to measure yourself against. And your peers were the same as you and the ‘home’ culture was Japan and that was so weird that you could be some green thing from Mars and you’d still be more normal than them.
He sorted us out a room. A room. It’s a curious word really because if you asked anyone what that place had, the last thing they’d say would be ‘room’. The rooms at the Palace were either three mat or six mat. A mat – a tatami mat – was about one metre wide by two, so a three mat room had room for a mattress and not a lot else. Me and Ben were sharing a three mat room. That was cosy and there’s nothing like cosy for getting to know people well.
Later that first night we were settling down. It was late. Cheap Japanese whisky had been drunk. Cheap god knows from where dope had been smoked and the night was done. And then all hell broke loose.
The noise came from the kitchen. I walked out into the hallway to see what the commotion was about.
“I’d steer clear of that” someone said.
“Oh, I’ve got to have look” I said like a tourist.
“It’s gonna be messy. I’ve been here before when Graham’s been in town and, believe me, it’s gonna be messy.”
Messy was one word. Graham was chasing some blonde bloke round the kitchen holding the biggest knife. I don’t know what he’d done, but I was glad I wasn’t the blonde lad. What can I tell you? It didn’t end well.
I’d love to say that was the last time I saw Graham. But it wasn’t. He came back a few times – different stories – but it had all changed. It didn’t take me long to turn into one of those people I saw on my first day in the Palace, one of those faces that said “Hi. Good to see you” and shuffled along.
What’s he doing now? No idea. Really, I don’t know. It doesn’t really matter. Odds on he’s dead now. I heard some story from Pauly about Manilla and you don’t fuck about in Manilla. Still, bless him. He brought me here.
Anyway that was all a long time ago. Now it’s today and today’s a grey miserable day. One of those days when even the rain can’t be bothered…
“Aren’t we supposed to be falling today?”
“Nah, stuff it. I’m going to stay in the cloud today. Watch a bit of telly.”
“Yeah, maybe you’re right. No one ever thanks us for falling anyway. Fancy a beer?”
Tuesday 3 November 2009
One of those days
It's one of those 'kill someone' days. I do remain convinced it would improve things. The main question is not whether I'd do it, but how I'd do it. I would run them over, but can't. The car is out of MOT. I would hit them with my hoover, but can't. It's already broken. I would smother them with the health insurance, but can't. It's expired. I might hit them over the head with Lily's gravestone, but can't. It hasn't been ordered yet. The obvious answer was - curiously - given to me by the kids. I could kill by hitting my victim with the Nintendo Wii. Of course the small print detail is that we haven't got a Wii but - and this is where the kids were really inspirational - we could get one. Actually they said we must get one, but that's just semantics. You know something. There's probably a Wii game I could use, like Wii Fit but more Wii Hit.
It's probably John & Edward's fault.
It's probably John & Edward's fault.
Thursday 15 October 2009
GAIJIN STRATEGIES CHAPTER ONE
GAIJIN STRATEGIES
CHAPTER ONE
“Fuck it. We’ll go to Yokohama”.
What could we do? We were in Shanghai and had to get out. It was nice enough, fascinating in a cultural exchange kind of way, but I’d exchanged all the culture I wanted to. Time was running out, money was getting tight and we had to get out.
“I thought you said there was a boat going to Hong Kong?” said Ben.
“I thought there was a boat going to Hong Kong”, I said.
“You checked?”
“No, I didn’t check, but I thought there was a boat. I was told there was a boat. What do you want? I was wrong. I thought there was a boat and there isn’t.”
“You thought there was a boat? How did you think there was a boat?”
“Someone told me. They must have cancelled it.”
“According to that bloke in the office there, they cancelled it three years ago.”
“They didn’t cancel it. They just moved it.”
“To Yokohama.”
“Yeah, to Yokohama. It used to go to Hong Kong. Now it goes to Yokohama. That’s where the boat goes now.”
“Oh well. Fuck it. Yokohama.”
“Yeah. Fuck it. Yokohama.”
And that was that. That’s how I ended up in Tokyo. I was going to go to Hong Kong, but the boat changed its mind. One thing I’ve learnt in this game is to keep an open mind. Go with the flow, you know what I mean? When I was younger I used to say that life was like an apple. You’ve got to eat it now. If you keep it, save it, it goes mouldy. And then it’s gone. I said that to someone once. Thought I was being, you know, philosophical. He said “I think life is more like an orange. You've got to peel it before you get to the good bit.” Twat.
------------------
That boat trip was the start of it all. Me and Ben – drifting on the sea heading off to something or other. Me, I’ve gone off travelling because I’m writing a book. Well, starting to write a book. I’ve got a great idea and I just wanted to get away from it all because life was getting too organised and formulaic, but we can get on to all that later.
Anyway, I’ve got an idea for a story. Listen, I thought it was a great idea for a story. Still do. It’s based on a true story, but then again, aren’t they all? It doesn’t matter. It’s a great story. A man, a student, decides to pay his way through college by being a sperm donor. So he gives his sperm and gives his sperm. It’s all good. This bloke – we’ll call him Will – is studying to be a doctor. He’s tall and blond, strong and athletic. The sort of bloke who your mother would want you to marry. This guy offers his sperm and it goes to the top of the sperm charts. He’s the perfect physical speciment.
But he’s got a secret, a secret even he doesn’t know. He (and here we’ve got to work on this a bit) has got a madness, a psychopathic madness – a congenital psychopathic madness.
Anyway, many years – well, maybe 10 years – down the line, Susan is having trouble with her daughter Molly. Molly is very bright, but she’s got an evil streak, a mean side to her that’s a little bit disturbed. And Susan doesn’t know what to do. She can’t ask her partner because she doesn’t have a partner. She never has had. A few lost loves, the usual catalogue of losers and chancers, nearlys and almosts. When Susan was 31, she met the man of her life, the Big Love. But – and we don’t need to go into the detail here – he was a twat, a lying, cheating, no-good dirty low-down hound dog. He wrecked her life and she swore – she absolutely swore – never to fall for a man again. She’d have a baby.
Anyway, back to the main story. Susan tries all sorts of things and, in the end, she goes to a parent-child therapy class because – obviously, she thinks that it’s all her fault. While she’s there, she meets another woman, like her the mother of a 10 year old girl. They start talking.
Can you guess where this one’s going? OK, let’s spell it out a bit more.
This other woman, her story is remarkably similar to Susan. She’s a lesbian but, that apart, it’s the same. Lost love, disappointment, betrayal. Refuge sought in a baby. Her baby is basically a good kid, but has got an evil streak. The same evil streak as Molly.
Now you know what’s going to happen. They start talking, they realise they both got pregnant after going to sperm donor centre in Eastbourne. Now then – this is the next question: how many other babies were born between 1980 and 1985?
So OK. That’s the pitch. It’s like a cross between The Boys From Brazil and maybe The Midwitch Cuckoos.
How many are there? Does something happen to them to ‘kick-start’ the inner madness that propels them? Shall we turn them into an army?
So anyway, I was sitting on the deck of this boat, it’s the middle of the night, dark and empty, just me and the night and the sea, and I’m thinking about the story – when the calm is disturbed by this couple. A big English bloke and his Israeli girlfriend. They were going at it big time, tearing into each other.
But then they saw us and found what they were looking for: an audience. We started talking, just passing the time. When I say, we started talking what I mean is he started talking. I started listening. Most of the time I didn’t know whether to interrupt or applaud, like I was at a show or something.
Always, there are two ways of looking at things. I could say that we met this bloke from south London on the boat who was off his tits and he read us this poem he’d written as a response to Paradise Lost. I can’t remember exactly now. He was the Devil or he was Milton and… Or I can tell you the more interesting version.
I didn’t know it at the time, but he was The One. I only met him for a brief time and I doubt that he even knew my name, but Graham was that person, and who changed my life. Graham Gaskin – and you can look his name up because this is all true – was there just at the right time and the right place to completely throw my life off course.
We’ve all got one, the person who changes everything. I’m writing this book about all that at the moment called The Nazi & The Jew about a young middle class Jewish man who, through a series of strange, some might say unfortunate, circumstances, finds himself in jail. At first he’s told that it’s all going to be OK, that it’s a single cell and he’ll be out soon enough. He’s scared by at least he’s by himself and then…. Late at night the door opens and in walks in a prisoner officer. The screw explains that the prison’s over-crowded and that Aaron, the Jewish bloke, is going to have to share. In walks in Razor, all shaved head and tattoos, a Nazi who’s one of the top figures in Combat 18, the psycho military wing of the British fascists, gangland figure and general Nazi nutter and Aaron’s worst nightmare. The cell door bangs shut and there they are, alone together.
What happens to them, how they get on, that’s the story. It’s part Kiss Of The Spiderwoman, part humanist tale and it will be a huge hit, a big seller made into a feature with Tom Cruise, but that’s for later. The important thing here is the bit about meeting a person who changes your life. That strange conjunction of place and time and people.
Anyway, we’re standing on the deck of this boat going to Yokohama and it’s the middle of the night. A beautiful night. And there’s this bloke giving us this rant about Milton and Paradise Lost. He could have been 25 or 35. Big build, longish hair, nondescript clothes. Jeans, t-shirt, that kind of thing. He was good-looking, but rough. Like he’d been away too long. And God knows where he’d been away to. Wherever it was, it hadn’t been in the Style supplement and it hadn’t been featured on the ad breaks in How To Look Good Naked. I’d gone away looking for something different and this, this was something different.
“Tokyo, huh. Fuckin place Tokyo. A zoo. Full of hooligans and fuckin Japs. You got a story going on there or what?”
Meeting this bloke, I was part thrilled, part terrified. Part of me was thinking “How cool. I go away, looking for an adventure and in the first half hour I meet my very own Dean Moriarty, some wild spirited free thing with energy to burn and a soul on fire”. The other part of me – the middle class, middle aged bloke who drives a Volvo and knows his National Insurance number off by heart – is frankly terrified and wants this bloody idiot to just go away. He was at best boorish and at worst dangerous. No, he was definitely dangerous.
“No, no story. No story and no idea” I said. And explained. “I was supposed to be going to Hong Kong. I had a job on a newspaper there, the South Morning Post, I think it’s called, but then the boat to Hong Kong stopped two years ago and the only boat now went to Yokohama and…” Even as I said it, it sounded rubbish. God knows what it sounded like to him, but it was the story.
“And you?” Graham said to Ben.
“And me” said Ben. “I’m just along for the ride.” You don’t trust this, do you, I thought to myself. Probably not a bad call.
“Sounds to me” said Graham “you’re gonna some dosh. Tokyo’s no place to be skint”. Then came the good bit.
“You wanna make a bit of cash? Easy money.”
Me, I was already suspicious. Ben was more interested. “Go on” he said.
Graham smiled at Ronit and then at us. He made a big dramatic looking around gesture – like he needed to. It was the middle of the night and we were on the deck of a boat. It wasn’t Piccadilly Circus.
He opened his bag and pulled out a pair of shoes which were about three sizes too big – and smiled. The significance was lost on me. I just thought it was odd.
“You’re a shoe salesman?”
“Something like that” said Graham and reached down into his bag again. After doing the dramatic looking around bit again – there’s nothing like milking the moment and Graham, a performer at heart, knew how to do that – he produced an inner sole which was about an inch thick and covered in thick cling film. Me and Ben might have been at the start of the story and about as worldly as a new born seal cub, but I knew what Graham was holding. Dope. Compressed dope. Moroccan.
He put the inner sole inside the shoe. “All you’ve got to do is walk. You ain’t got a problem walking, have you?”
No one said anything. I didn’t say anything. Ben didn’t say anything. The Israeli girl – Ronit – she didn’t say anything either.
“Look” said Graham, “I wouldn’t ask, but I’ve got three shoes and” – and he pointed down at his feet – “only two feet”.
No one said anything.
“I mean I’ve got three fucking soles. I can put two in my shoes, but I need someone else to go through with the other one. Just wear the shoes, walk through and I’ll give you a grand. Easy. Listen” he looked directly at me. “It’ll sort you out on Tokyo, get you started. Otherwise you’re gonna be in right shit, believe me”.
I remember looking at Graham and seeing all these Japanese war films in my head, sadistic guards beating people up – “Ve hav vays of making you tok!” OK, that’s a German war film, but you know what I mean. Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence. Melly Chlistmas Mr Rawrence.
