This is, as my friend Steve said, Monk Month. I don’t usually take much notice of Steve – he’s a bit of a drama queen, you know, everything is an event – but he’s right. For the past month it’s been excitement all the way, life in the fastest of all lanes, and now? Time to relax. It’s the same for everyone. All those parties, all that drink and excess. Mince pies, eh? “No, no, just the one box of Quality Street!” Christmas, eh? What a laugh!
Actually, Christmas for a freelance is like Valentine’s Day for the single person. You’re on your Jack Jones while everyone else is out getting down and dirty with Dawn from stationary or whatever, hanging out round the photocopier. I remember it well enough from when I used to work for Lord Newspaper back in the old days. Everyone moans about the office party and that, but kinda enjoy it too. No one invites the freeloading freelancers along. Ideally there’d be party for all the freelancers but that could never work. Who’d organise it? More to the point, who’d pay for the drink?
Me, I got invited to one Christmas office party. One. Even then I couldn’t drink cos I was on antibiotics because of that bastard tooth. So I sat there and watched people do the ‘get merry’ thing. And then I went home.
In truth it was just as well I only went to one party, cos it was only when I left that I found out why they’d invited me.
“John, I wanted to have a word. We’re thinking of new directions in the new year…”
Well, merry Christmas and a happy new year.
Still, that was last year and this is a whole new year. A clean slate. A new start. And I’ve got plans. I’m not entirely sure I should be even talking about all this – there’s a Swedish saying that, loosely translated, says: Don’t shout “Hi” till you’re over the bridge.
I was pondering this when I heard Jane’s voice.
“Come on John. Are you ever going to come out of that shower?”
“Yes, what?” I couldn’t really hear her over the sound of the water. I turned it off and suddenly felt very, very cold. “What was that you said?”
“I said ‘Come on’,” said Jane. “You’ll be late for the train if you don’t get a move on. Lord Newspaper will be expecting you.”
I turned round.
“I thought I left the job,” I said to her. “I thought that I was a writer, that I fed baby seagulls, that we had hamsters, that I was… a writer with toothache.”
“I don’t know about any of that John. It must have been a dream. It must have all been a dream”.
Poppy
Tuesday, 6 March 2007
January - always a lovely month
CHAPTER 4 –
It was all going well until the director stood up. “Stop a minute. John, you’ve got blood dripping out of the side of your mouth”.
I’d wanted to make an impression. There’s no point doing these things if you’re not going to make an impression, but frankly this wasn’t what I’d figured on. Still, “Stop a minute. John, you’ve got blood dripping out of the side of your mouth”? They weren’t going to forget me.
I’d been asked to go on one of those “The 100 Greatest…” TV shows about old Christmas presents that you can’t remember. You know, in the past I’ve always said that if I was ever asked I was going to say “No” to stuff like that because, well, you’ve got to draw the line somewhere. But then they did ask and… I talked to Jane and what can I tell you? Christmas is coming. Nothing was happening. I’ve got this proposal with my agent, a novel where everything that happens you see from the vantage point of a flea, but so far I haven’t had a bite. Nothing.
So anyway. I went to London to record this show, The 100 Greatest Bird Tables or whatever it was, and was staying with a friend. There I was, practicing my spontaneous responses when, without warning, my mouth exploded. I’ll spare you the details, but it was grief. It hurt like a bastard and, worse, one side of my face looked like Louis Armstrong in mid-solo.
Great. A good performance and I could become a regular on “The 100 Greatest…” series. But here I was, stuck in London, mouth howling like an air raid shelter, no dentist. Have you ever tried to get a dentist? It’s a fantastic system. You hand over the deeds to your house, they give you some antibiotics. It’s fine. No, really. You lie there and say “Ah” and sweat and by time the dentist says “OK, you can rinse out now” you could have had a small conservatory built.
I got an appointment OK.
“We’ve got a cancellation. Can you come in at 2.30?” the receptionist said.
“That’s the oldest… Do you say that to everyone?” I said.
“Sorry?” she said. “Can you make that?”
“Relax, you won’t feel a thing”. What am I going to say? My mouth is wedged open, there’s a suction thing gurgling away, cotton wool padding my cheeks and a light blinding my eyes. He took it out. A tooth the size of a gravestone. In one hour, I’m due at the studio and unless I want to do my piece in character as Don Corleone… it’s over.
It’s a grim thing, having a tooth taken out. It’s not something that happens every day. A bloke rips a part of your body out. What are you going to do? Go to The Body Shop and get a new bit? A bit of your body was there… and now it’s not.
He holds it up for me too look at, this bleeding symbol of my decay. It looked how I felt. He asked me if I was OK. Bastard.
Fully intending to make my excuses – it’d be rude just to not turn up and I couldn’t phone cos I couldn’t speak - I made my way down to the studio.
“Nah, nah. It’ll be alright. Looks fine,” said the director. “We’ll change the lighting a bit first”
Great. Now being lit like I’m Herman Munster. Fine. Don’t care. Do it. I am, if nothing else, a professional.
I got out of the club and into the daylight. I figured it would be OK. You emerge from a nightclub in the middle of the afternoon, people expect a bit of blood dripping out of the side of your mouth. The phone went. Jane. I answered it.
“How’s everything?”
“
“The hamster’s escaped. Are you coming home?”
It was all going well until the director stood up. “Stop a minute. John, you’ve got blood dripping out of the side of your mouth”.
I’d wanted to make an impression. There’s no point doing these things if you’re not going to make an impression, but frankly this wasn’t what I’d figured on. Still, “Stop a minute. John, you’ve got blood dripping out of the side of your mouth”? They weren’t going to forget me.
I’d been asked to go on one of those “The 100 Greatest…” TV shows about old Christmas presents that you can’t remember. You know, in the past I’ve always said that if I was ever asked I was going to say “No” to stuff like that because, well, you’ve got to draw the line somewhere. But then they did ask and… I talked to Jane and what can I tell you? Christmas is coming. Nothing was happening. I’ve got this proposal with my agent, a novel where everything that happens you see from the vantage point of a flea, but so far I haven’t had a bite. Nothing.
So anyway. I went to London to record this show, The 100 Greatest Bird Tables or whatever it was, and was staying with a friend. There I was, practicing my spontaneous responses when, without warning, my mouth exploded. I’ll spare you the details, but it was grief. It hurt like a bastard and, worse, one side of my face looked like Louis Armstrong in mid-solo.
Great. A good performance and I could become a regular on “The 100 Greatest…” series. But here I was, stuck in London, mouth howling like an air raid shelter, no dentist. Have you ever tried to get a dentist? It’s a fantastic system. You hand over the deeds to your house, they give you some antibiotics. It’s fine. No, really. You lie there and say “Ah” and sweat and by time the dentist says “OK, you can rinse out now” you could have had a small conservatory built.
I got an appointment OK.
“We’ve got a cancellation. Can you come in at 2.30?” the receptionist said.
“That’s the oldest… Do you say that to everyone?” I said.
“Sorry?” she said. “Can you make that?”
“Relax, you won’t feel a thing”. What am I going to say? My mouth is wedged open, there’s a suction thing gurgling away, cotton wool padding my cheeks and a light blinding my eyes. He took it out. A tooth the size of a gravestone. In one hour, I’m due at the studio and unless I want to do my piece in character as Don Corleone… it’s over.
It’s a grim thing, having a tooth taken out. It’s not something that happens every day. A bloke rips a part of your body out. What are you going to do? Go to The Body Shop and get a new bit? A bit of your body was there… and now it’s not.
He holds it up for me too look at, this bleeding symbol of my decay. It looked how I felt. He asked me if I was OK. Bastard.
Fully intending to make my excuses – it’d be rude just to not turn up and I couldn’t phone cos I couldn’t speak - I made my way down to the studio.
“Nah, nah. It’ll be alright. Looks fine,” said the director. “We’ll change the lighting a bit first”
Great. Now being lit like I’m Herman Munster. Fine. Don’t care. Do it. I am, if nothing else, a professional.
I got out of the club and into the daylight. I figured it would be OK. You emerge from a nightclub in the middle of the afternoon, people expect a bit of blood dripping out of the side of your mouth. The phone went. Jane. I answered it.
“How’s everything?”
“
“The hamster’s escaped. Are you coming home?”
More Charity
CHAPTER 4 – An Intense Experience
“Look. The blue pole goes through the blue loops, the red pole goes through the red loops. Just look at the picture, it’s really straightforward.”