He’s going to walk through customs at Yokohama with these clowns shoes that are way too big and sell this lot in Tokyo. A lunatic.
I declined. Polite, of course, but firm. “Sorry, mate. I just haven’t got the nerve for that sort of thing”. Ben was tempted, I could see Ben was tempted. I could see all sorts of things. Like… Ben fancied Ronit and was showing off and I was thinking that on the list of bad ideas, flirting with Graham’s woman was off the scale.
Ben declined. Thank fuck for that.
“Look. OK, you ain’t done anything like this before but it’s OK. The Japs don’t do anything. All you’ve gotta be is polite and smile, that’s all. It’s what they do and it’s what they want us to do. You can call them anything, do anything but as long as you’re polite, it’s OK. You’ve got to remember, they think we’re some kind of dirty sub species anyway. They don’t expect anything proper.”
Nothing.
“Nah, no sweat” said Graham, “I’ll sort it”. Did he say that a bit too easily? There was an alarm going off in my head somewhere but I didn’t hear it. This bloke – who I’d already decided was trouble – had taken us into his confidence, shown us his inner sole – inner soul? Oh never mind – and made himself really vulnerable. And he’d let it go with “Nah, no sweat. I’ll sort it”. I wasn’t so much fresh off the boat. I was still on the boat.
I didn’t think any more of it at the time, though later on someone – Brad the Canadian, I think – told me that Graham’s usual trick was to hide the dope in some poor unsuspecting bastard’s back pack, let them take it through customs – and then steal the bag from them on the other side when they’d got through. Didn’t do anything like that with us. Don’t know why. Maybe he liked us. God knows.
We sat up the rest of the night, the four of us, smoking a bit while Graham told us stories about how he’d paid for the trip by blackmailing an MP he’d had a fling with. “I’m gonna write it all down and make it into a TV film. Those bastards won’t forget about me”. All I remember thinking was “Why are you telling us this?” Whatever. Back then I was so naïve about this lark I’d have believed anything. The last thing I suspected was that it was all true – but sometimes the last place you suspect is the first place you should look.
Customs was a joy. Graham insisted on walking through with us, talking to us and laughing all the way. The Japanese were pretty much like he said – they looked at us like we were slightly dirty, like they just hoped we’d go away. Curiously, it was kinda how I felt about Graham. But they humoured us and let us in.
We got through. I was terrified. He didn’t seem to give a toss. But we got through. Looking back, I don’t know why I was terrified – that business of dropping the dope in someone else’s backpack hadn’t occurred to me at all – that kind of thinking was completely off my radar. Maybe it was some kinda instinct thing. We got through.
Tokyo. We were in Tokyo. I can’t even begin to tell you how exciting that was. Tokyo. That was amazing. A month ago I was in London and now I was in Tokyo. Well, I was on a train going to Tokyo. Just me. And Ben. And Graham. And Ronit.
It was a strange journey, didn’t take long and to be honest I can’t remember much about it. I remember Graham rolling one his trouser legs up and revealing an inner sole gaffer taped to his leg. I remember that. I also remember him asking us where we were going to stay.
“I dunno” said Ben. “Some hotel in town. We’ll ask around, maybe go to tourist info or something, and find something for a few days and…”
“Like fuck you will. You’re coming with us. You ever heard of the Palace?”
“The palace?”
“The Maharajah Palace. That’s where we’re going.”
We’re going to Tokyo and we’re going to stay in The Maharajah Palace. You’ve gotta laugh. There’s a kind of inconsistency there that appealed. If I’d have thought of Tokyo and play some sort of word association game, I’d have come up with words like hi-tech, shiny, electronic, space age, digital and maybe electronic again. I’m not sure the words maharajah and palace would have come up in the top 100.
OK. Let’s turn it round the other way. If the words Maharajah Palace don’t make you think of hi-tech, shiny, electronic, space age, digital and maybe electronic again Tokyo, what did they make you think of? Opulence. Grandeur. Exotic baubles, rubies and emeralds and gold, great swathes of elaborately embroidered cloth, shimmering with their gaudiness. Probably not rusty corrugated metal and ramshackle wood. Probably not some pre-fab held up by its own indecision as to which bit should collapse first. If I’d have seen the place – regardless of where it was – I don’t think I’d have been helped. If I’d have seen the place I might have come up with Large Garden Shed. Or Decrepit Old Shack. Or Complete Fucking Dump. Maharajah Palace. It was probably funny once.
The Palace was a zoo. Well, not even a zoo. In a zoo, the animals have some kind of morality. In the Palace… that very concept was kinda dubious.
If you were the romantic type, you might say it was a rogue’s gallery. If you were a realist, you might want to move to somewhere a bit more hi-tech and shiny. Me, I thought it was charming.
It had the air of a hideaway, a place where people were… well, not exactly on the run. That’s a bit too pulp fiction, a bit too romantic, but it was definitely somewhere that felt outside the boundaries, somewhere the normal rules didn’t apply. There were probably other rules that applied.
A few years later, I was hanging out with a Norwegian girl there. I remember talking to her and a bloke called Mark, who the house doctor at the time. Elke was a sweetie, a poppet, but she was very clean living and fresh. It wasn’t so much that she was naïve, it was just that she hadn’t really considered the options before.
“How many people here take drugs?” she said to Mark.
Mark thought a bit. And then he looked at her. He didn’t really need to say anything but she knew.
“Everyone?”
Still he didn’t say anything.
“Everyone except me?”
Mark gave her some rabbit about how she was beautiful and pure and different and that’s what made her special, but she was lost in thought.
Like I say, she hadn’t really considered her options. It didn’t take her long to re-adjust, but that’s another story.
CHAPTER ONE
“Fuck it. We’ll go to Yokohama”.
What could we do? We were in Shanghai and had to get out. It was nice enough, fascinating in a cultural exchange kind of way, but I’d exchanged all the culture I wanted to. Time was running out, money was getting tight and we had to get out.
“I thought you said there was a boat going to Hong Kong?” said Ben.
“I thought there was a boat going to Hong Kong”, I said.
“You checked?”
“No, I didn’t check, but I thought there was a boat. I was told there was a boat. What do you want? I was wrong. I thought there was a boat and there isn’t.”
“You thought there was a boat? How did you think there was a boat?”
“Someone told me. They must have cancelled it.”
“According to that bloke in the office there, they cancelled it three years ago.”
“They didn’t cancel it. They just moved it.”
“To Yokohama.”
“Yeah, to Yokohama. It used to go to Hong Kong. Now it goes to Yokohama. That’s where the boat goes now.”
“Oh well. Fuck it. Yokohama.”
“Yeah. Fuck it. Yokohama.”
And that was that. That’s how I ended up in Tokyo. I was going to go to Hong Kong, but the boat changed its mind. One thing I’ve learnt in this game is to keep an open mind. Go with the flow, you know what I mean? When I was younger I used to say that life was like an apple. You’ve got to eat it now. If you keep it, save it, it goes mouldy. And then it’s gone. I said that to someone once. Thought I was being, you know, philosophical. He said “I think life is more like an orange. You've got to peel it before you get to the good bit.” Twat.
------------------
That boat trip was the start of it all. Me and Ben – drifting on the sea heading off to something or other. Me, I’ve gone off travelling because I’m writing a book. Well, starting to write a book. I’ve got a great idea and I just wanted to get away from it all because life was getting too organised and formulaic, but we can get on to all that later.
Anyway, I’ve got an idea for a story. Listen, I thought it was a great idea for a story. Still do. It’s based on a true story, but then again, aren’t they all? It doesn’t matter. It’s a great story. A man, a student, decides to pay his way through college by being a sperm donor. So he gives his sperm and gives his sperm. It’s all good. This bloke – we’ll call him Will – is studying to be a doctor. He’s tall and blond, strong and athletic. The sort of bloke who your mother would want you to marry. This guy offers his sperm and it goes to the top of the sperm charts. He’s the perfect physical speciment.
But he’s got a secret, a secret even he doesn’t know. He (and here we’ve got to work on this a bit) has got a madness, a psychopathic madness – a congenital psychopathic madness.
Anyway, many years – well, maybe 10 years – down the line, Susan is having trouble with her daughter Molly. Molly is very bright, but she’s got an evil streak, a mean side to her that’s a little bit disturbed. And Susan doesn’t know what to do. She can’t ask her partner because she doesn’t have a partner. She never has had. A few lost loves, the usual catalogue of losers and chancers, nearlys and almosts. When Susan was 31, she met the man of her life, the Big Love. But – and we don’t need to go into the detail here – he was a twat, a lying, cheating, no-good dirty low-down hound dog. He wrecked her life and she swore – she absolutely swore – never to fall for a man again. She’d have a baby.
Anyway, back to the main story. Susan tries all sorts of things and, in the end, she goes to a parent-child therapy class because – obviously, she thinks that it’s all her fault. While she’s there, she meets another woman, like her the mother of a 10 year old girl. They start talking.
Can you guess where this one’s going? OK, let’s spell it out a bit more.
This other woman, her story is remarkably similar to Susan. She’s a lesbian but, that apart, it’s the same. Lost love, disappointment, betrayal. Refuge sought in a baby. Her baby is basically a good kid, but has got an evil streak. The same evil streak as Molly.
Now you know what’s going to happen. They start talking, they realise they both got pregnant after going to sperm donor centre in Eastbourne. Now then – this is the next question: how many other babies were born between 1980 and 1985?
So OK. That’s the pitch. It’s like a cross between The Boys From Brazil and maybe The Midwitch Cuckoos.
How many are there? Does something happen to them to ‘kick-start’ the inner madness that propels them? Shall we turn them into an army?
So anyway, I was sitting on the deck of this boat, it’s the middle of the night, dark and empty, just me and the night and the sea, and I’m thinking about the story – when the calm is disturbed by this couple. A big English bloke and his Israeli girlfriend. They were going at it big time, tearing into each other.
But then they saw us and found what they were looking for: an audience. We started talking, just passing the time. When I say, we started talking what I mean is he started talking. I started listening. Most of the time I didn’t know whether to interrupt or applaud, like I was at a show or something.
Always, there are two ways of looking at things. I could say that we met this bloke from south London on the boat who was off his tits and he read us this poem he’d written as a response to Paradise Lost. I can’t remember exactly now. He was the Devil or he was Milton and… Or I can tell you the more interesting version.
I didn’t know it at the time, but he was The One. I only met him for a brief time and I doubt that he even knew my name, but Graham was that person, and who changed my life. Graham Gaskin – and you can look his name up because this is all true – was there just at the right time and the right place to completely throw my life off course.
We’ve all got one, the person who changes everything. I’m writing this book about all that at the moment called The Nazi & The Jew about a young middle class Jewish man who, through a series of strange, some might say unfortunate, circumstances, finds himself in jail. At first he’s told that it’s all going to be OK, that it’s a single cell and he’ll be out soon enough. He’s scared by at least he’s by himself and then…. Late at night the door opens and in walks in a prisoner officer. The screw explains that the prison’s over-crowded and that Aaron, the Jewish bloke, is going to have to share. In walks in Razor, all shaved head and tattoos, a Nazi who’s one of the top figures in Combat 18, the psycho military wing of the British fascists, gangland figure and general Nazi nutter and Aaron’s worst nightmare. The cell door bangs shut and there they are, alone together.
What happens to them, how they get on, that’s the story. It’s part Kiss Of The Spiderwoman, part humanist tale and it will be a huge hit, a big seller made into a feature with Tom Cruise, but that’s for later. The important thing here is the bit about meeting a person who changes your life. That strange conjunction of place and time and people.
Anyway, we’re standing on the deck of this boat going to Yokohama and it’s the middle of the night. A beautiful night. And there’s this bloke giving us this rant about Milton and Paradise Lost. He could have been 25 or 35. Big build, longish hair, nondescript clothes. Jeans, t-shirt, that kind of thing. He was good-looking, but rough. Like he’d been away too long. And God knows where he’d been away to. Wherever it was, it hadn’t been in the Style supplement and it hadn’t been featured on the ad breaks in How To Look Good Naked. I’d gone away looking for something different and this, this was something different.
“Tokyo, huh. Fuckin place Tokyo. A zoo. Full of hooligans and fuckin Japs. You got a story going on there or what?”