It’s like those phrases you got at school, like “maths can be fun”. Camping. I’m still not sure how it happened, how we ended up in this field cramped inside this family-sized tent, having fun. And it is fun. It is fun. It is fun. (How many times you think I’ll have to say that before it becomes true. There are a few things I’d consider less fun than camping and I’m reasonably sure that if you gave me till, say, next month I’d be able to think of them. Given the choice, I think I’d rather spend a week in Asda. Well, why not? It’s dry, there’s a café there, a toilet… what more?
“All our friends are going camping, c’mon on, it’ll be fun,” they said.
Oh, I don’t think so. Listen, let me get this done and then we’ll go to Greece or something”.
Sometimes I get this mental image. I say some words and, as they’re leaving my mouth, they turn round and give me a kind of a look, a shrug that says “I don’t know why you bothered saying me. No one’s listening.” And they float off and do something more interesting.
Mostly it’s the kids. It’s a curious thing, but when I was younger I really didn’t notice them. I got on with my life, it got on with me and I really didn’t notice anyone under about 4ft tall. Looking back now, it seems barely credible but it’s true. They must have been there, must have been there somewhere. I don’t know. Maybe it helped that during most of my teens and Twenties I was largely nocturnal, fearful that if I strayed into daylight I might find myself with a Volvo V70 estate with airbags on the SIPS and seats in the boot.
Now they’re everywhere. Everywhere. Mostly where they are is standing next to me, yabbering away in my ear like a couple of mosquitos. I’ve got a book to finish – well, OK, a book to start – and a freelance piece to write. Top Ten Places To Take A Last Minute Holiday. Really, is there anything worse than sitting at home looking out of the window when the sun’s shining writing about places to take a holiday? Just as I was thinking “is there anything worse than…” I heard one of the mozzies.
“Camping” it said. “Let’s go camping.”
Camping? What is it with camping? Have we been living in Kemp Town too long? (OK, it’s a crap gag but it’s about as good as you’re going to get).
“All our friends are going camping, c’mon on.”
“No telly” I said, in hope more than anything real. “No DVDs, nothing”.
“We can take your laptop”.
“The battery will run out”.
“You can charge it in the car”.
“It might rain. We’ll get wet and cold and there’ll be nothing to do”.
“Whatever”.
As I turned around and saw my words shrugging off into the distance, I knew what I had to do.
“Number 10. And if you feel like having a holiday closer to home, why not try camping?”
“Look. The blue pole goes through the blue loops, the red pole goes through the red loops. Just look at the picture, it’s really straightforward.”
It’s like those phrases you got at school, like “maths can be fun”. Camping. I’m still not sure how it happened, how we ended up in this field cramped inside this family-sized tent, having fun. And it is fun. It is fun. It is fun. (How many times you think I’ll have to say that before it becomes true. There are a few things I’d consider less fun than camping and I’m reasonably sure that if you gave me till, say, next month I’d be able to think of them. Given the choice, I think I’d rather spend a week in Asda. Well, why not? It’s dry, there’s a café there, a toilet… what more?
“All our friends are going camping, c’mon on, it’ll be fun,” they said.
Oh, I don’t think so. Listen, let me get this done and then we’ll go to Greece or something”.
Sometimes I get this mental image. I say some words and, as they’re leaving my mouth, they turn round and give me a kind of a look, a shrug that says “I don’t know why you bothered saying me. No one’s listening.” And they float off and do something more interesting.
Mostly it’s the kids. It’s a curious thing, but when I was younger I really didn’t notice them. I got on with my life, it got on with me and I really didn’t notice anyone under about 4ft tall. Looking back now, it seems barely credible but it’s true. They must have been there, must have been there somewhere. I don’t know. Maybe it helped that during most of my teens and Twenties I was largely nocturnal, fearful that if I strayed into daylight I might find myself with a Volvo V70 estate with airbags on the SIPS and seats in the boot.
Now they’re everywhere. Everywhere. Mostly where they are is standing next to me, yabbering away in my ear like a couple of mosquitos. I’ve got a book to finish – well, OK, a book to start – and a freelance piece to write. Top Ten Places To Take A Last Minute Holiday. Really, is there anything worse than sitting at home looking out of the window when the sun’s shining writing about places to take a holiday? Just as I was thinking “is there anything worse than…” I heard one of the mozzies.
“Camping” it said. “Let’s go camping.”
Camping? What is it with camping? Have we been living in Kemp Town too long? (OK, it’s a crap gag but it’s about as good as you’re going to get).
“All our friends are going camping, c’mon on.”
“No telly” I said, in hope more than anything real. “No DVDs, nothing”.
“We can take your laptop”.
“The battery will run out”.
“You can charge it in the car”.
“It might rain. We’ll get wet and cold and there’ll be nothing to do”.
“Whatever”.
As I turned around and saw my words shrugging off into the distance, I knew what I had to do.
“Number 10. And if you feel like having a holiday closer to home, why not try camping?”
October
INSIGHT OCTOBER
This is what I do. I sit down, switch the computer on. Create a new file. Save it as “Chapter One”. Always save it first. What if the Mac crashes and I lose everything? That is the nightmare scenario. No. Save it first and then you know you’re OK. Start putzing around
It’s all there but today it’s maybe a bit slower than normal. Yeah, slower.
But sometimes the smallest things drive you mad. Like the other day when I was driving around looking for somewhere to park. (I wasn’t actually going anywhere. I was just looking for somewhere to park – it’s a hobby) and I passed a garage which had the words “No Parking” written on one of the doors. What’s the point of that then? A garage where you can’t park. Some signs seemed designed to make to look twice. Like those temporary walls in front of building sites that say “Anti-climbing paint”. Is it just me or does it make you want to climb it? It looks dry. Anti-climb paint you’d think was greasy or something. But this looks dry. Maybe when you start to climb it this Charlton Heston voice comes out of nowhere… “No”.
Got hammered. Big time problem. We had people down for the weekend and normally you've got maybe four or five bottles of wine hanging around. We've got a shed full of overs from the barn do and so... You don't stop. And then some blithering idiot mentions a word like "cognac" and... That was Saturday night.
Later on Saturday night, the hamsters escaped. Oy. There are two pussycats sitting there who I'm starting to think we should have called Salt and Pepper. Up until this point they'd been pets, you know, cushions with legs. They’re very sweet, but – practically speaking - their main purpose is to let me practice my Mrs Slocombe gags.
Now they're looking predatory, like they're waiting for a David Attenborough voiceover. Meanwhile, the inside of my head has volunteered to be a basketball court... "
This is what I do. I sit down, switch the computer on. Create a new file. Save it as “Chapter One”. Always save it first. What if the Mac crashes and I lose everything? That is the nightmare scenario. No. Save it first and then you know you’re OK. Start putzing around
It’s all there but today it’s maybe a bit slower than normal. Yeah, slower.
But sometimes the smallest things drive you mad. Like the other day when I was driving around looking for somewhere to park. (I wasn’t actually going anywhere. I was just looking for somewhere to park – it’s a hobby) and I passed a garage which had the words “No Parking” written on one of the doors. What’s the point of that then? A garage where you can’t park. Some signs seemed designed to make to look twice. Like those temporary walls in front of building sites that say “Anti-climbing paint”. Is it just me or does it make you want to climb it? It looks dry. Anti-climb paint you’d think was greasy or something. But this looks dry. Maybe when you start to climb it this Charlton Heston voice comes out of nowhere… “No”.
Got hammered. Big time problem. We had people down for the weekend and normally you've got maybe four or five bottles of wine hanging around. We've got a shed full of overs from the barn do and so... You don't stop. And then some blithering idiot mentions a word like "cognac" and... That was Saturday night.
Later on Saturday night, the hamsters escaped. Oy. There are two pussycats sitting there who I'm starting to think we should have called Salt and Pepper. Up until this point they'd been pets, you know, cushions with legs. They’re very sweet, but – practically speaking - their main purpose is to let me practice my Mrs Slocombe gags.
Now they're looking predatory, like they're waiting for a David Attenborough voiceover. Meanwhile, the inside of my head has volunteered to be a basketball court... "
Charity
INSIGHT September
There’s a scratching noise behind me. I look down and there’s Maxwell Wolf, asleep by my feet. He’s getting older is Maxwell. Still man’s best friend, but older. A friend told me yesterday that seagulls can’t, how you might say, break wind. He said that if you ever wanted to really aggravate a seagull – like, why would you want to? – all you’ve got to do is feed it an Alka Seltzer wrapped up in a bit of bread. I don’t know why I thought of that, except to say that Maxwell has no seagull in him. He’s quite… expressive.
The scratching continues. I look behind me and it’s Tracy. She’s scurrying around, picking up this, putting down that, generally being busy.