Meeting this bloke, I was part thrilled, part terrified. Part of me was thinking “How cool. I go away, looking for an adventure and in the first half hour I meet my very own Dean Moriarty, some wild spirited free thing with energy to burn and a soul on fire”. The other part of me – the middle class, middle aged bloke who drives a Volvo and knows his National Insurance number off by heart – is frankly terrified and wants this bloody idiot to just go away. He was at best boorish and at worst dangerous. No, he was definitely dangerous.
“No, no story. No story and no idea” I said. And explained. “I was supposed to be going to Hong Kong. I had a job on a newspaper there, the South Morning Post, I think it’s called, but then the boat to Hong Kong stopped two years ago and the only boat now went to Yokohama and…” Even as I said it, it sounded rubbish. God knows what it sounded like to him, but it was the story.
“And you?” Graham said to Ben.
“And me” said Ben. “I’m just along for the ride.” You don’t trust this, do you, I thought to myself. Probably not a bad call.
“Sounds to me” said Graham “you’re gonna some dosh. Tokyo’s no place to be skint”. Then came the good bit.
“You wanna make a bit of cash? Easy money.”
Me, I was already suspicious. Ben was more interested. “Go on” he said.
Graham smiled at Ronit and then at us. He made a big dramatic looking around gesture – like he needed to. It was the middle of the night and we were on the deck of a boat. It wasn’t Piccadilly Circus.
He opened his bag and pulled out a pair of shoes which were about three sizes too big – and smiled. The significance was lost on me. I just thought it was odd.
“You’re a shoe salesman?”
“Something like that” said Graham and reached down into his bag again. After doing the dramatic looking around bit again – there’s nothing like milking the moment and Graham, a performer at heart, knew how to do that – he produced an inner sole which was about an inch thick and covered in thick cling film. Me and Ben might have been at the start of the story and about as worldly as a new born seal cub, but I knew what Graham was holding. Dope. Compressed dope. Moroccan.
He put the inner sole inside the shoe. “All you’ve got to do is walk. You ain’t got a problem walking, have you?”
No one said anything. I didn’t say anything. Ben didn’t say anything. The Israeli girl – Ronit – she didn’t say anything either.
“Look” said Graham, “I wouldn’t ask, but I’ve got three shoes and” – and he pointed down at his feet – “only two feet”.
No one said anything.
“I mean I’ve got three fucking soles. I can put two in my shoes, but I need someone else to go through with the other one. Just wear the shoes, walk through and I’ll give you a grand. Easy. Listen” he looked directly at me. “It’ll sort you out on Tokyo, get you started. Otherwise you’re gonna be in right shit, believe me”.
I remember looking at Graham and seeing all these Japanese war films in my head, sadistic guards beating people up – “Ve hav vays of making you tok!” OK, that’s a German war film, but you know what I mean. Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence. Melly Chlistmas Mr Rawrence.
He’s going to walk through customs at Yokohama with these clowns shoes that are way too big and sell this lot in Tokyo. A lunatic.
I declined. Polite, of course, but firm. “Sorry, mate. I just haven’t got the nerve for that sort of thing”. Ben was tempted, I could see Ben was tempted. I could see all sorts of things. Like… Ben fancied Ronit and was showing off and I was thinking that on the list of bad ideas, flirting with Graham’s woman was off the scale.
Ben declined. Thank fuck for that.
“Look. OK, you ain’t done anything like this before but it’s OK. The Japs don’t do anything. All you’ve gotta be is polite and smile, that’s all. It’s what they do and it’s what they want us to do. You can call them anything, do anything but as long as you’re polite, it’s OK. You’ve got to remember, they think we’re some kind of dirty sub species anyway. They don’t expect anything proper.”
Nothing.
“Nah, no sweat” said Graham, “I’ll sort it”. Did he say that a bit too easily? There was an alarm going off in my head somewhere but I didn’t hear it. This bloke – who I’d already decided was trouble – had taken us into his confidence, shown us his inner sole – inner soul? Oh never mind – and made himself really vulnerable. And he’d let it go with “Nah, no sweat. I’ll sort it”. I wasn’t so much fresh off the boat. I was still on the boat.
I didn’t think any more of it at the time, though later on someone – Brad the Canadian, I think – told me that Graham’s usual trick was to hide the dope in some poor unsuspecting bastard’s back pack, let them take it through customs – and then steal the bag from them on the other side when they’d got through. Didn’t do anything like that with us. Don’t know why. Maybe he liked us. God knows.
We sat up the rest of the night, the four of us, smoking a bit while Graham told us stories about how he’d paid for the trip by blackmailing an MP he’d had a fling with. “I’m gonna write it all down and make it into a TV film. Those bastards won’t forget about me”. All I remember thinking was “Why are you telling us this?” Whatever. Back then I was so naïve about this lark I’d have believed anything. The last thing I suspected was that it was all true – but sometimes the last place you suspect is the first place you should look.
Customs was a joy. Graham insisted on walking through with us, talking to us and laughing all the way. The Japanese were pretty much like he said – they looked at us like we were slightly dirty, like they just hoped we’d go away. Curiously, it was kinda how I felt about Graham. But they humoured us and let us in.
We got through. I was terrified. He didn’t seem to give a toss. But we got through. Looking back, I don’t know why I was terrified – that business of dropping the dope in someone else’s backpack hadn’t occurred to me at all – that kind of thinking was completely off my radar. Maybe it was some kinda instinct thing. We got through.
Tokyo. We were in Tokyo. I can’t even begin to tell you how exciting that was. Tokyo. That was amazing. A month ago I was in London and now I was in Tokyo. Well, I was on a train going to Tokyo. Just me. And Ben. And Graham. And Ronit.
It was a strange journey, didn’t take long and to be honest I can’t remember much about it. I remember Graham rolling one his trouser legs up and revealing an inner sole gaffer taped to his leg. I remember that. I also remember him asking us where we were going to stay.
“I dunno” said Ben. “Some hotel in town. We’ll ask around, maybe go to tourist info or something, and find something for a few days and…”
“Like fuck you will. You’re coming with us. You ever heard of the Palace?”
“The palace?”
“The Maharajah Palace. That’s where we’re going.”
We’re going to Tokyo and we’re going to stay in The Maharajah Palace. You’ve gotta laugh. There’s a kind of inconsistency there that appealed. If I’d have thought of Tokyo and play some sort of word association game, I’d have come up with words like hi-tech, shiny, electronic, space age, digital and maybe electronic again. I’m not sure the words maharajah and palace would have come up in the top 100.
OK. Let’s turn it round the other way. If the words Maharajah Palace don’t make you think of hi-tech, shiny, electronic, space age, digital and maybe electronic again Tokyo, what did they make you think of? Opulence. Grandeur. Exotic baubles, rubies and emeralds and gold, great swathes of elaborately embroidered cloth, shimmering with their gaudiness. Probably not rusty corrugated metal and ramshackle wood. Probably not some pre-fab held up by its own indecision as to which bit should collapse first. If I’d have seen the place – regardless of where it was – I don’t think I’d have been helped. If I’d have seen the place I might have come up with Large Garden Shed. Or Decrepit Old Shack. Or Complete Fucking Dump. Maharajah Palace. It was probably funny once.
The Palace was a zoo. Well, not even a zoo. In a zoo, the animals have some kind of morality. In the Palace… that very concept was kinda dubious.
If you were the romantic type, you might say it was a rogue’s gallery. If you were a realist, you might want to move to somewhere a bit more hi-tech and shiny. Me, I thought it was charming.
It had the air of a hideaway, a place where people were… well, not exactly on the run. That’s a bit too pulp fiction, a bit too romantic, but it was definitely somewhere that felt outside the boundaries, somewhere the normal rules didn’t apply. There were probably other rules that applied.
A few years later, I was hanging out with a Norwegian girl there. I remember talking to her and a bloke called Mark, who the house doctor at the time. Elke was a sweetie, a poppet, but she was very clean living and fresh. It wasn’t so much that she was naïve, it was just that she hadn’t really considered the options before.
“How many people here take drugs?” she said to Mark.
Mark thought a bit. And then he looked at her. He didn’t really need to say anything but she knew.
“Everyone?”
Still he didn’t say anything.
“Everyone except me?”
Mark gave her some rabbit about how she was beautiful and pure and different and that’s what made her special, but she was lost in thought.
Like I say, she hadn’t really considered her options. It didn’t take her long to re-adjust, but that’s another story.
Tuesday 6 October 2009
Jayne Warburton
WHERE HAVE I BEEN? WHERE AM I NOW?
Jayne Warburton was short and slim. She had thick brown hair cut short and slim. She was very bright and we used to talk about all sorts of things. Well, we did until I told her that I fancied the pants off her and after that we used to sit around in embarrassed silence. I remember one night when I decided to overcome my shyness and that the best way to do that was to neck a bag of speed. Not much changed. Jane sat around in embarrassed silence. I chewed the inside of my mouth off, climbed the walls and tapped my leg in furious but still embarrassed silence.
We still hung out together, but it was never the same. Eventually we drifted apart, me to Catherine, her to Liz. Liz was also short and slim with thick brown hair cut short and slim and my mate Mick fancied the pants off her. That also went well.
I’m not sure I can remember a lot more about college. Philip Morris, who had a motorbike and used to come round to our house all the time. Roy, the Welsh punk who, according to Friends Reunited now lives in Perth, Australia. Sarah, Paul Tomlin, Peter Monteith, the Afflecks Palace, that club, what was it called? Gas Panic? Or was that the one in Tokyo? Doesn’t really matter.
I studied – and I use that word with my tongue so far in my cheek it’s licking my ear – Politics and Sociology, but I couldn’t tell you anything about it now. I couldn’t tell you anything that I did, anything I wrote, anything I read. I couldn’t even tell you the names of my lecturers. (Mick told me a few weeks ago that one of our lecturers was called Phil Mole. “Phil Mole! Are you really telling me you can’t remember him?” he said as the words Phil and Mole hit my ears for, I swear, the first time ever).
I could tell you about Catherine and Jayne and Liz and Mick and seeing Joy Division and New Order’s first gig and meeting Tony Wilson, but I’m not sure that’s what you’re looking for. I could tell you about my formal education – eight O levels, three A levels and a degree. I went to Polytechnic. I left Sixth Form College with my A levels and went up to Manchester and went to Manchester Polytechnic. I quite liked the word. Polytechnic. It sounded modern and meaningless, shiny and completely lacking in any substance, but more than that I liked the way it wasn’t a university. If it had any meaning it was in defining what it wasn’t rather than what it was: it wasn’t a university. That’s what a polytechnic was, not a university. In a sense it fitted in with my story at the time - the playful inverted snob – but I genuinely liked the way it meant that I wasn’t like those people, those people who talked about “going to university” as if it was something special. I didn’t go to Manchester because of anything special. I went to Manchester because I wanted to see The Fall and Joy Division and I didn’t want to go to work. I went to Manchester because they offered me a place. I went to Manchester because I could. Life had its revenge later as it does. In the early 1990s, Manchester Polytechnic became a university, but by then I didn’t care.
A life spent in educational institutions until the age of 23 – but what did I learn there? In truth, when I look back I think I learned nothing. OK, that’s not true. I learned loads, but all of it was about life. I can’t remember a single academic thing. Not one essay I wrote, not one theory I spewed in and out.
That’s where I have been. Would I do anything different now? Of course, but that’s not the point. It’s all learning. Whether you like it or not, it’s all learning. From the moment you lift your head from the pillow to the moment you lay your head down you are learning. Everything you do in life is about learning. I’m not sure you can do anything without learning from it, whether consciously or unconsciously. Whether you take it on or not, that’s a different thing. And that’s what takes us to the where I am now. I’m Phil Mole.
When I started teaching at Brighton University, that experience in Manchester was invaluable. It was probably – no, definitely – more useful to me than it would have been if I’d have been able to remember what it was Weber said to Durkheim or whatever Derrida’s theories really meant. All that’s useful but what Manchester really told me was that – and this really quite upsetting – my mother was right. You get out what you put in. It’s about passion, about excitement, about enthusiasm – and that’s for both sides of the equation, the people who are teaching and the people who are learning. It’s up to the teacher to make his class swing. That I got nothing out of my class is just as much Phil Mole’s fault as mine. I was absent most of the time, but he should have made his class the hottest ticket in town.