Maxwell raises his weary head, looks round and sighs. I’m getting to know this look of Maxwell’s by now. Back in the day it was just me and him, one man and his dog. Each of us thinking that the other one was the one man. He was quite pleased when Jane Wife came along and made it three, but then as each successive new thing arrived, he became more and more resigned to his post. A child. Some fish. Another dog. Another child. A cat. The cat’s kittens. Next door’s cats. A seagull. Each time a new thing arrived, the sigh got longer and more audible, the air of resignation heavier. A couple of weeks ago Tracy arrived and Maxwell didn’t even stir.
Tracy is the newest member of the family. Judy Doe’s birthday present. (Life was so much easier when she just wanted Motorbiking Barbie or whatever. Tracy was, admittedly , cheaper. But the running costs…). She was very sweet when we got her, a baby. Cute and small and brown, she scurried around hamsterishly. We bought her a pink Perspex cage that had three levels and a wheel. We built her a ‘run’, took her out in her ball and gave her peanuts. We even bought her a hamster ‘toilet’. As hamsters go, Tracy had landed on her feet. Paws.
A week after she came, it was time to clean out her cage. Judy went to put Trace in her ball and… it wasn’t so much a scream as one of those silent exclamations where the mouth opens and nothing comes out. We looked at her and… eventually….
“There are things in there, moving”.
“What do you mean, ‘things’?”
“Come here. I don’t know what it is, but there are small things in Tracy’s cage. They’re pink, like worms.”
I looked at Jane and Jane looked at me. Small things? Pink? Worms? Joy. She’s been here a week and already she’s introduced some rodent infestation. We went over to the cage, looked in, and… Tracy, who was only a baby when we got her last week, had had babies. Tiny little things, like small, pink worms.
Maxwell came over and had a look in the cage. He turned away and sighed in a way a seagull can only dream about.
Jane looked at me. “I thought she was a baby… How do hamsters… Do you think she was pregnant when we got her?”
I looked at Jane. What was there to say? Nothing that would win me any prizes.
There’s a scratching noise behind me. I look down and there’s Maxwell Wolf, asleep by my feet. He’s getting older is Maxwell. Still man’s best friend, but older. A friend told me yesterday that seagulls can’t, how you might say, break wind. He said that if you ever wanted to really aggravate a seagull – like, why would you want to? – all you’ve got to do is feed it an Alka Seltzer wrapped up in a bit of bread. I don’t know why I thought of that, except to say that Maxwell has no seagull in him. He’s quite… expressive.
The scratching continues. I look behind me and it’s Tracy. She’s scurrying around, picking up this, putting down that, generally being busy.
Maxwell raises his weary head, looks round and sighs. I’m getting to know this look of Maxwell’s by now. Back in the day it was just me and him, one man and his dog. Each of us thinking that the other one was the one man. He was quite pleased when Jane Wife came along and made it three, but then as each successive new thing arrived, he became more and more resigned to his post. A child. Some fish. Another dog. Another child. A cat. The cat’s kittens. Next door’s cats. A seagull. Each time a new thing arrived, the sigh got longer and more audible, the air of resignation heavier. A couple of weeks ago Tracy arrived and Maxwell didn’t even stir.
Tracy is the newest member of the family. Judy Doe’s birthday present. (Life was so much easier when she just wanted Motorbiking Barbie or whatever. Tracy was, admittedly , cheaper. But the running costs…). She was very sweet when we got her, a baby. Cute and small and brown, she scurried around hamsterishly. We bought her a pink Perspex cage that had three levels and a wheel. We built her a ‘run’, took her out in her ball and gave her peanuts. We even bought her a hamster ‘toilet’. As hamsters go, Tracy had landed on her feet. Paws.
A week after she came, it was time to clean out her cage. Judy went to put Trace in her ball and… it wasn’t so much a scream as one of those silent exclamations where the mouth opens and nothing comes out. We looked at her and… eventually….
“There are things in there, moving”.
“What do you mean, ‘things’?”
“Come here. I don’t know what it is, but there are small things in Tracy’s cage. They’re pink, like worms.”
I looked at Jane and Jane looked at me. Small things? Pink? Worms? Joy. She’s been here a week and already she’s introduced some rodent infestation. We went over to the cage, looked in, and… Tracy, who was only a baby when we got her last week, had had babies. Tiny little things, like small, pink worms.
Maxwell came over and had a look in the cage. He turned away and sighed in a way a seagull can only dream about.
Jane looked at me. “I thought she was a baby… How do hamsters… Do you think she was pregnant when we got her?”
I looked at Jane. What was there to say? Nothing that would win me any prizes.
More Charity
CHAPTER 9 - Charity Begins At Home
9.30 and I’m upstairs, in the attic. Feeling sweaty, but smug and self-righteous. I’ve done 50 sit ups on one of those “abs buster” machines, I’ve lifted up those weights I bought in 1987 and I’ve had a wheat-free breakfast and a tablespoon of psyillican husks. I must be at least half a stone lighter already. Minimum.
You know what it’s like. It’s the summer. You get out your favourite summer suit, put it on and… So you say to yourself “I’m going to get fit. I’m going to take this in hand and do something about it.” Then you go to a lovely, shiny health club, hand over roughly the same amount of money that would otherwise buy you a small chateau and make the small but familiar joke: “Hah. I’ve only just joined and I’ve already lost a hundred pounds”. As gags, it’s up there with the vasectomy nurse who told me “You’ll just feel a small prick”, but hey.
Anyway. So I’m in the squash league. I used to play squash but that was back in the days when racquets were made of wood, not the titanium or schmitanium or whatever it is these things are made of now. Missed out graphite entirely. Now these things are so powerful they’ve had to introduce a new ball, also made of schmitanium to withstand the battering.
My first game, I bounded on to the court, head to toe in my virgin kit, which comes courtesy of my favourite designer, Primark. Total cost: £3.50.
The bloke I was playing looked OK. My kind of age, my kind of follicle count. We started hitting.
“I haven’t played for ages,” I said to him.
“Neither have I,” he said. “I haven’t stepped on this court since I broke my leg”.
“Blimey. Was that long ago? Are you OK?”
“Fine now. Amazing how these things heal”.
So we’re hitting and I’m thinking. (and cue the sound of a penny slowly dropping).
“You broke your leg on this court?”
“Yeah, I just twisted round and, for some reason my leg got stuck”.
“It’s just there. You can still see it”.
And he pointed to a faded blotch on the floor. And it was just there. And you could still see it.
“There was blood everywhere. The bone snapped and went up through…”
“Blimey” I said, secretly thinking: Fantastic. He’s a raspberry. I’ll be home in time for EastEnders. “Are you OK?”
“Yes, I’m fine now, but it forced me to give up competitive squash”.
Forced me to give up competitive squash. As a psych-out, it was high art. One minute I was playing a hobbling cripple with a broken leg, the next I was up against the Roy Keane of squash. A competition standard player who’d risk life and limb for the glory of getting the ball back. Whose blood still marked the court. I looked at him. He looked kinda muscular. And his hair wasn’t thin, it was cropped. Curious how these things look different in a different light.
“Do you want to start?” he said.
“Might as well” I said. “EastEnders starts soon”.
9.30 and I’m upstairs, in the attic. Feeling sweaty, but smug and self-righteous. I’ve done 50 sit ups on one of those “abs buster” machines, I’ve lifted up those weights I bought in 1987 and I’ve had a wheat-free breakfast and a tablespoon of psyillican husks. I must be at least half a stone lighter already. Minimum.
You know what it’s like. It’s the summer. You get out your favourite summer suit, put it on and… So you say to yourself “I’m going to get fit. I’m going to take this in hand and do something about it.” Then you go to a lovely, shiny health club, hand over roughly the same amount of money that would otherwise buy you a small chateau and make the small but familiar joke: “Hah. I’ve only just joined and I’ve already lost a hundred pounds”. As gags, it’s up there with the vasectomy nurse who told me “You’ll just feel a small prick”, but hey.
Anyway. So I’m in the squash league. I used to play squash but that was back in the days when racquets were made of wood, not the titanium or schmitanium or whatever it is these things are made of now. Missed out graphite entirely. Now these things are so powerful they’ve had to introduce a new ball, also made of schmitanium to withstand the battering.
My first game, I bounded on to the court, head to toe in my virgin kit, which comes courtesy of my favourite designer, Primark. Total cost: £3.50.
The bloke I was playing looked OK. My kind of age, my kind of follicle count. We started hitting.
“I haven’t played for ages,” I said to him.
“Neither have I,” he said. “I haven’t stepped on this court since I broke my leg”.
“Blimey. Was that long ago? Are you OK?”
“Fine now. Amazing how these things heal”.