Am I Phil Mole? Is my class the hottest ticket? Maybe. Probably not, but I think knowing it should be is the first step. Learning - education is important. Of course it is. Just like the shark moving forward, you never stop learning. And we all know what happened to the shark that stopped moving forward. Our job is to make that learning as exciting as meeting Jayne Warburton in the bar.
Jayne Warburton was short and slim. She had thick brown hair cut short and slim. She was very bright and we used to talk about all sorts of things. Well, we did until I told her that I fancied the pants off her and after that we used to sit around in embarrassed silence. I remember one night when I decided to overcome my shyness and that the best way to do that was to neck a bag of speed. Not much changed. Jane sat around in embarrassed silence. I chewed the inside of my mouth off, climbed the walls and tapped my leg in furious but still embarrassed silence.
We still hung out together, but it was never the same. Eventually we drifted apart, me to Catherine, her to Liz. Liz was also short and slim with thick brown hair cut short and slim and my mate Mick fancied the pants off her. That also went well.
I’m not sure I can remember a lot more about college. Philip Morris, who had a motorbike and used to come round to our house all the time. Roy, the Welsh punk who, according to Friends Reunited now lives in Perth, Australia. Sarah, Paul Tomlin, Peter Monteith, the Afflecks Palace, that club, what was it called? Gas Panic? Or was that the one in Tokyo? Doesn’t really matter.
I studied – and I use that word with my tongue so far in my cheek it’s licking my ear – Politics and Sociology, but I couldn’t tell you anything about it now. I couldn’t tell you anything that I did, anything I wrote, anything I read. I couldn’t even tell you the names of my lecturers. (Mick told me a few weeks ago that one of our lecturers was called Phil Mole. “Phil Mole! Are you really telling me you can’t remember him?” he said as the words Phil and Mole hit my ears for, I swear, the first time ever).
I could tell you about Catherine and Jayne and Liz and Mick and seeing Joy Division and New Order’s first gig and meeting Tony Wilson, but I’m not sure that’s what you’re looking for. I could tell you about my formal education – eight O levels, three A levels and a degree. I went to Polytechnic. I left Sixth Form College with my A levels and went up to Manchester and went to Manchester Polytechnic. I quite liked the word. Polytechnic. It sounded modern and meaningless, shiny and completely lacking in any substance, but more than that I liked the way it wasn’t a university. If it had any meaning it was in defining what it wasn’t rather than what it was: it wasn’t a university. That’s what a polytechnic was, not a university. In a sense it fitted in with my story at the time - the playful inverted snob – but I genuinely liked the way it meant that I wasn’t like those people, those people who talked about “going to university” as if it was something special. I didn’t go to Manchester because of anything special. I went to Manchester because I wanted to see The Fall and Joy Division and I didn’t want to go to work. I went to Manchester because they offered me a place. I went to Manchester because I could. Life had its revenge later as it does. In the early 1990s, Manchester Polytechnic became a university, but by then I didn’t care.
A life spent in educational institutions until the age of 23 – but what did I learn there? In truth, when I look back I think I learned nothing. OK, that’s not true. I learned loads, but all of it was about life. I can’t remember a single academic thing. Not one essay I wrote, not one theory I spewed in and out.
That’s where I have been. Would I do anything different now? Of course, but that’s not the point. It’s all learning. Whether you like it or not, it’s all learning. From the moment you lift your head from the pillow to the moment you lay your head down you are learning. Everything you do in life is about learning. I’m not sure you can do anything without learning from it, whether consciously or unconsciously. Whether you take it on or not, that’s a different thing. And that’s what takes us to the where I am now. I’m Phil Mole.
When I started teaching at Brighton University, that experience in Manchester was invaluable. It was probably – no, definitely – more useful to me than it would have been if I’d have been able to remember what it was Weber said to Durkheim or whatever Derrida’s theories really meant. All that’s useful but what Manchester really told me was that – and this really quite upsetting – my mother was right. You get out what you put in. It’s about passion, about excitement, about enthusiasm – and that’s for both sides of the equation, the people who are teaching and the people who are learning. It’s up to the teacher to make his class swing. That I got nothing out of my class is just as much Phil Mole’s fault as mine. I was absent most of the time, but he should have made his class the hottest ticket in town.
Am I Phil Mole? Is my class the hottest ticket? Maybe. Probably not, but I think knowing it should be is the first step. Learning - education is important. Of course it is. Just like the shark moving forward, you never stop learning. And we all know what happened to the shark that stopped moving forward. Our job is to make that learning as exciting as meeting Jayne Warburton in the bar.
A very long entry - but it seemed to fit
EVALUATE YOUR TEACHING
“Life is what happens while you’re busy making plans” – John Lennon.
It’s a curious thing. During the period between thinking about this piece and writing it, I saw a film that struck a chord. An unusually staged, wordy film, one of the characters was a teacher – an American political science professor (played by Robert Redford, all warm liberalism, blue denim shirt and brown cord jacket) – who was wrestling with both his role as a teacher and his own sense of purpose. It was all about the choices we make, the impact our decisions have on others, the line we draw in the sand.
Without regurgitating the script, the teacher had arranged to meet a talented but lazy student at 7.30am in his office to talk about why the student had drifted away. How he persuaded a lazy student to come in at 7.30am… is a different question. Anyway.
They sat and talked about life and what it’s for, about the role of the individual in society, about contribution and symbiosis. He didn’t so much haul him over the coals as talk to him about life and responsibility, accountability and maturity. Being a grown up in a society that wasn’t. They talked, they cried, they drank product-placement coffee, they agreed and disagreed and agreed again. Like I say, all warm liberalism, blue denim shirt and cord jacket.
The teacher was a mentor, a brother, a parent, a friend. He was the student’s inspiration, his conscience. It was, of course, a hugely idealised picture – it’s Hollywood, what do you want? - but it did set me thinking. What am I doing? Should I be like that?
Moving swiftly away from the idea of what my students might say if I suggested meeting at 7.30am - and moving even faster away from the idea of getting a cord jacket and blue denim shirt – what was there to learn? Maybe it was time to evaluate my teaching.
"Evaluation is not at heart about collecting evidence to justify oneself, nor about measuring the relative worth of courses and teachers. It is about coming to understand teaching in order to improve student learning."
(Ramsden 1992)
A year ago, the idea of writing a piece entitled “Evaluate Your Teaching” would have been ridiculous. A letter sent to the wrong address. I was a writer, a freelance writer. I’d done a bit of guest lecturing, but that was different. That’s performance. You go in, give a bit show, tell a few war stories and waltz off clutching a cheque. I was, to use a word that has suddenly entered my world, a practitioner. But that was then.
Now I’m a full time lecturer. Not only that, I’m also a student – and that truly is an irony - doing a course called something like How To Become A Proper Teacher and I’m writing an essay about what it’s like to be a teacher. How can I evaluate my teaching if I’m not a teacher? What do you mean I’m a teacher? When did that happen? How did that happen?
A Period Of Self-Reflection
And you may ask yourself “Well...How did I get here?”
I never really intended for this to happen. I didn’t wake up one morning and say to myself “Jed, it’s time to give something back. It’s time to become a teacher”. What happened was this: I woke up one morning and the phone rang. And then I became a teacher. A part-time teacher – a “point five” – for three months.
There was no training, no explanation, no nothing. Just “You start at 10am. They’re second years, you’ll be fine”. It was all true. We did start at 10am, they were second years and I was fine.
I always tell my students “It’s OK. Go ahead and think about career plans and structures and have a goal in mind, but the reality is that you’ll go where the wind blows you, that opportunities will come from the most unexpected sources’. And they all look at me.
Well, my wind blew me to Eastbourne. And – a year later - I’m a full-time permanent member of staff with a pension and a purple car sticker.
I can laugh to myself at all this and stroke my beard and play “I’m a professor” and all that, but to the students this is real. And if it’s real to them, then it’s real to me and it’s time to evaluate my teaching.
The first question is this: Am I a lecturer or a teacher? Give up. No idea. Is there a difference? No idea. Am I a lecturer? God no. The idea that I’m one of those people who stand in front of a lectern in a hall, talking with the aid of maybe Powerpoint presentations of, at least, an overhead projector… Not a chance. Do I teach? Well, I hope so, but I’m not sure that’s the biggest part of it.
I teach the students in the same way that I teach my kids: I tell them about life, about what I’ve learned about life.
A lot of the time I try to be a mixture between Robert Redford (with a few superficial but not, to me, insignificant differences) and a best mate. I was the first lecturer at my School to have a Facebook account, I’m the only lecturer to get invited to their parties. I’m the one who plays Scrabulous online with them.
What I Want
I went to college in Manchester. There were many reasons why I went there. I left Sixth Form College with my A levels and went up to Manchester and went to Manchester Polytechnic. I quite liked the word. Polytechnic. It sounded modern and meaningless, shiny and lacking in any substance. If it had any meaning it was in defining what it wasn’t rather than what it was: it wasn’t a university. That’s what a polytechnic was, not a university. In a sense it fitted in with my story at the time - the playful inverted snob – and I liked the way it meant that I wasn’t like those people, those people who talked about “going to university” as if it was something special.
I didn’t go to Manchester because of anything special. I went to Manchester because I wanted to see The Fall and Joy Division and I didn’t want to go to work. I went to Manchester because they offered me a place. I went to Manchester because I could. Life had its revenge later as it does when, in the early 1990s, Manchester Polytechnic became a university. By then I didn’t care.
I’m not sure I can remember much about college. Philip Morris, who had a motorbike and used to come round to our house all the time. Mick, Roy, the Welsh punk who, according to Friends Reunited now lives in Perth, Australia. Sarah, Paul Tomlin, Peter Monteith, Gas Panic, the Afflecks Palace.
I was, very probably, the worst student in the world. I could get a place on the new ITV show Celebrity Worst Student In The World if there was such a show. Or I was a celebrity. I never went to class, never did what I was supposed to do.
I studied – and I use that word with my tongue so far in my cheek it’s licking my ear – Politics and Sociology, but I couldn’t tell you anything about it now. I couldn’t tell you anything that I did, anything I wrote, anything I read. I couldn’t even tell you the names of my lecturers.
I’m still in touch with Mick, so I called him up. We spoke. I explained my situation and he told me about one of our lecturers called Phil Mole.
“Phil Mole! Are you really telling me you can’t remember him?” he said as the words Phil and Mole hit my ears for, I swear, the first time ever.
“Phil Mole. He…. Had a beard.”
In a sense, I want to be Phil Mole, but I want to be more than that. Phil was good enough to enthuse the second worst student in class. I want to be Phil Mole plus one.
Can I Do It?
It’s all very well wanting to be that Hollywood archetype, the inspiring teacher, but outside of The Dead Poets Society, can it happen?
As part of this course, we are supposed to do a “peer observation” where our teaching is observed and we observe someone else’s teaching. Naturally, we observed each other. The Wisconsin Peer Review website talks about peer review and how it can be done. However… as chance would have it one of the other ‘students’ on this course is not only a fellow Sport Journalism lecturer at Chelsea, but also an old mate.
“Jed’s personal touch was apparent from the outset, the rapport he has with the students admirable and palpable. He creates a relaxed atmosphere conducive to learning and working.
At the start of the session he set the students a task – previewing a football match for a tabloid newspaper and supplying the headline and photo, via Quark Express. The idea of the preview actually came from a student, which demonstrated Jed’s willingness to respond to the class’s desires and hence make the work more suitable. This type of exercise brings them a taste of life in a busy newsroom. The fact that they had only 45 minutes to complete the task gave it an added element of verisimilitude.
Jed’s explanation of what was required was clear and precise. He used large screens at either end of the newsroom (which was packed) to demonstrate what was wanted, resisted overburdening the class with theory, asked if there were any questions, then left the students to their own devices. This in turn meant that he could go round to each student in turn to find out how they were getting on, clarify any issues and give pertinent tips. In turn, the students were not in the least disruptive, and simply got on with their work.
Overall, I felt that this was an ideal approach to the subject. It struck a balance between instruction, practical application, flexibility and professional relevance.”
That was, I felt, a fair appraisal. It was also what I would have wanted to hear. I’m sure that, for the most part, my lectures aren’t a chore. I’m sure that, of all their lectures, mine aren’t the ones they dread.
Hounsell (2003), Gibbs and Habeshaw (1988) and University of Kent (2004) outline a range of ideas for getting feedback from students. My feedback has come from rather more unorthodox routes, but I feel that they are just as valid – if not more so.
When my initial part time contract ended, I had to re-apply for the permanent position. I applied, got short-listed and had an interview. It was then that I found out that the students had signed a petition asking that I be given the job.
The M&E (Module and Evaluation) forms that the students fill in at the end of the year were positive, too. These forms – written anonymously, supposedly unseen by lecturers – are the nearest thing the students have to a right of reply. I skirted the rules and had a look and, generally, the students were very positive.
Further evidence that the students like my classes came last week. A senior lecturer appeared in my course leaders office, face like thunder. In his hand he had a piece of paper with a list of names of students who had repeatedly been missing his classes. “What’s happened to these students?” he demanded to know. “Have they left?”
I was a little embarrassed – and OK, a little smug – to explain that they were all in the newsroom writing a paper for me as we spoke.
But Is It Any Good?
So OK, great. We get on and they like me. It might even mean that maybe – just maybe – I might get to be their Phil Mole. But does that mean my lectures are any good? Does all that mean though that my lectures are the ones that are the most use? That’s a different question.
The communication part of the job is, for me, easy Chatting and getting on with people. The subject matter also makes it easy. I teach News Writing, Advanced Sports Journalism and Multi Media Journalism. These are the practical modules, the ones where students get to do the things that they signed up to do back when they were school kids. We watch football matches and write match reports – not hard work, whichever way you bend it
We talk, we chat, we play. To use the student word of the moment, we banter. We make fun of each other, we tease each other. I make fun of their shoes, they make fun of mine. I don’t know if what I do is any good.
I never formally trained to be a teacher. I never even gave it any thought. It was all
“Here are the keys to the car. Off you go”.
“Lovely, thanks. What are those pedals for?”
Whoooosshhhh. Crrrrrraaaaassssshhhhhh.
“Oh, I see. That’s what happens when you do that.”
I made it up as I went along. I had – I have – the advantage of teaching something that I’ve spent the best part of 20 years doing, so I know the subject. What I don’t know – or what I’m not sure about – is how to teach.
Going back to the Redford film, it showed the bright but lazy student in the first year when he was simply a bright student. We saw Redford giving a lecture about drug addicts and talking about clinics where junkies could be given methodone to help them with their addiction. This was held up as the action of a responsible, caring society. All the students nodded in agreement. All except the bright student who said “That’s ridiculous. You might as well have state-sponsored drunkard’s lanes on the highways!” Apart from the fact that it’s a fantastically stupid thing to say and if this was an example of the bright student’s brightness then God help the stupid students…
Anyway. It was what followed that struck me. There was a vigorous, discussion where students were engaged with each other and the subject. People were getting angry, throwing opinions around, caring, being erudite, informed, passionate.
Would anything like that happen in one of my classes? Hang about a minute – I’ll go and ask that pig flying past the window.
The Other Stuff
I heard someone – a quite senior lecturer – say the other day “This job would be easy if it wasn’t for the students”. It was possibly meant as a joke, but then again… possibly not. I feel completely the opposite. It’s the other stuff - the stuff that happens around the students – that weighs heavy.
Marking weighs me down .I’m not experienced enough to do it quickly – to drive through the shortcuts – and so it takes a ridiculously long time. So I don’t get enough done. And the more I don’t get enough done… the further behind I fall. The students see this and, while we get round it because we’re mates an have a laugh, it’s not as good as it should be. Again, it cuts both ways. I know at I put a lot more into my work than others, but because I haven’t been doing this very long and I’m still writing my lecture notes as I’m going along and… and… and… it takes me a long time.
The consequence is that I don’t give things enough time – because there isn’t enough time. I don’t give individuals enough time. I don’t give this course enough time.
While a lot of that is down to time management and recognising how long things take – something that only experience tells us - there’s a more fundamental truth going on, too. I’m a journalism lecturer and, a lot of the time, if I’m being completely honest, I don’t know what I’m marking. OK, there are a group of students who, frankly, I wouldn’t trust to write a shopping list. “Is that really how you spell carrot?” But mostly, it’s OK. What they do is OK.
I’ve always been of the opinion that writing is an expressive form and that the right to say “This is good but that’s bad” is a dubious right at best. Clearly, the way that I write is best but to question – or worse, mark down – Student A because he or she doesn’t write or phrase things like I might is plain daft.
There’s a clear chasm between “that’s good” and “that’s no good”, but outside that? It’s a tough call. So I make up the difference by trying to inspire them. For example, there has recently been a Radio 4 series about newspapers, where they’ve been and where they’re going. I taped the shows, talked to the students about them and made the tapes available. Understanding the context, the history, the famous names… it’s all part of the job but at the same time, it’s not something that anyone else does.
It also bothers me that I’ve never been taught to be a teacher. Before I started this job… we’re going back a few years. I know how to write a feature, but do I know why I do what I do? Mostly I just do it. One of the modules I teach – multi-media – I’m only marginally more enlightened than the students. And even that’s not always true.
What helps me is that I have a credibility in their eyes in that I’ve been where they want to go, I’ve done what they want to do, I’ve been a successful sports journalist.
Conclusion - Where Do We Go From Here?
When I came to prepare for this essay, I gathered a number of evaluative documents regarding my course, for example Module Reports, an External Examiner’s Report and an Academic Health Report for both my area (Sport and Leisure Cultures) and the Chelsea School.
Hounsell (2003) points to four forms of feedback – self-generated, from students, from colleagues and incidental, which refers to other factors such as attendance. I feel I’ve dealt with all these forms, albeit in a discursive way, and feel that my teaching is improving as a result.
It’s a curious thing, but the process of this PgCLTHE course has also helped enormously. I got to know other lecturers from other schools and others disciplines and it was a fantastic relief to find out that, by and large, we were all concerned about the same things. Same things, different names.
While I’m still a long way from the Robert Redford character in that film – the inspiring mentor, the wise elder statesman, the cross between a teacher and a parent and a mate and a lover – I feel that I’m getting there.
“Life is what happens while you’re busy making plans” – John Lennon.
It’s a curious thing. During the period between thinking about this piece and writing it, I saw a film that struck a chord. An unusually staged, wordy film, one of the characters was a teacher – an American political science professor (played by Robert Redford, all warm liberalism, blue denim shirt and brown cord jacket) – who was wrestling with both his role as a teacher and his own sense of purpose. It was all about the choices we make, the impact our decisions have on others, the line we draw in the sand.
Without regurgitating the script, the teacher had arranged to meet a talented but lazy student at 7.30am in his office to talk about why the student had drifted away. How he persuaded a lazy student to come in at 7.30am… is a different question. Anyway.
They sat and talked about life and what it’s for, about the role of the individual in society, about contribution and symbiosis. He didn’t so much haul him over the coals as talk to him about life and responsibility, accountability and maturity. Being a grown up in a society that wasn’t. They talked, they cried, they drank product-placement coffee, they agreed and disagreed and agreed again. Like I say, all warm liberalism, blue denim shirt and cord jacket.
The teacher was a mentor, a brother, a parent, a friend. He was the student’s inspiration, his conscience. It was, of course, a hugely idealised picture – it’s Hollywood, what do you want? - but it did set me thinking. What am I doing? Should I be like that?
Moving swiftly away from the idea of what my students might say if I suggested meeting at 7.30am - and moving even faster away from the idea of getting a cord jacket and blue denim shirt – what was there to learn? Maybe it was time to evaluate my teaching.
"Evaluation is not at heart about collecting evidence to justify oneself, nor about measuring the relative worth of courses and teachers. It is about coming to understand teaching in order to improve student learning."
(Ramsden 1992)
A year ago, the idea of writing a piece entitled “Evaluate Your Teaching” would have been ridiculous. A letter sent to the wrong address. I was a writer, a freelance writer. I’d done a bit of guest lecturing, but that was different. That’s performance. You go in, give a bit show, tell a few war stories and waltz off clutching a cheque. I was, to use a word that has suddenly entered my world, a practitioner. But that was then.
Now I’m a full time lecturer. Not only that, I’m also a student – and that truly is an irony - doing a course called something like How To Become A Proper Teacher and I’m writing an essay about what it’s like to be a teacher. How can I evaluate my teaching if I’m not a teacher? What do you mean I’m a teacher? When did that happen? How did that happen?
A Period Of Self-Reflection
And you may ask yourself “Well...How did I get here?”
I never really intended for this to happen. I didn’t wake up one morning and say to myself “Jed, it’s time to give something back. It’s time to become a teacher”. What happened was this: I woke up one morning and the phone rang. And then I became a teacher. A part-time teacher – a “point five” – for three months.
There was no training, no explanation, no nothing. Just “You start at 10am. They’re second years, you’ll be fine”. It was all true. We did start at 10am, they were second years and I was fine.
I always tell my students “It’s OK. Go ahead and think about career plans and structures and have a goal in mind, but the reality is that you’ll go where the wind blows you, that opportunities will come from the most unexpected sources’. And they all look at me.
Well, my wind blew me to Eastbourne. And – a year later - I’m a full-time permanent member of staff with a pension and a purple car sticker.
I can laugh to myself at all this and stroke my beard and play “I’m a professor” and all that, but to the students this is real. And if it’s real to them, then it’s real to me and it’s time to evaluate my teaching.
The first question is this: Am I a lecturer or a teacher? Give up. No idea. Is there a difference? No idea. Am I a lecturer? God no. The idea that I’m one of those people who stand in front of a lectern in a hall, talking with the aid of maybe Powerpoint presentations of, at least, an overhead projector… Not a chance. Do I teach? Well, I hope so, but I’m not sure that’s the biggest part of it.
I teach the students in the same way that I teach my kids: I tell them about life, about what I’ve learned about life.
A lot of the time I try to be a mixture between Robert Redford (with a few superficial but not, to me, insignificant differences) and a best mate. I was the first lecturer at my School to have a Facebook account, I’m the only lecturer to get invited to their parties. I’m the one who plays Scrabulous online with them.
What I Want
I went to college in Manchester. There were many reasons why I went there. I left Sixth Form College with my A levels and went up to Manchester and went to Manchester Polytechnic. I quite liked the word. Polytechnic. It sounded modern and meaningless, shiny and lacking in any substance. If it had any meaning it was in defining what it wasn’t rather than what it was: it wasn’t a university. That’s what a polytechnic was, not a university. In a sense it fitted in with my story at the time - the playful inverted snob – and I liked the way it meant that I wasn’t like those people, those people who talked about “going to university” as if it was something special.
I didn’t go to Manchester because of anything special. I went to Manchester because I wanted to see The Fall and Joy Division and I didn’t want to go to work. I went to Manchester because they offered me a place. I went to Manchester because I could. Life had its revenge later as it does when, in the early 1990s, Manchester Polytechnic became a university. By then I didn’t care.
I’m not sure I can remember much about college. Philip Morris, who had a motorbike and used to come round to our house all the time. Mick, Roy, the Welsh punk who, according to Friends Reunited now lives in Perth, Australia. Sarah, Paul Tomlin, Peter Monteith, Gas Panic, the Afflecks Palace.
I was, very probably, the worst student in the world. I could get a place on the new ITV show Celebrity Worst Student In The World if there was such a show. Or I was a celebrity. I never went to class, never did what I was supposed to do.
I studied – and I use that word with my tongue so far in my cheek it’s licking my ear – Politics and Sociology, but I couldn’t tell you anything about it now. I couldn’t tell you anything that I did, anything I wrote, anything I read. I couldn’t even tell you the names of my lecturers.
I’m still in touch with Mick, so I called him up. We spoke. I explained my situation and he told me about one of our lecturers called Phil Mole.
“Phil Mole! Are you really telling me you can’t remember him?” he said as the words Phil and Mole hit my ears for, I swear, the first time ever.
“Phil Mole. He…. Had a beard.”
In a sense, I want to be Phil Mole, but I want to be more than that. Phil was good enough to enthuse the second worst student in class. I want to be Phil Mole plus one.
Can I Do It?
It’s all very well wanting to be that Hollywood archetype, the inspiring teacher, but outside of The Dead Poets Society, can it happen?
As part of this course, we are supposed to do a “peer observation” where our teaching is observed and we observe someone else’s teaching. Naturally, we observed each other. The Wisconsin Peer Review website talks about peer review and how it can be done. However… as chance would have it one of the other ‘students’ on this course is not only a fellow Sport Journalism lecturer at Chelsea, but also an old mate.