So we’re hitting and I’m thinking. (and cue the sound of a penny slowly dropping).
“You broke your leg on this court?”
“Yeah, I just twisted round and, for some reason my leg got stuck”.
“It’s just there. You can still see it”.
And he pointed to a faded blotch on the floor. And it was just there. And you could still see it.
“There was blood everywhere. The bone snapped and went up through…”
“Blimey” I said, secretly thinking: Fantastic. He’s a raspberry. I’ll be home in time for EastEnders. “Are you OK?”
“Yes, I’m fine now, but it forced me to give up competitive squash”.
Forced me to give up competitive squash. As a psych-out, it was high art. One minute I was playing a hobbling cripple with a broken leg, the next I was up against the Roy Keane of squash. A competition standard player who’d risk life and limb for the glory of getting the ball back. Whose blood still marked the court. I looked at him. He looked kinda muscular. And his hair wasn’t thin, it was cropped. Curious how these things look different in a different light.
“Do you want to start?” he said.
“Might as well” I said. “EastEnders starts soon”.
Charity
CHAPTER 8 – Charity Begins At Home
So Jane decided that we should go to Edinburgh. I don’t mind. I like Edinburgh – it’s got a castle and a shops and stuff – and going there is a good cause, but then she said she wanted to do a charity run.
“To Edinburgh?” I said.
That went down well. Now I’ve got to bend over twice as hard. Make poverty history. Clear the debt. Me, I’m all in favour. But I can’t really think about it at the moment.
My brain’s a turmoil. I was enjoying doing this so much. It seems like I’ve only been doing it a few weeks, and while I feel a tremendous sense of loyalty to Lord Insight – he’s been a great support and I’ll always remember that business with the… well, never mind about that, but there’s a freedom of contract issue. I’ve got to think about the future. I’ve got a wife and kids and you never know what’s going to happen. I could get injured. Anything.
The thing is, I’ve been approached by Chelsea. Seems Jose Mourinho thinks that his midfield could do with some laconic sarcasm and I can see that. He’s got two tricky wingers, the perfect holding player, a ’box-to-box‚ dynamo’, but once the ball’s in the box there’s no one to supply that all-important sarcastic one-liner.
“Call that a cross? I’ve seen better crosses in a desecrated church”.
He thinks it would take some of the pressure off Didier Drogba, who’s been having some problems adjusting to the English language.
It could be true. You don’t know. Football’s a funny old game and if Brighton can avoid relegation, anything’s possible.
Talking of the seagulls - and it’s seamless links like that that Lord Insight pays top dollar for - regular reader(s) of this column might remember last month I wrote about a seagull nesting on our roof. Curiously for a column - and this is possibly in contravention of the rules of the Columnists Union - it was true. It started off as a kinda cute story, a bit of a distraction, but it’s turned out to be a right old stress.
A couple of weeks ago, I looked out of the window, saw the parents and there, in the nest, was a small fluffy spotty head sticking up. Fine. All good. Then… nothing. For nearly two weeks I didn’t see anything. No small fluffy spotty head, nothing. I couldn't quite see into the nest, couldn't quite see what was going on, but you’d think that he’d have had a look around. It might well be that the baby was having a bit of a rest. Pecking out of a shell must be an exhausting business. But I was worried. Maybe - and I hadn't considered this - the baby has been bought by Chelsea. I did read something about that in the tabs and, thinking about it, it is true that Mourinho's team don't have a baby seagull in their line-up.
Anyway, this morning there he was. He looks awkward, like a kiwi – go and look it up on the web. All bottom and no wings. Waddling around on our roof while the parents look on, thinking that this is the best looking, cutest thing on any roof in the whole of Brighton.
“I know everyone probably says that, Henry” says the mother. “But just look at him. “I think he’s got my beak. And maybe your ears.”
“That’s very funny. My ears. That’s very funny. I wonder” says Henry. “Do you think maybe we should get him signed up for an ad agency?”
So Jane decided that we should go to Edinburgh. I don’t mind. I like Edinburgh – it’s got a castle and a shops and stuff – and going there is a good cause, but then she said she wanted to do a charity run.
“To Edinburgh?” I said.
That went down well. Now I’ve got to bend over twice as hard. Make poverty history. Clear the debt. Me, I’m all in favour. But I can’t really think about it at the moment.
My brain’s a turmoil. I was enjoying doing this so much. It seems like I’ve only been doing it a few weeks, and while I feel a tremendous sense of loyalty to Lord Insight – he’s been a great support and I’ll always remember that business with the… well, never mind about that, but there’s a freedom of contract issue. I’ve got to think about the future. I’ve got a wife and kids and you never know what’s going to happen. I could get injured. Anything.
The thing is, I’ve been approached by Chelsea. Seems Jose Mourinho thinks that his midfield could do with some laconic sarcasm and I can see that. He’s got two tricky wingers, the perfect holding player, a ’box-to-box‚ dynamo’, but once the ball’s in the box there’s no one to supply that all-important sarcastic one-liner.
“Call that a cross? I’ve seen better crosses in a desecrated church”.
He thinks it would take some of the pressure off Didier Drogba, who’s been having some problems adjusting to the English language.
It could be true. You don’t know. Football’s a funny old game and if Brighton can avoid relegation, anything’s possible.
Talking of the seagulls - and it’s seamless links like that that Lord Insight pays top dollar for - regular reader(s) of this column might remember last month I wrote about a seagull nesting on our roof. Curiously for a column - and this is possibly in contravention of the rules of the Columnists Union - it was true. It started off as a kinda cute story, a bit of a distraction, but it’s turned out to be a right old stress.
A couple of weeks ago, I looked out of the window, saw the parents and there, in the nest, was a small fluffy spotty head sticking up. Fine. All good. Then… nothing. For nearly two weeks I didn’t see anything. No small fluffy spotty head, nothing. I couldn't quite see into the nest, couldn't quite see what was going on, but you’d think that he’d have had a look around. It might well be that the baby was having a bit of a rest. Pecking out of a shell must be an exhausting business. But I was worried. Maybe - and I hadn't considered this - the baby has been bought by Chelsea. I did read something about that in the tabs and, thinking about it, it is true that Mourinho's team don't have a baby seagull in their line-up.
Anyway, this morning there he was. He looks awkward, like a kiwi – go and look it up on the web. All bottom and no wings. Waddling around on our roof while the parents look on, thinking that this is the best looking, cutest thing on any roof in the whole of Brighton.
“I know everyone probably says that, Henry” says the mother. “But just look at him. “I think he’s got my beak. And maybe your ears.”
“That’s very funny. My ears. That’s very funny. I wonder” says Henry. “Do you think maybe we should get him signed up for an ad agency?”
The Gulls
CHAPTER 4 – The Story So Far
I love the gulls. I love the way they look in the night sky. I love the way they don’t care. I love the noise they make. I love the way they just do what they want. What I like most about the gulls is they don’t care what we think. They don’t do that cute “Oooh tickle my tummy” cuddly animal thing. They don’t care. They don’t care about anything except gulls.
“I’m going to sit here and do nothing. I’m going to shout and make as much noise as I want. There’s a bin liner. I’m going to rip that bag open. See what’s in it. Make a mess. Look, a car coming out of the carwash. Good. I needed a poo. I can do anything I like and no one can stop me.”
I love the gulls. They’re masters of the universe.
A couple of years ago I was talking to the bloke next door. Generally, he’s a top man, a good neighbour. Goes on holiday a lot. Anyway, he had one of those “pleased with myself” looks. I asked him what he was looking pleased about.
“We had a seagull nest on the roof. Bloody things, but I’ve got them. I got this piece of wood, about a metre square, and banged a load of nails through it. Then I went up and carefully put it under the seagull nest. You can’t have bloody seagulls nesting on the roof. The noise, the mess…”
So anyway, I went up to my attic and had a look out at the neighbour’s house. And smiled. There on his roof – and this is a true story, I swear – was this piece of wood with nails sticking through it. And next to it was a carefully constructed seagull nest, complete with gull.
Anyway, the reason I’m talking about this is, to paraphrase Mrs Thatcher, we’ve just become a godfather.
I work in the attic of our house. So one day I’m sitting there, writing, well, thinking, planning what I’m going to write, and I hear a bit of squawking. OK, so hearing a gull squawk isn’t exactly “Hold the front page” stuff but this was, I don’t know, a different kind of squawking. Reluctantly I dragged myself away from my keyboard and looked out of the window.
And there she was. Sitting on a perfectly made pile of twigs and leaves like a queen on a throne. The proudest look on her face. Kvelling like only a mother can kvell. Just above her, on the chimney stack, was the old man. Chest puffed out, and on the lookout. Keeping it safe. Trying to look important and ready for action. He saw me and we looked at each other. I held his gaze and we nodded. An understanding. (Listen, I know we’re deep in men’s group stuff – Iron John stuff - here, but bear with me). I’ve been through this. I know what he’s thinking and I know what she’s thinking.
He’s thinking “I’m going to be a dad. I can do anything. I’m going to rip some bin liners open. I can do anything I like.”
She’s thinking “God knows how that happened with that idiot who spends his life with his head in a rubbish bag. Still, if he gets me some food I’ll be nice to him.”
I went downstairs and got some bread. Immediately Jane was onto me.
“I thought you were going wheat free? Really, what is the point of… You’re giving it to a seagull?”
It was OK. She understood.
He’s almost tame now, the old man. Comes to the window and sits. Picks up my bits of food and checks his sudoko grids. Mostly though he sits there on the chimney stack making seagull noises and trying to look useful.
A couple of weeks ago, I looked out of the window, saw the parents and there, in the nest, was a small fluffy spotty head sticking up. Fine. All good. Then… nothing. For nearly two weeks I didn’t see anything. No small fluffy spotty head, nothing. I couldn't quite see into the nest, couldn't quite see what was going on, but you’d think that he’d have had a look around. It might well be that the baby was having a bit of a rest. Pecking out of a shell must be an exhausting business. But I was worried. Maybe - and I hadn't considered this - the baby has been bought by Chelsea. I did read something about that in the tabs and, thinking about it, it is true that Mourinho's team don't have a baby seagull in their line-up.
Anyway, this morning there he was. He looks awkward, like a kiwi – go and look it up on the web. All bottom and no wings. Waddling around on our roof while the parents look on, thinking that this is the best looking, cutest thing on any roof in the whole of Brighton.
“I know everyone probably says that, Henry” says the mother. “But just look at him. “I think he’s got my beak. And maybe your ears.”
“That’s very funny. My ears. That’s very funny. I wonder” says Henry. “Do you think maybe we should get him signed up for an ad agency?”
We’ve moved on from bread - apparently she’s on some no carbs diet. And I’m throwing out all different stuff now. I know what gulls eat because I know what they leave behind when they rip open the bin liners and basically, you know, they don’t leave anything behind. Jane said – and very funny, this – “Maybe you should make some tiny black bin liners for the baby to practice on”.
She’s still not moved. Every so often she gives the old man a hard time and he does that useless bloke shrug we all do. I look at them. They look at me. It’s going to be a good summer.
I love the gulls. I love the way they look in the night sky. I love the way they don’t care. I love the noise they make. I love the way they just do what they want. What I like most about the gulls is they don’t care what we think. They don’t do that cute “Oooh tickle my tummy” cuddly animal thing. They don’t care. They don’t care about anything except gulls.
“I’m going to sit here and do nothing. I’m going to shout and make as much noise as I want. There’s a bin liner. I’m going to rip that bag open. See what’s in it. Make a mess. Look, a car coming out of the carwash. Good. I needed a poo. I can do anything I like and no one can stop me.”
I love the gulls. They’re masters of the universe.
A couple of years ago I was talking to the bloke next door. Generally, he’s a top man, a good neighbour. Goes on holiday a lot. Anyway, he had one of those “pleased with myself” looks. I asked him what he was looking pleased about.
“We had a seagull nest on the roof. Bloody things, but I’ve got them. I got this piece of wood, about a metre square, and banged a load of nails through it. Then I went up and carefully put it under the seagull nest. You can’t have bloody seagulls nesting on the roof. The noise, the mess…”
So anyway, I went up to my attic and had a look out at the neighbour’s house. And smiled. There on his roof – and this is a true story, I swear – was this piece of wood with nails sticking through it. And next to it was a carefully constructed seagull nest, complete with gull.
Anyway, the reason I’m talking about this is, to paraphrase Mrs Thatcher, we’ve just become a godfather.
I work in the attic of our house. So one day I’m sitting there, writing, well, thinking, planning what I’m going to write, and I hear a bit of squawking. OK, so hearing a gull squawk isn’t exactly “Hold the front page” stuff but this was, I don’t know, a different kind of squawking. Reluctantly I dragged myself away from my keyboard and looked out of the window.
And there she was. Sitting on a perfectly made pile of twigs and leaves like a queen on a throne. The proudest look on her face. Kvelling like only a mother can kvell. Just above her, on the chimney stack, was the old man. Chest puffed out, and on the lookout. Keeping it safe. Trying to look important and ready for action. He saw me and we looked at each other. I held his gaze and we nodded. An understanding. (Listen, I know we’re deep in men’s group stuff – Iron John stuff - here, but bear with me). I’ve been through this. I know what he’s thinking and I know what she’s thinking.
He’s thinking “I’m going to be a dad. I can do anything. I’m going to rip some bin liners open. I can do anything I like.”
She’s thinking “God knows how that happened with that idiot who spends his life with his head in a rubbish bag. Still, if he gets me some food I’ll be nice to him.”
I went downstairs and got some bread. Immediately Jane was onto me.
“I thought you were going wheat free? Really, what is the point of… You’re giving it to a seagull?”
It was OK. She understood.
He’s almost tame now, the old man. Comes to the window and sits. Picks up my bits of food and checks his sudoko grids. Mostly though he sits there on the chimney stack making seagull noises and trying to look useful.
A couple of weeks ago, I looked out of the window, saw the parents and there, in the nest, was a small fluffy spotty head sticking up. Fine. All good. Then… nothing. For nearly two weeks I didn’t see anything. No small fluffy spotty head, nothing. I couldn't quite see into the nest, couldn't quite see what was going on, but you’d think that he’d have had a look around. It might well be that the baby was having a bit of a rest. Pecking out of a shell must be an exhausting business. But I was worried. Maybe - and I hadn't considered this - the baby has been bought by Chelsea. I did read something about that in the tabs and, thinking about it, it is true that Mourinho's team don't have a baby seagull in their line-up.
Anyway, this morning there he was. He looks awkward, like a kiwi – go and look it up on the web. All bottom and no wings. Waddling around on our roof while the parents look on, thinking that this is the best looking, cutest thing on any roof in the whole of Brighton.
“I know everyone probably says that, Henry” says the mother. “But just look at him. “I think he’s got my beak. And maybe your ears.”
“That’s very funny. My ears. That’s very funny. I wonder” says Henry. “Do you think maybe we should get him signed up for an ad agency?”
We’ve moved on from bread - apparently she’s on some no carbs diet. And I’m throwing out all different stuff now. I know what gulls eat because I know what they leave behind when they rip open the bin liners and basically, you know, they don’t leave anything behind. Jane said – and very funny, this – “Maybe you should make some tiny black bin liners for the baby to practice on”.
She’s still not moved. Every so often she gives the old man a hard time and he does that useless bloke shrug we all do. I look at them. They look at me. It’s going to be a good summer.
This
CHAPTER 6 - Charity Begins At Home
So anyway. I was talking to Jane the other day and she came up with this idea. (I’d love to take credit for this cos it’s genius, but not even I’d do that. And besides, she might read this nonsense). She said “John, what are you doing with this banging your head against a wall? Why not do something you’re good at?” Well, to cut a long story short she came up with this new concept: Jewgolos. A Jewgolo is a bit like a gigolo, but essentially Jewish in nature. Listen.
Basically, where your regular gigolo maybe takes you for a drink and then upstairs for the jiggy stuff, your Jewgolo will take you out to eat and moan. Like I say, it’s genius. Everyone thinks they like the jiggy thing but you do it once, it’s enough. What people really like doing is eating and moaning. You never get bored with that.
This is the thing. The older you get, your ideas change. When you’re younger and your head’s full of unrealistic ideas you think the moaning that comes when you’re doing all that jiggy stuff is the good moaning. OK if you’re 18 or something but be honest. If you’re a grown-up by the time you get into bed all you want to do is have a sleep. “You carry on with all that. No, no, it’s fine. I’m just going to close my eyes.” No. The good moaning is actually just moaning. Sitting down, having something to eat and moaning.
Once you start eating and moaning you can keep going for hours. You can eat as much as you want and you don’t feel bad about yourself because your body’s started migrating. And you can get home in time for EastEnders on BBC3. You know I’m right. Trust me. Jewgolos.
I’d been thinking about doing something new anyway. Things haven’t been… I don’t know. I won’t bore you with it– you don’t want to know – but I’d erased everything on my computer and life was, as my Landmark chums might say, full of possibilities. E-mails, address book, files… gone. My calendar had been wiped which meant that now I had a load of spare time, but it’s a question of perspective. Jane said that at my age I can do with all the spare time I can get. That’s the sort of thinking that made me want to marry her. The literary agent, the one who was going to whisk me off into a bright new future, hasn’t replied to any of my e-mails and now I’ve lost his address anyway. His loss. What’s an agent anyway? Write your own book if you’re so clever.