“Jed’s personal touch was apparent from the outset, the rapport he has with the students admirable and palpable. He creates a relaxed atmosphere conducive to learning and working.
At the start of the session he set the students a task – previewing a football match for a tabloid newspaper and supplying the headline and photo, via Quark Express. The idea of the preview actually came from a student, which demonstrated Jed’s willingness to respond to the class’s desires and hence make the work more suitable. This type of exercise brings them a taste of life in a busy newsroom. The fact that they had only 45 minutes to complete the task gave it an added element of verisimilitude.
Jed’s explanation of what was required was clear and precise. He used large screens at either end of the newsroom (which was packed) to demonstrate what was wanted, resisted overburdening the class with theory, asked if there were any questions, then left the students to their own devices. This in turn meant that he could go round to each student in turn to find out how they were getting on, clarify any issues and give pertinent tips. In turn, the students were not in the least disruptive, and simply got on with their work.
Overall, I felt that this was an ideal approach to the subject. It struck a balance between instruction, practical application, flexibility and professional relevance.”
That was, I felt, a fair appraisal. It was also what I would have wanted to hear. I’m sure that, for the most part, my lectures aren’t a chore. I’m sure that, of all their lectures, mine aren’t the ones they dread.
Hounsell (2003), Gibbs and Habeshaw (1988) and University of Kent (2004) outline a range of ideas for getting feedback from students. My feedback has come from rather more unorthodox routes, but I feel that they are just as valid – if not more so.
When my initial part time contract ended, I had to re-apply for the permanent position. I applied, got short-listed and had an interview. It was then that I found out that the students had signed a petition asking that I be given the job.
The M&E (Module and Evaluation) forms that the students fill in at the end of the year were positive, too. These forms – written anonymously, supposedly unseen by lecturers – are the nearest thing the students have to a right of reply. I skirted the rules and had a look and, generally, the students were very positive.
Further evidence that the students like my classes came last week. A senior lecturer appeared in my course leaders office, face like thunder. In his hand he had a piece of paper with a list of names of students who had repeatedly been missing his classes. “What’s happened to these students?” he demanded to know. “Have they left?”
I was a little embarrassed – and OK, a little smug – to explain that they were all in the newsroom writing a paper for me as we spoke.
But Is It Any Good?
So OK, great. We get on and they like me. It might even mean that maybe – just maybe – I might get to be their Phil Mole. But does that mean my lectures are any good? Does all that mean though that my lectures are the ones that are the most use? That’s a different question.
The communication part of the job is, for me, easy Chatting and getting on with people. The subject matter also makes it easy. I teach News Writing, Advanced Sports Journalism and Multi Media Journalism. These are the practical modules, the ones where students get to do the things that they signed up to do back when they were school kids. We watch football matches and write match reports – not hard work, whichever way you bend it
We talk, we chat, we play. To use the student word of the moment, we banter. We make fun of each other, we tease each other. I make fun of their shoes, they make fun of mine. I don’t know if what I do is any good.
I never formally trained to be a teacher. I never even gave it any thought. It was all
“Here are the keys to the car. Off you go”.
“Lovely, thanks. What are those pedals for?”
Whoooosshhhh. Crrrrrraaaaassssshhhhhh.
“Oh, I see. That’s what happens when you do that.”
I made it up as I went along. I had – I have – the advantage of teaching something that I’ve spent the best part of 20 years doing, so I know the subject. What I don’t know – or what I’m not sure about – is how to teach.
Going back to the Redford film, it showed the bright but lazy student in the first year when he was simply a bright student. We saw Redford giving a lecture about drug addicts and talking about clinics where junkies could be given methodone to help them with their addiction. This was held up as the action of a responsible, caring society. All the students nodded in agreement. All except the bright student who said “That’s ridiculous. You might as well have state-sponsored drunkard’s lanes on the highways!” Apart from the fact that it’s a fantastically stupid thing to say and if this was an example of the bright student’s brightness then God help the stupid students…
Anyway. It was what followed that struck me. There was a vigorous, discussion where students were engaged with each other and the subject. People were getting angry, throwing opinions around, caring, being erudite, informed, passionate.
Would anything like that happen in one of my classes? Hang about a minute – I’ll go and ask that pig flying past the window.
The Other Stuff
I heard someone – a quite senior lecturer – say the other day “This job would be easy if it wasn’t for the students”. It was possibly meant as a joke, but then again… possibly not. I feel completely the opposite. It’s the other stuff - the stuff that happens around the students – that weighs heavy.
Marking weighs me down .I’m not experienced enough to do it quickly – to drive through the shortcuts – and so it takes a ridiculously long time. So I don’t get enough done. And the more I don’t get enough done… the further behind I fall. The students see this and, while we get round it because we’re mates an have a laugh, it’s not as good as it should be. Again, it cuts both ways. I know at I put a lot more into my work than others, but because I haven’t been doing this very long and I’m still writing my lecture notes as I’m going along and… and… and… it takes me a long time.
The consequence is that I don’t give things enough time – because there isn’t enough time. I don’t give individuals enough time. I don’t give this course enough time.
While a lot of that is down to time management and recognising how long things take – something that only experience tells us - there’s a more fundamental truth going on, too. I’m a journalism lecturer and, a lot of the time, if I’m being completely honest, I don’t know what I’m marking. OK, there are a group of students who, frankly, I wouldn’t trust to write a shopping list. “Is that really how you spell carrot?” But mostly, it’s OK. What they do is OK.
I’ve always been of the opinion that writing is an expressive form and that the right to say “This is good but that’s bad” is a dubious right at best. Clearly, the way that I write is best but to question – or worse, mark down – Student A because he or she doesn’t write or phrase things like I might is plain daft.
There’s a clear chasm between “that’s good” and “that’s no good”, but outside that? It’s a tough call. So I make up the difference by trying to inspire them. For example, there has recently been a Radio 4 series about newspapers, where they’ve been and where they’re going. I taped the shows, talked to the students about them and made the tapes available. Understanding the context, the history, the famous names… it’s all part of the job but at the same time, it’s not something that anyone else does.
It also bothers me that I’ve never been taught to be a teacher. Before I started this job… we’re going back a few years. I know how to write a feature, but do I know why I do what I do? Mostly I just do it. One of the modules I teach – multi-media – I’m only marginally more enlightened than the students. And even that’s not always true.
What helps me is that I have a credibility in their eyes in that I’ve been where they want to go, I’ve done what they want to do, I’ve been a successful sports journalist.
Conclusion - Where Do We Go From Here?
When I came to prepare for this essay, I gathered a number of evaluative documents regarding my course, for example Module Reports, an External Examiner’s Report and an Academic Health Report for both my area (Sport and Leisure Cultures) and the Chelsea School.
Hounsell (2003) points to four forms of feedback – self-generated, from students, from colleagues and incidental, which refers to other factors such as attendance. I feel I’ve dealt with all these forms, albeit in a discursive way, and feel that my teaching is improving as a result.
It’s a curious thing, but the process of this PgCLTHE course has also helped enormously. I got to know other lecturers from other schools and others disciplines and it was a fantastic relief to find out that, by and large, we were all concerned about the same things. Same things, different names.
While I’m still a long way from the Robert Redford character in that film – the inspiring mentor, the wise elder statesman, the cross between a teacher and a parent and a mate and a lover – I feel that I’m getting there.
Monday 5 October 2009
DAY ONE
Day One. The teaching starts. We've just had a weekend in Wales with The Bionic Woman, the rabble are about to lurch into view, and at home the cracks are getting bigger. Between now and Christmas, that'll be interesting. Might go and hang out with Cow and Bully next door.
Wednesday 30 September 2009
A trip to London town with Ellie and Hannah and Kim to see Wicked! – Ellie’s 14th birthday present. Last year was a bit of a washout for the girl – the big 13th which had been talked about f’rages and which we’d all looked forward to f’reven more ages was kinda hijacked by my mother. Not really her fault, mind. And given the choice I’m fairly sure she wouldn’t have chosen August 18, 2008, to die. I’m fairly sure that given the choice, she’d have popped off – “sat at the top of a big slide and just,,, slide away” as she once put it – a couple of years before that. But she wasn’t given the choice and whoever it was who did have the choice, whoever it was who did the choosing, they chose two days before Belle’s birthday. And Jews being Jews and not wanting to hang around with these things, the funeral was two days later on August 20. Ellie’s actual birthday. That went down well. Actually, given that most 13-year olds are egos on legs, I thought she dealt with it remarkably well. Suddenly she was shifted from thinking about me and what I want and how much they’re going to spend on me and me and me and me… suddenly she had to think about someone else.
So we’ve had all the lines, all the gags. It was a wicked idea. They’ll have a wicked time. And they will. Right now they’ll be high on Haribo and having the time of their lives. And rightly so.
A Blog entry. Blimey. The last Blog entry was FA Cup Final day and I remember responding to Adam Clark’s mail about being in the press box at Wembley. I remember thinking that it should be kinda confronting – at least a little bit of the “What am I doing? Where did it all go wrong?” stuff should have been floating around. I remember even writing the Blog as a two-parter, to try to encourage myself to follow it up. But that didn’t work. Well, it didn’t then – so I’m going to follow it up now.
So. Yes, I would have liked to have been in the Press Box at Wembley on FA Cup Final day. But – and this is the key thing – not because it was FA Cup Final day. Because it was The Big Thing that was happening that day. It wouldn’t have mattered if it had been The Biggest Party. Or The Horse Of The Year Show. Or anything at all. It goes back to that childish desire to be at the best party in town. The thing is that all the stuff that goes to support you being in the Press Box, all the work you have to do, all that fills my head with dread.
You see, unless you’re the bloke giving out the medals you’ve got to make a pact with The Devil. You only get to go to Wembley if you’re prepared to go to Derby on Tuesday or Bolton on Saturday. And not just once, you’ve got to do that all year. Frankly, I couldn’t imagine anything worse. Being a football columnist, someone who stays at home and pontificates about the state of the game. That I’ll do. The get your hands dirty, day-to-day stuff? Not on your nelly.
There’s another reason, a more heartfelt reason. The reason I was watching the game at all was that I was killing the hours until it was time to go to pick LouLou up from whatever party she was at. And that’s what I want to spend my life doing. Being a football writer? Well that would just get in the way of all the good stuff in life.
What I’d really like is a job where they paid me to stand up in front of Young Impressionable Minds and tell them what I think. But where on earth would you find a job like that?
So we’ve had all the lines, all the gags. It was a wicked idea. They’ll have a wicked time. And they will. Right now they’ll be high on Haribo and having the time of their lives. And rightly so.
A Blog entry. Blimey. The last Blog entry was FA Cup Final day and I remember responding to Adam Clark’s mail about being in the press box at Wembley. I remember thinking that it should be kinda confronting – at least a little bit of the “What am I doing? Where did it all go wrong?” stuff should have been floating around. I remember even writing the Blog as a two-parter, to try to encourage myself to follow it up. But that didn’t work. Well, it didn’t then – so I’m going to follow it up now.
So. Yes, I would have liked to have been in the Press Box at Wembley on FA Cup Final day. But – and this is the key thing – not because it was FA Cup Final day. Because it was The Big Thing that was happening that day. It wouldn’t have mattered if it had been The Biggest Party. Or The Horse Of The Year Show. Or anything at all. It goes back to that childish desire to be at the best party in town. The thing is that all the stuff that goes to support you being in the Press Box, all the work you have to do, all that fills my head with dread.
You see, unless you’re the bloke giving out the medals you’ve got to make a pact with The Devil. You only get to go to Wembley if you’re prepared to go to Derby on Tuesday or Bolton on Saturday. And not just once, you’ve got to do that all year. Frankly, I couldn’t imagine anything worse. Being a football columnist, someone who stays at home and pontificates about the state of the game. That I’ll do. The get your hands dirty, day-to-day stuff? Not on your nelly.
There’s another reason, a more heartfelt reason. The reason I was watching the game at all was that I was killing the hours until it was time to go to pick LouLou up from whatever party she was at. And that’s what I want to spend my life doing. Being a football writer? Well that would just get in the way of all the good stuff in life.
What I’d really like is a job where they paid me to stand up in front of Young Impressionable Minds and tell them what I think. But where on earth would you find a job like that?
Tuesday 2 June 2009
Living The Dream
On Saturday afternoon this happened. I was at home by myself. Gill was off on some thing somewhere (I daresay she’s written a blog about it), and I was at home by myself (and now I’m writing a blog about it. Maybe one day Gill and I will cease to exist and simply be blog-entities.) Anyway, I’d just taken the girls to the Lodge to go to the swimming pool and I was at home marking. And then this happened. I logged on to Facebook because I was supposed to be marking and therefore it was essential I log on to Facebook. And then this happened. An alert (or whatever it is they’re called) popped up.
Person X is in the Wembley press box, living the dream
Now then Person X (and I’m keeping Adam’s name secret because it’s polite) is an ex-student, a very good one. I once gave him 90% for something which everyone else thought was mad but I thought “Actually, no. It’s good, really good. So I’m going to reward it.”
Anyway, when Person X left college he got a job with Everton even though he was from Devon and was therefore a mad Liverpool fan and by all accounts was doing rather well. To be honest, I hope he doesn’t do too well and get settled because I think he’s got it in him to become a journalist. I want him to get a job on a paper because I think he could do some proper writing.
Anyway, the other thing I didn’t say was that Saturday was the FA Cup final and Everton was in it. Against Chelsea. That’s no pleasure. In the FA Cup final against Leyton Orient, that’s a pleasure. Against Chelsea, if you’re Everton that’s called making up the numbers.
Anyway, so Person X is in the press box at Wembley Stadium at the FA Cup final, living the dream. And this is less than a year after he left college. That’s living the dream and then some.
So I go this Facebook alert and I wrote back:
“I’m sitting here marking SJ300 and you’re in the press box at Wembley. Ever got the feeling that something’s wrong but you can’t quite your finger on what?”
Default sarcasm, but it did make me pause for thought. Was I a bit jealous? Would I want to be at Wembley in the press box living the dream instead of in my study marking SJ300s?
Person X is in the Wembley press box, living the dream
Now then Person X (and I’m keeping Adam’s name secret because it’s polite) is an ex-student, a very good one. I once gave him 90% for something which everyone else thought was mad but I thought “Actually, no. It’s good, really good. So I’m going to reward it.”
Anyway, when Person X left college he got a job with Everton even though he was from Devon and was therefore a mad Liverpool fan and by all accounts was doing rather well. To be honest, I hope he doesn’t do too well and get settled because I think he’s got it in him to become a journalist. I want him to get a job on a paper because I think he could do some proper writing.
Anyway, the other thing I didn’t say was that Saturday was the FA Cup final and Everton was in it. Against Chelsea. That’s no pleasure. In the FA Cup final against Leyton Orient, that’s a pleasure. Against Chelsea, if you’re Everton that’s called making up the numbers.
Anyway, so Person X is in the press box at Wembley Stadium at the FA Cup final, living the dream. And this is less than a year after he left college. That’s living the dream and then some.
So I go this Facebook alert and I wrote back:
“I’m sitting here marking SJ300 and you’re in the press box at Wembley. Ever got the feeling that something’s wrong but you can’t quite your finger on what?”
Default sarcasm, but it did make me pause for thought. Was I a bit jealous? Would I want to be at Wembley in the press box living the dream instead of in my study marking SJ300s?
Thursday 16 April 2009
It’s a fantastic idea
I’m going to write a book where all the lead characters have the same names as the literary critics of the major papers and magazines. They’ll all be fantastically good looking, rich, charismatic… the beautiful people. Journalists – critics especially – are all ego monsters. All that “I think this” and “I think that.” The idea that they are paid to give their opinions, how could they not be? I’m going to call it “Jade: My Story”. It’s a belt-and-braces thing here. You have a look in any bookshop and that’s all there is: books by Jade, books about Jade, books by Jade about Jade. Bless her and all, but all you’ve got to do is put her name on the cover and… well, she’s not going to complain is she? Max Clifford might but I figure as long as you don’t put a surname to it… could be any old Jade.
I’m growing to love my new phone. Very touchy feely, all that fingers across the screen stuff. I can’t actually make any calls on it yet but I think sometimes we ask too much of technology. I’m sitting here on the train, we’re flying through the beautiful countryside and I’m listening to The Bays – my still new favourite band. What could be finer? I had been feeling a little jaded but a bit of The Bays….
Jaded. That’s it. The title of my new book. Jaded. Actually, I’ve been thinking. By the time I’ve finished the book – about 20 years time at the current rate. No, by the time I’ve finished the book and the thing comes out we’re talking about what? 18 months? Easy. No one will have a clue who Jade is, sorry was. It’ll be lost. She, bless her and all, won’t even be a footnote. What I need to do is think of the next Jade – or maybe the Jade of about three Jade’s time. 18 months? That’s about three Jades, no? six months is possibly a bit generous, but hey, let’s go easy one her.
Hayward’s Heath. Home of the good idea. And I’ve got the good idea. We’ll call the book “Gordon Brown: My Story”. About as much chance as Spurs winning the Champions League.
I’m growing to love my new phone. Very touchy feely, all that fingers across the screen stuff. I can’t actually make any calls on it yet but I think sometimes we ask too much of technology. I’m sitting here on the train, we’re flying through the beautiful countryside and I’m listening to The Bays – my still new favourite band. What could be finer? I had been feeling a little jaded but a bit of The Bays….
Jaded. That’s it. The title of my new book. Jaded. Actually, I’ve been thinking. By the time I’ve finished the book – about 20 years time at the current rate. No, by the time I’ve finished the book and the thing comes out we’re talking about what? 18 months? Easy. No one will have a clue who Jade is, sorry was. It’ll be lost. She, bless her and all, won’t even be a footnote. What I need to do is think of the next Jade – or maybe the Jade of about three Jade’s time. 18 months? That’s about three Jades, no? six months is possibly a bit generous, but hey, let’s go easy one her.
Hayward’s Heath. Home of the good idea. And I’ve got the good idea. We’ll call the book “Gordon Brown: My Story”. About as much chance as Spurs winning the Champions League.
Monday 6 April 2009
Modern Life
Blimey. It's not even 11am and already I'm done in. I've got three blogs, a Facebook account to maintain and now I've got 11 people following me on Twitter. And they're all waiting for me to do something interesting. But I haven't got time to do anything cos I'm too busy telling people what I'm doing.
Life used to be so much simpler. Should I have a Curly Wurly or some Spangles? That used to be life's biggest dilemma. Last night I tried to watch some telly. By the time I finished checking out what was on it was time to go to bed.
In the time it’s taken me to write that I’ve got another three followers. That’s eight. It’s hard not to feel a bit Life of Brian. What do they want, these people?
Now Martino has told me that there’s this thing called 12 Seconds where you post up 12 seconds of video footage of yourself twice a day. Why 12 seconds? Because anything more than that it boring. Already 140 characters – including spaces – is boring.
Life used to be so much simpler. Should I have a Curly Wurly or some Spangles? That used to be life's biggest dilemma. Last night I tried to watch some telly. By the time I finished checking out what was on it was time to go to bed.
In the time it’s taken me to write that I’ve got another three followers. That’s eight. It’s hard not to feel a bit Life of Brian. What do they want, these people?
Now Martino has told me that there’s this thing called 12 Seconds where you post up 12 seconds of video footage of yourself twice a day. Why 12 seconds? Because anything more than that it boring. Already 140 characters – including spaces – is boring.
Tuesday 31 March 2009
Chapter 4
I was exactly the kind of guy who’d be seen at a place like this. It's 4.15pm and it's Sunday. Outside the rain is drizzling like it wants to rain but can't be bothered. Limbs ache, wishing they were 22 and not 32 and I feel like whatever it is I've been doing, well maybe it's about time I stopped doing it. The grief is that I know that if I feel like this next week, it will be a bonus. A right result, as we might have once said. The coffee I've been waiting for still feels like the first of the day, even though it's the third (or maybe fourth) cup of the day. Or maybe not even the first. Next comes the toast. It was only an idea to eat. Sustenance. As far as ideas go, it wasn't a bad one. Ideas.
“Did you order me a coffee?”
Alison. She looked how I felt. Actually if I looked how I felt I’d be happy.
I stopped writing and looked up. Good. She looked how I felt and though I probably also looked how I felt, it made things seem so much better. Loneliness is a terrible thing.
“This bread… it’s something else” I said to her. “It’s your worst white slice nightmare. It looks like a real loaf of bread but there’s nothing there. It’s air and water. Where’s the flour? Where’s the yeast? Where’s the…”
“The soul. Go on, say it. Where’s the soul. Then, when you say that, you can have a bit of a rabbit about how it’s a reflection of Japanese society. Looks good, contains nothing.”
“And bread is the food of life and… “
“Yeah yeah. Bollocks bollocks bollocks. Did you order me a coffee?”
“Of course I ordered you a coffee. You asked me to order coffee, so I ordered coffee.”
“Good. I guess it’s that empty cup there.”
I smiled and she smiled. A familiar scene.
“If I order myself another one then you can have it. We’ll be quits then.”
“OK. So if you do that, I’ll order you another one and you’ll still owe me. You know I like it that way.” We’d talked ourselves into a corner neither of us knew much about and neither of us cared about and there wasn’t anything to do but drink the coffees. Somehow on a day like this, writing gibberish letters to people who’d know nothing of their contents seemed a suitable task.
Our coffees came and the relief that they brought dried up the conversation. Part of the relief. So we drank our coffee and looked at the toast which seemed no more appealing now than it had done when it was first brought over. Big thick lumps of bread. Sometimes the idea of food is better than the food. Maybe one day I’ll find a restaurant where you can order food and you don’t eat it and you don’t pay for it. You could order wild vegetable dishes or exotic and body distressing local specialities without having to endure the eating or the next day grief. A few coffees later and we’d got no further.
So now the rain was coming down. The rain in Tokyo is different to the rain anywhere else. It creates a mirror everywhere. The cars, all clean and shiny reflect against the shop windows which are all clean and bright and they both throw back the reflection of the garish neon which exists in even the sidest of side streets so that everything reflects on everything else and into everything else. Vetrification they call it in the floor cleaning game. You know those floors made of marble slab tiles that are impossibly shiny and sparkly? That’s vetrification. They lay ordinary marble and take the top layer off it with a major wire wool rotating brush so that it all clean. Like a reptile constantly shedding its skin. Like Tokyo.
I’d probably go through the old Apocalypse Now thing if Alison hadn’t beaten me to it.
“Tokyo. Shit” she said.
I was just thinking that. Martin Sheen and helicopter fans. Tokyo. Shit.
“When I was there I couldn’t wait to get out. When I was out, all I could think about was how to get back there,” I said in my best Martin Sheen voice. His own mother wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference if she’d had been sitting in her own bedroom. My mazel, it would probably turn out that she lived somewhere closer than Japan.
“What?”
“Apocal ... nah, doesn’t matter. You just got up?” I said.
“If I’d had got as far down so I needed to get up I wouldn’t have been able to get up at all.”
I only knew what that meant because I felt the same way myself. That old ACE feeling.
“So what’s the story then. Letters day?” she said. “Yeah, it’s important to keep in touch with the old life.”
--------------
One slice, maybe two inches thick and cut into three pieces, like cubes of hot bread or angular doorsteps. I tear into it lethargically - biting is impossible. My mouth is the wrong shape.
Around me in the cafe, people are sitting reading the papers. And the scene is the same as everywhere else in the world. They are turned to the sports pages, checking to see how their boys have done.
Everyone has their tales of glory, their tales of woe. “He’s an ordinary geezer, doesn’t seem to have any grief”. But it’s not true. Everyone has their grief. Well, everyone here does anyway. Everybody everywhere does. Family grief. Parental grief. Boy grief. Girl grief. Body grief. Mind grief. Grief grief.
Another cigarette. Having another cigarette wasn’t so much a decision as a move designed to put off having to make a decision because you know any other decision will probably be wrong and definitely not really worth the effort.
Last night. About last night. There was an acronym - A.C.E. – we used which made us laugh anyway. We’re going to have an ace night. A night out in the company of acid, cocaine and ecstasy. A.C.E. Last night was supposed to be ace. But then every night is supposed to be ace. It got blown out of the water when Mark came in with some smack. That added an ‘H’ - and all we were left with was an ache. But, it’s getting better.