A new career. It’s easy. I’ll put up ads in all the usual places – Evolution, Janet, the back pages of this mag. I’ll tell them it’s an ancient Native American tradition, that always works. The alfalfa sprouts believe anything if you say it’s Native American.
“You’ve got a back ache? OK. I’ll put a candle in your ear and then set light to it”.
“What?”
“No, no. It’s an ancient Native American tradition.”
“Oh, OK then”.
Maybe we could maybe do a deluxe service where we complain about the size of the portions. How (whatever that means).
So anyway. I was talking to Jane the other day and she came up with this idea. (I’d love to take credit for this cos it’s genius, but not even I’d do that. And besides, she might read this nonsense). She said “John, what are you doing with this banging your head against a wall? Why not do something you’re good at?” Well, to cut a long story short she came up with this new concept: Jewgolos. A Jewgolo is a bit like a gigolo, but essentially Jewish in nature. Listen.
Basically, where your regular gigolo maybe takes you for a drink and then upstairs for the jiggy stuff, your Jewgolo will take you out to eat and moan. Like I say, it’s genius. Everyone thinks they like the jiggy thing but you do it once, it’s enough. What people really like doing is eating and moaning. You never get bored with that.
This is the thing. The older you get, your ideas change. When you’re younger and your head’s full of unrealistic ideas you think the moaning that comes when you’re doing all that jiggy stuff is the good moaning. OK if you’re 18 or something but be honest. If you’re a grown-up by the time you get into bed all you want to do is have a sleep. “You carry on with all that. No, no, it’s fine. I’m just going to close my eyes.” No. The good moaning is actually just moaning. Sitting down, having something to eat and moaning.
Once you start eating and moaning you can keep going for hours. You can eat as much as you want and you don’t feel bad about yourself because your body’s started migrating. And you can get home in time for EastEnders on BBC3. You know I’m right. Trust me. Jewgolos.
I’d been thinking about doing something new anyway. Things haven’t been… I don’t know. I won’t bore you with it– you don’t want to know – but I’d erased everything on my computer and life was, as my Landmark chums might say, full of possibilities. E-mails, address book, files… gone. My calendar had been wiped which meant that now I had a load of spare time, but it’s a question of perspective. Jane said that at my age I can do with all the spare time I can get. That’s the sort of thinking that made me want to marry her. The literary agent, the one who was going to whisk me off into a bright new future, hasn’t replied to any of my e-mails and now I’ve lost his address anyway. His loss. What’s an agent anyway? Write your own book if you’re so clever.
A new career. It’s easy. I’ll put up ads in all the usual places – Evolution, Janet, the back pages of this mag. I’ll tell them it’s an ancient Native American tradition, that always works. The alfalfa sprouts believe anything if you say it’s Native American.
“You’ve got a back ache? OK. I’ll put a candle in your ear and then set light to it”.
“What?”
“No, no. It’s an ancient Native American tradition.”
“Oh, OK then”.
Maybe we could maybe do a deluxe service where we complain about the size of the portions. How (whatever that means).
And then there's this
CHAPTER ONE – The First Law Of Averages
So... This morning I got up – it’s traditional – went to the park to take Maxwell Wolf out for a walk. Another beautiful day in paradise. What to do? My brain’s a turmoil. I’ve finished the decking so that’s that. I’ve finished the garden lighting so that’s that too. I’ve tidied up and taken all the rubbish to the dump. Done. Re-turfed the lawn. Done. Built a rockery. Done. Solved the problem of where to store the bikes. Done. (Large hooks drilled reasonably high into the wall – off the ground, protected from the weather). I’ve done more to the garden, played with more power tools than any middle-aged, middle-class Jewish father of two has any right to do. But now? What to do? (I’ve just heard that Barclays bank is cutting 800 jobs. Another potential avenue of pleasure slams in my face).
I wandered around, making lists in my head (1: Phone the mortgage advisor, 2: Go through the mail, 3: Check out the pond, 4: Phone up the accountant, 5: Press ‘Send/Receive’ on my e-mail - harder to do than you might think. It’s become an increasing confrontational action. There’s either rubbish virus crap “Here’s that document you requested” type stuff has replaced all the “Enlarge your penis/consolidate your debts” stuff or things from either of the two round robin group lists I’m on. Take all that away and it’s down to the odd mail from Gill Wife and she’s downstairs and only writes cos she can’t be bothered to shout. Hardly the stuff this super-highway technology was built for. Kinda like in the old days when the squliions spent on the space programme was justified by the fact that without it we wouldn’t have had the non-stick pan.
So anyway. I was thinking. (Yeah, I know. It was a Christmas present last year. What can you do?) The older we get, the smaller our worlds get. Is it true? I don’t know. I think so. OK. Not 'Is it true?' but more 'It's true for me'. The rare luxury of going to the cinema on my own, a treat that was a staple of my youth but one of those things (like... just about every other selfish pleasure) that had to move out to accommodate life. You'd have thought The Lord would have foreseen such things and made our lives bigger as we went on. You know, you start off with 24 hours for yourself, but then you're expected to take on board a wife, kids, a job, the dogs, the cats, the kids' friends, a mortgage, the garden, a new kitchen, knocking out the back wall and sorting out a conservatory, the "what are we going to do about the school?" question - The Baggage - in that same 24 hours. And it's worse, because when you were younger you had more energy (or at least more drugs that gave you more energy) so your youthful 24 hours lasted longer than your grown up 24 hours. Who would it hurt if we were given, say, an additional three hours a day with each extra child? OK, there’d be a bit of re-structuring to do, but I’d be a fantastic parent, do all sorts of things with the kids. I’d go to that evening life drawing class in Bond Street. I would be that person. I wonder if Brighton Progressive Synagogue's got a Suggestion Box? Maybe one day I'll find out. If I ever go there. If I ever get the time.
I bought myself a bass guitar. It’ll be an interesting experiment to see how much dust can build up on an inanimate object if it’s never moved.
That was a week ago. A week ago and a different lifetime. A week ago I decided to stop all that. I decided to get a life. I got my bicycle down (from the large hooks drilled reasonably high into the wall. Come on, keep up) and after dousing it in extra virgin olive oil – Jane Wife caught me in mid-douse and… what can I tell you? She’s a very understanding woman – I signed up.
On Monday I do T’ai Chi at Planet Janet. On Tuesday I do a creative writing workshop at Evolution. On Wednesday I go to a life drawing class in Bond Street. On Thursday I do my Landmark session in London. On Friday I go to yoga at Jo’s.
I’m getting my body into shape, I’m sorting out my creativity, and I get to doing something I’ve never done before while looking at naked women. No, no. It’s OK. Thanks to my Landmark I can say things like that with integrity and authenticity. My chakras are balanced. I can feel it. Talk about inside smile. I’m so happy, so calm, so… so full of centred creativity I’ve barely got time to swallow the St John’s Wort.
Maxwell Wolf has gone round the family taking odds on how long I’ll stick with each one.
“Hmm, Pilates?” he said with that ‘I found out where you hide the pig’s ears’ smile.
“Ashtanga yoga?”
This is Maxwell my faithful puppy, my support structure, Maxwell Wolf who I rescued from the gutter of life when he still had some discarded Christmas paper stuck to him.
So then this happened. I got an e-mail from an agent. Now I’ve had e-mails from agents before but they’ve all been “House prices in Kemp Town are going up…” which is nice but unless they’re going down everywhere else, what difference? Anyway, this was different. This was from a literary agent. I’ll say that again. Literary agent. Sounds good, no?
Really. It’s a long story but this agent – this literary agent - asked to see some words...
“Have you got any fiction?” he said. “I’m looking for new writers”.
“Course” I said, but really it was like Alex Ferguson asking me if I’ve ever played up front cos Rooney’s injured. “Course”. Fiction? Fiction’s my middle name.
So today I’ve been sitting here trying to make sense of piles of notes, all called things like “Chapter One”.
Yesterday I took Maxwell to the vet to have his anal glands done. That’ll teach him.
So... This morning I got up – it’s traditional – went to the park to take Maxwell Wolf out for a walk. Another beautiful day in paradise. What to do? My brain’s a turmoil. I’ve finished the decking so that’s that. I’ve finished the garden lighting so that’s that too. I’ve tidied up and taken all the rubbish to the dump. Done. Re-turfed the lawn. Done. Built a rockery. Done. Solved the problem of where to store the bikes. Done. (Large hooks drilled reasonably high into the wall – off the ground, protected from the weather). I’ve done more to the garden, played with more power tools than any middle-aged, middle-class Jewish father of two has any right to do. But now? What to do? (I’ve just heard that Barclays bank is cutting 800 jobs. Another potential avenue of pleasure slams in my face).