--------------------------------------------
More coffee arrives. People carrying umbrellas walk past. I’m wearing a pink sweatshirt cut off just above the elbow. It is emblazoned with the legend “Chanel - Paris” but no one can see it because it’s inside out. On my legs are a pair of Thai fisherman’s trousers held up by a brown leather belt. My shoes are local specialities called Jika Tabi - black canvas boots which fasten at the back with maybe 15 hook and eye things and which the big toe separated like a foot mitten. They are very comfortable and to your eyes, a little eccentric. The whole ensemble is what you might call ‘witty’. Last night was still here...
..." "Don't let me stop you." So I wrote "... waiting for another coffee" and put my pen down again. You know where you stand with creativity.
------------------
About last night. I remember the way I used to go out. Say, for example, I was supposed to go out at 10. I’d have a bath at 6, a long bath, wash my hair and spend the next two hours poodling around doing my hair and sorting out which clothes to wear. Where were we going? What type of people were going to be there? What impression did I want to create? Did I want a friend for a night? A job? A serious friend? A serious job? I had a suit for each and knew exactly which one would do for each need. The fact that they were all black and baggy and double breasted and made by the same geezer mattered not a jot to anyone but me. I knew and I felt right in each one in a different way. That took me up to about 8ish. Then I’d spend some time on the phone, checking out what the score really was and then I’d spend the next 30 or 40 minutes changing the suit to meet the new requirement. Five minutes before leaving the house, I’d change back to the suit that I always wore. The black baggy one. Dependable and comfortable. Sometimes I’d lay three or four out on my bed, each with a tie and compare and go through different combinations.
Here, things are a bit different. No, maybe that’s misleading. They’re not really different. There isn’t the clothing dilemma, largely because there are no clothes to speak of. How can you deliberate about which suit to wear when you’ve only got one suit? So what do you do? You end up trying to change your inside because you can’t change your outside. Drugs is the new deal. The questions are the old questions. Where were we going? What type of people were going to be there? What impression did I want to create? Did I want a friend for a night, a job, a serious friend? A tab of acid? Maybe a speed cap and half a tab? And a line of coke. A little bit of ketamine. Take half a tab now and half when you get there. And more speed. What the point? The result was always the same - to fuck up your mind. What do you want to do? Become someone else? Altered states. Jump around like a monkey. More or less the same as altered suits. More or less.
CHAPTER THREE
“How long have you been here?” I said to Tonya. I’d been there about six months and he’d been there longer than me. It’s funny. It sounded like I was asking about a prison sentence or something.
“Nah, I only came about a month or so before you. Sometimes it feels like forever but it feels like home, you know what I mean?”
“I know what you mean. You think you’ll know when enough is enough? When it’s time to stop the madness?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I think,” said James, “he means ‘What the fuck are we doing dressed up like this?’”
James had a point. Coming out of your room at The Palace was always a treat. You never quite knew what was going to happen. Tonya and James were sweet lads, an Aussie and a Brit. Both up for it, both nice boys on holiday. But James had a point.
They were trussed up in leather, in I don’t know, the sort of lederhosen you’d get in a sex shop if sex shops sold lederhosen. Maybe a Bavarian sex shop that catered for the S&M crowd. Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the only kind of sex shop you got in Bavaria.
Sometimes I didn’t know whether we were on Candid Camera or whether it was for real. Maybe it was one of those Japanese game shows where you had to undergo strange acts of sadism. There was that Clive James used to present called Endurance, I think. I used to write about them, thought they were rubbish, laughing at the funny foreigners. Curiously, I went from writing about them to appearing on one of them once. No, but really.
“Did you order me a coffee?”
Alison. She looked how I felt. Actually if I looked how I felt I’d be happy.
I stopped writing and looked up. Good. She looked how I felt and though I probably also looked how I felt, it made things seem so much better. Loneliness is a terrible thing.
“This bread… it’s something else” I said to her. “It’s your worst white slice nightmare. It looks like a real loaf of bread but there’s nothing there. It’s air and water. Where’s the flour? Where’s the yeast? Where’s the…”
“The soul. Go on, say it. Where’s the soul. Then, when you say that, you can have a bit of a rabbit about how it’s a reflection of Japanese society. Looks good, contains nothing.”
“And bread is the food of life and… “
“Yeah yeah. Bollocks bollocks bollocks. Did you order me a coffee?”
“Of course I ordered you a coffee. You asked me to order coffee, so I ordered coffee.”
“Good. I guess it’s that empty cup there.”
I smiled and she smiled. A familiar scene.
“If I order myself another one then you can have it. We’ll be quits then.”
“OK. So if you do that, I’ll order you another one and you’ll still owe me. You know I like it that way.” We’d talked ourselves into a corner neither of us knew much about and neither of us cared about and there wasn’t anything to do but drink the coffees. Somehow on a day like this, writing gibberish letters to people who’d know nothing of their contents seemed a suitable task.
Our coffees came and the relief that they brought dried up the conversation. Part of the relief. So we drank our coffee and looked at the toast which seemed no more appealing now than it had done when it was first brought over. Big thick lumps of bread. Sometimes the idea of food is better than the food. Maybe one day I’ll find a restaurant where you can order food and you don’t eat it and you don’t pay for it. You could order wild vegetable dishes or exotic and body distressing local specialities without having to endure the eating or the next day grief. A few coffees later and we’d got no further.
So now the rain was coming down. The rain in Tokyo is different to the rain anywhere else. It creates a mirror everywhere. The cars, all clean and shiny reflect against the shop windows which are all clean and bright and they both throw back the reflection of the garish neon which exists in even the sidest of side streets so that everything reflects on everything else and into everything else. Vetrification they call it in the floor cleaning game. You know those floors made of marble slab tiles that are impossibly shiny and sparkly? That’s vetrification. They lay ordinary marble and take the top layer off it with a major wire wool rotating brush so that it all clean. Like a reptile constantly shedding its skin. Like Tokyo.
I’d probably go through the old Apocalypse Now thing if Alison hadn’t beaten me to it.
“Tokyo. Shit” she said.
I was just thinking that. Martin Sheen and helicopter fans. Tokyo. Shit.
“When I was there I couldn’t wait to get out. When I was out, all I could think about was how to get back there,” I said in my best Martin Sheen voice. His own mother wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference if she’d had been sitting in her own bedroom. My mazel, it would probably turn out that she lived somewhere closer than Japan.
“What?”
“Apocal ... nah, doesn’t matter. You just got up?” I said.
“If I’d had got as far down so I needed to get up I wouldn’t have been able to get up at all.”
I only knew what that meant because I felt the same way myself. That old ACE feeling.
“So what’s the story then. Letters day?” she said. “Yeah, it’s important to keep in touch with the old life.”
--------------
One slice, maybe two inches thick and cut into three pieces, like cubes of hot bread or angular doorsteps. I tear into it lethargically - biting is impossible. My mouth is the wrong shape.
Around me in the cafe, people are sitting reading the papers. And the scene is the same as everywhere else in the world. They are turned to the sports pages, checking to see how their boys have done.
Everyone has their tales of glory, their tales of woe. “He’s an ordinary geezer, doesn’t seem to have any grief”. But it’s not true. Everyone has their grief. Well, everyone here does anyway. Everybody everywhere does. Family grief. Parental grief. Boy grief. Girl grief. Body grief. Mind grief. Grief grief.
Another cigarette. Having another cigarette wasn’t so much a decision as a move designed to put off having to make a decision because you know any other decision will probably be wrong and definitely not really worth the effort.
Last night. About last night. There was an acronym - A.C.E. – we used which made us laugh anyway. We’re going to have an ace night. A night out in the company of acid, cocaine and ecstasy. A.C.E. Last night was supposed to be ace. But then every night is supposed to be ace. It got blown out of the water when Mark came in with some smack. That added an ‘H’ - and all we were left with was an ache. But, it’s getting better.
--------------------------------------------
More coffee arrives. People carrying umbrellas walk past. I’m wearing a pink sweatshirt cut off just above the elbow. It is emblazoned with the legend “Chanel - Paris” but no one can see it because it’s inside out. On my legs are a pair of Thai fisherman’s trousers held up by a brown leather belt. My shoes are local specialities called Jika Tabi - black canvas boots which fasten at the back with maybe 15 hook and eye things and which the big toe separated like a foot mitten. They are very comfortable and to your eyes, a little eccentric. The whole ensemble is what you might call ‘witty’. Last night was still here...
..." "Don't let me stop you." So I wrote "... waiting for another coffee" and put my pen down again. You know where you stand with creativity.
------------------
About last night. I remember the way I used to go out. Say, for example, I was supposed to go out at 10. I’d have a bath at 6, a long bath, wash my hair and spend the next two hours poodling around doing my hair and sorting out which clothes to wear. Where were we going? What type of people were going to be there? What impression did I want to create? Did I want a friend for a night? A job? A serious friend? A serious job? I had a suit for each and knew exactly which one would do for each need. The fact that they were all black and baggy and double breasted and made by the same geezer mattered not a jot to anyone but me. I knew and I felt right in each one in a different way. That took me up to about 8ish. Then I’d spend some time on the phone, checking out what the score really was and then I’d spend the next 30 or 40 minutes changing the suit to meet the new requirement. Five minutes before leaving the house, I’d change back to the suit that I always wore. The black baggy one. Dependable and comfortable. Sometimes I’d lay three or four out on my bed, each with a tie and compare and go through different combinations.
Here, things are a bit different. No, maybe that’s misleading. They’re not really different. There isn’t the clothing dilemma, largely because there are no clothes to speak of. How can you deliberate about which suit to wear when you’ve only got one suit? So what do you do? You end up trying to change your inside because you can’t change your outside. Drugs is the new deal. The questions are the old questions. Where were we going? What type of people were going to be there? What impression did I want to create? Did I want a friend for a night, a job, a serious friend? A tab of acid? Maybe a speed cap and half a tab? And a line of coke. A little bit of ketamine. Take half a tab now and half when you get there. And more speed. What the point? The result was always the same - to fuck up your mind. What do you want to do? Become someone else? Altered states. Jump around like a monkey. More or less the same as altered suits. More or less.
CHAPTER THREE
“How long have you been here?” I said to Tonya. I’d been there about six months and he’d been there longer than me. It’s funny. It sounded like I was asking about a prison sentence or something.
“Nah, I only came about a month or so before you. Sometimes it feels like forever but it feels like home, you know what I mean?”
“I know what you mean. You think you’ll know when enough is enough? When it’s time to stop the madness?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I think,” said James, “he means ‘What the fuck are we doing dressed up like this?’”
James had a point. Coming out of your room at The Palace was always a treat. You never quite knew what was going to happen. Tonya and James were sweet lads, an Aussie and a Brit. Both up for it, both nice boys on holiday. But James had a point.
They were trussed up in leather, in I don’t know, the sort of lederhosen you’d get in a sex shop if sex shops sold lederhosen. Maybe a Bavarian sex shop that catered for the S&M crowd. Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the only kind of sex shop you got in Bavaria.
Sometimes I didn’t know whether we were on Candid Camera or whether it was for real. Maybe it was one of those Japanese game shows where you had to undergo strange acts of sadism. There was that Clive James used to present called Endurance, I think. I used to write about them, thought they were rubbish, laughing at the funny foreigners. Curiously, I went from writing about them to appearing on one of them once. No, but really.
A brief interlude
And talking of Bauhaus, any of yous guys heard of The Horrors? They used to be photos waiting to happen, skinny boys who’d once seen a picture of The Cramps and figured (not unreasonably) that that was the way to go. Bryan Gregory. What was that about? And the idea that Mark E Smith and Kid Congo Powers were best mates still makes me smile. Anyway, The Horrors looked like kids let loose in their mum’s dressing up box and made music to suit. Silly music. Music that they thought they should be making. All noise, no soul. Anyway, they disappeared. No one knew, they just did. But they’ve just made a new album and there’s a single free to download and it’s mighty fine. Like they’ve stopped listening to US garage punk and started listening to Neu. A lot of Neu. I used to love Neu. They were part of that Seventies Krautrock thing, but they always seemed to be a really low rent version. None of your Stockhausen influences, none of that let’s all live in a commune and have a spiritual awakening or, at least, some muesli and a shag. No, it was all ‘hit a groove and kick in’. And this Horrors song has clearly borrowed that. There’s the chugga chugga motorik thing going on and it goes on and on and... You know what? Why don’t I just listen to Neu?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