I wandered around, making lists in my head (1: Phone the mortgage advisor, 2: Go through the mail, 3: Check out the pond, 4: Phone up the accountant, 5: Press ‘Send/Receive’ on my e-mail - harder to do than you might think. It’s become an increasing confrontational action. There’s either rubbish virus crap “Here’s that document you requested” type stuff has replaced all the “Enlarge your penis/consolidate your debts” stuff or things from either of the two round robin group lists I’m on. Take all that away and it’s down to the odd mail from Gill Wife and she’s downstairs and only writes cos she can’t be bothered to shout. Hardly the stuff this super-highway technology was built for. Kinda like in the old days when the squliions spent on the space programme was justified by the fact that without it we wouldn’t have had the non-stick pan.
So anyway. I was thinking. (Yeah, I know. It was a Christmas present last year. What can you do?) The older we get, the smaller our worlds get. Is it true? I don’t know. I think so. OK. Not 'Is it true?' but more 'It's true for me'. The rare luxury of going to the cinema on my own, a treat that was a staple of my youth but one of those things (like... just about every other selfish pleasure) that had to move out to accommodate life. You'd have thought The Lord would have foreseen such things and made our lives bigger as we went on. You know, you start off with 24 hours for yourself, but then you're expected to take on board a wife, kids, a job, the dogs, the cats, the kids' friends, a mortgage, the garden, a new kitchen, knocking out the back wall and sorting out a conservatory, the "what are we going to do about the school?" question - The Baggage - in that same 24 hours. And it's worse, because when you were younger you had more energy (or at least more drugs that gave you more energy) so your youthful 24 hours lasted longer than your grown up 24 hours. Who would it hurt if we were given, say, an additional three hours a day with each extra child? OK, there’d be a bit of re-structuring to do, but I’d be a fantastic parent, do all sorts of things with the kids. I’d go to that evening life drawing class in Bond Street. I would be that person. I wonder if Brighton Progressive Synagogue's got a Suggestion Box? Maybe one day I'll find out. If I ever go there. If I ever get the time.
I bought myself a bass guitar. It’ll be an interesting experiment to see how much dust can build up on an inanimate object if it’s never moved.
That was a week ago. A week ago and a different lifetime. A week ago I decided to stop all that. I decided to get a life. I got my bicycle down (from the large hooks drilled reasonably high into the wall. Come on, keep up) and after dousing it in extra virgin olive oil – Jane Wife caught me in mid-douse and… what can I tell you? She’s a very understanding woman – I signed up.
On Monday I do T’ai Chi at Planet Janet. On Tuesday I do a creative writing workshop at Evolution. On Wednesday I go to a life drawing class in Bond Street. On Thursday I do my Landmark session in London. On Friday I go to yoga at Jo’s.
I’m getting my body into shape, I’m sorting out my creativity, and I get to doing something I’ve never done before while looking at naked women. No, no. It’s OK. Thanks to my Landmark I can say things like that with integrity and authenticity. My chakras are balanced. I can feel it. Talk about inside smile. I’m so happy, so calm, so… so full of centred creativity I’ve barely got time to swallow the St John’s Wort.
Maxwell Wolf has gone round the family taking odds on how long I’ll stick with each one.
“Hmm, Pilates?” he said with that ‘I found out where you hide the pig’s ears’ smile.
“Ashtanga yoga?”
This is Maxwell my faithful puppy, my support structure, Maxwell Wolf who I rescued from the gutter of life when he still had some discarded Christmas paper stuck to him.
So then this happened. I got an e-mail from an agent. Now I’ve had e-mails from agents before but they’ve all been “House prices in Kemp Town are going up…” which is nice but unless they’re going down everywhere else, what difference? Anyway, this was different. This was from a literary agent. I’ll say that again. Literary agent. Sounds good, no?
Really. It’s a long story but this agent – this literary agent - asked to see some words...
“Have you got any fiction?” he said. “I’m looking for new writers”.
“Course” I said, but really it was like Alex Ferguson asking me if I’ve ever played up front cos Rooney’s injured. “Course”. Fiction? Fiction’s my middle name.
So today I’ve been sitting here trying to make sense of piles of notes, all called things like “Chapter One”.
Yesterday I took Maxwell to the vet to have his anal glands done. That’ll teach him.
This
CHAPTER 5 - Charity Begins At Home
God, I hate hangovers. You’d think at my age I’d know better but do you ever learn? Last night I went to this do and bumped into Pete Doherty and he’s just moaning – and boy does he know how to moan. He wouldn’t leave me alone. “John, John, Listen. Come here. I’ve got this idea”. I knew he was only bugging me cos Kate was staying at ours for a few days, but you know. I took Pete down to Havana where I used to go in the old days and then Richey turned up and said he’d give us a lift. Pete was cool. Between me and you, Kate needs a good meal. Anyway, there was a party going down and the 3am girls were there even thought it was only about 10pm and then Meg…
You know that expression “Get a life”? Get a life. What does it mean? Get a life. How can I get a life when I spend all my time getting a life? It’s Fortune Cookie bullshit, I know. The sort of idiot smart arse-isms people say to avoid saying anything. I’m going to write a book about procrastination, but can’t get round to it. I’ve got a life getting a life. Things like that.
God, I hate hangovers. You’d think at my age I’d know better but do you ever learn? Last night I went to this do and bumped into Pete Doherty and he’s just moaning – and boy does he know how to moan. He wouldn’t leave me alone. “John, John, Listen. Come here. I’ve got this idea”. I knew he was only bugging me cos Kate was staying at ours for a few days, but you know. I took Pete down to Havana where I used to go in the old days and then Richey turned up and said he’d give us a lift. Pete was cool. Between me and you, Kate needs a good meal. Anyway, there was a party going down and the 3am girls were there even thought it was only about 10pm and then Meg…
You know that expression “Get a life”? Get a life. What does it mean? Get a life. How can I get a life when I spend all my time getting a life? It’s Fortune Cookie bullshit, I know. The sort of idiot smart arse-isms people say to avoid saying anything. I’m going to write a book about procrastination, but can’t get round to it. I’ve got a life getting a life. Things like that.
And this
CHAPTER FOUR - Charity Begins At Home
It all started, naturally, with Maxwell C Wolf. He’d been the first to erode my life of single irresponsibility, the first to dictate that I work for him rather than simply for me, and somehow what started off as a simple bowl of chum had escalated to a Volvo with the contents of a lunchbox everywhere. Man’s best friend. Anyway, a friend came round for a chat . He’s working on a kids TV programme and it features a dog but the dog - Bentley - is a bit of a Joan Crawford, a bit of a prima donna. Won’t come out of his trailer if its too cold. The winalot’s the wrong shape... Method dog nonsense. So the friend told the story and looked at Maxwell and told the story and looked at Maxwell and... “So”, he says, “Can Maxwell act?”
What’s he got to do? He’s got to sit? Chase a ball? Bentley charges £250 a day. Can Maxwell act? Believe me, Maxwell can act. That was a month ago. Now Maxwell C Wolf is halfway through a course of ignatia, a homeopathic remedy designed to counter sadness and loss. He’s happy enough, but there’s something about his behaviour that seems, I don’t know, sad. Maybe it’s projection, but his ears are down, you know.. What happened? The day before shooting was to start Ð and Maxwell’s been up all night, sitting Ð we got a call from the production manager saying that Maxwell couldn’t do the job. Why not?
“He wasn’t in the union”, she said.
What do you mean?
“Sorry, he’s got to be in the union”.
Was Wapping for nothing? Basically the union story was a nonsense. Maxwell was stitched up. Nepotism is rife in the media, everyone knows that. A dog-owner eat dog-owner business. Sorry, he’s got to be in the union, said the production manager with a can of chum in her pocket.
It all started, naturally, with Maxwell C Wolf. He’d been the first to erode my life of single irresponsibility, the first to dictate that I work for him rather than simply for me, and somehow what started off as a simple bowl of chum had escalated to a Volvo with the contents of a lunchbox everywhere. Man’s best friend. Anyway, a friend came round for a chat . He’s working on a kids TV programme and it features a dog but the dog - Bentley - is a bit of a Joan Crawford, a bit of a prima donna. Won’t come out of his trailer if its too cold. The winalot’s the wrong shape... Method dog nonsense. So the friend told the story and looked at Maxwell and told the story and looked at Maxwell and... “So”, he says, “Can Maxwell act?”
What’s he got to do? He’s got to sit? Chase a ball? Bentley charges £250 a day. Can Maxwell act? Believe me, Maxwell can act. That was a month ago. Now Maxwell C Wolf is halfway through a course of ignatia, a homeopathic remedy designed to counter sadness and loss. He’s happy enough, but there’s something about his behaviour that seems, I don’t know, sad. Maybe it’s projection, but his ears are down, you know.. What happened? The day before shooting was to start Ð and Maxwell’s been up all night, sitting Ð we got a call from the production manager saying that Maxwell couldn’t do the job. Why not?
“He wasn’t in the union”, she said.
What do you mean?
“Sorry, he’s got to be in the union”.
Was Wapping for nothing? Basically the union story was a nonsense. Maxwell was stitched up. Nepotism is rife in the media, everyone knows that. A dog-owner eat dog-owner business. Sorry, he’s got to be in the union, said the production manager with a can of chum in her pocket.
Or this
CHAPTER THREE - Charity Begins At Home
So this morning I got up. The first day of the rest of my life. Another beautiful day in paradise. I’m inspired. Energised. Listen, I went to see this Barefoot Doctor bloke at the Komedia and I’m on it. Nice enough and all, but talk about the art of getting away with it. Still, it gave me an idea. I can do that. Be Brighton’s own barefoot.
“Now I want you to try this. It’s something I picked up from an old Peruvian and it comes from the ancient art of Winginit. Put your hands on your stomach and let them be there. Soon you’ll begin to feel your stomach.”
What to do first? I’ve got ideas coming out of me like… listen, my ideas have got ideas. My favourite started out as a feature, but now it’s an industry. It’s a food thing, a diet book. I’m going to call it The Syllable Diet and, basically, it’s like this. Anything that’s got three or more syllables is out. Apple (one syllable), egg (one), pea (one)… Cannelloni (four) is out. See? Maybe we’ll have a picture of Kate (one) Moss (one) on the cover. What do you mean apple’s got two? OK then, pear. Anyway, doesn’t matter. I’ve got another one.
The Bikhram Diet – where, basically, you eat your food while it’s still in the oven. It’s great. You could sell it as “this year’s hot new diet”. Confidence breeds confidence in this freelance game.
Anyway, I was thinking. The older we get, the smaller our worlds get. It’s like going to the cinema on my own, a treat that was a staple of my youth but one of those things (like... just about every other selfish pleasure) that had to move out to accommodate life. You'd have thought The Lord would have foreseen such things and made our lives bigger as we went on. You start off with 24 hours for yourself, but then you're expected to take on board a wife, kids, a job, the dogs, the cats, the kids' friends, the friends’ kids, a mortgage, the garden, a new kitchen – all in that same 24 hours. Who would it hurt if we were given, say, an additional three hours a day with each extra child? OK, so there’d be a bit of re-structuring to do, but I’d be a fantastic parent, do all sorts of things with the kids. I’d go to that evening life drawing class in Bond Street. I would be that person. I wonder if Brighton Progressive Synagogue's got a Suggestion Box? Maybe one day I'll find out. If I ever go there. If I ever get the time.
“While you’re reading this I want you to breathe in and then breathe out. This is an ancient technique proven to be good for you. Breathing in and then out will increase the likelihood of living longer. I’ve been doing it all my life and look at me, how I’m still living.”
So anyway. I’ve got this idea. I’m going to create a journalist character called Frank Lee and Frank’s going to be an argumentative, polemic kind of guy. I’ll do a column and I’m going to call it Frank Lee Speaking. You can go mad sitting in a room all day by yourself.
So this morning I got up. The first day of the rest of my life. Another beautiful day in paradise. I’m inspired. Energised. Listen, I went to see this Barefoot Doctor bloke at the Komedia and I’m on it. Nice enough and all, but talk about the art of getting away with it. Still, it gave me an idea. I can do that. Be Brighton’s own barefoot.
“Now I want you to try this. It’s something I picked up from an old Peruvian and it comes from the ancient art of Winginit. Put your hands on your stomach and let them be there. Soon you’ll begin to feel your stomach.”
What to do first? I’ve got ideas coming out of me like… listen, my ideas have got ideas. My favourite started out as a feature, but now it’s an industry. It’s a food thing, a diet book. I’m going to call it The Syllable Diet and, basically, it’s like this. Anything that’s got three or more syllables is out. Apple (one syllable), egg (one), pea (one)… Cannelloni (four) is out. See? Maybe we’ll have a picture of Kate (one) Moss (one) on the cover. What do you mean apple’s got two? OK then, pear. Anyway, doesn’t matter. I’ve got another one.
The Bikhram Diet – where, basically, you eat your food while it’s still in the oven. It’s great. You could sell it as “this year’s hot new diet”. Confidence breeds confidence in this freelance game.
Anyway, I was thinking. The older we get, the smaller our worlds get. It’s like going to the cinema on my own, a treat that was a staple of my youth but one of those things (like... just about every other selfish pleasure) that had to move out to accommodate life. You'd have thought The Lord would have foreseen such things and made our lives bigger as we went on. You start off with 24 hours for yourself, but then you're expected to take on board a wife, kids, a job, the dogs, the cats, the kids' friends, the friends’ kids, a mortgage, the garden, a new kitchen – all in that same 24 hours. Who would it hurt if we were given, say, an additional three hours a day with each extra child? OK, so there’d be a bit of re-structuring to do, but I’d be a fantastic parent, do all sorts of things with the kids. I’d go to that evening life drawing class in Bond Street. I would be that person. I wonder if Brighton Progressive Synagogue's got a Suggestion Box? Maybe one day I'll find out. If I ever go there. If I ever get the time.
“While you’re reading this I want you to breathe in and then breathe out. This is an ancient technique proven to be good for you. Breathing in and then out will increase the likelihood of living longer. I’ve been doing it all my life and look at me, how I’m still living.”
So anyway. I’ve got this idea. I’m going to create a journalist character called Frank Lee and Frank’s going to be an argumentative, polemic kind of guy. I’ll do a column and I’m going to call it Frank Lee Speaking. You can go mad sitting in a room all day by yourself.
And this
CHAPTER TWO - Charity Begins At Home
Ah, the freelance life. No 9 to 5 for me. No sitting on the 8.57 with my Puccinos double espresso and Guardian jobs page. No sitting there thinking “Where exactly is Three Bridges?” Has anyone ever been there? Hayward’s Heath, yeah. Burgess Hilll, yes. But Three Bridges? Are there Three Bridges? Did it used to be called Two Bridges? Listen, I’ve done the train bit. I know what you people think about. Train, schmain. Enough
You know that line “Careful what you wish for, it might come true”? Welcome to the freelance life. You know all those romantic notions of the open field, the endless horizon, the big sky… Well here’s another one. The bottomless pit. I don’t want to sound negative, but I’m beginning to empathise with the polar bear in a zoo. Pacing up and down, shaking his head around. “Where’s that snow? I put it down here somewhere…”
Anyway, cut a long story short, I've just taken an office. Had to really. I felt like I was living in an episode of Celebrity Big Brother. Stuck in the house, nothing to do, nowhere to go. (Let’s not even start to make up gags like “And no one’s heard of me either” or “and I’m doing it cos I’ve got no career”. It’s just not funny.) Every so often I get called down to have a chat with Big Brother and she asks me what I’ve been up to today. “Yeah, a bit of work, you know. Getting a few things together, pushing a few ideas around”.
An office. It seemed a proper thing to do. Grown up. “I’m off to work now, darling” will mean a little bit more than “I’m in the attic. Give us a shout of you want something”. To be honest, part of the appeal was that it’s in Jew Street. Where else is a lonely Jew going to go? That’s what I love about Brighton. It’s so accepting, they gave us our own street. OK, so it’s about three yards long. Still. Maybe I’ll find a lost tribe there or something.
Anyway, I've rented this office and I'm going to sit there - no phone lines, no e-mail, no plants that absolutely need watering now or else they’re going to die - and write a book, something that's a not so much a work of fiction as a commentary on the modern world. An allegory. I'm going to look at - and this is inspired - the relationship between magpies and house sparrows. It's going to look at the rise of the magpie set against the decline of the sparrow. You remember the way that magpies were rare and exotic when we were kids and sparrows were everywhere? Well, the roles have reversed now, and - and this is fantastic - we can talk about nostalgia, maybe have a scene where the protagonists talk about how sparrows were better in their day. We could have a TV spin-off: The 100 Best UK Garden Birds – and cut-away to D-list celeb reading out a scripted gag about tits. We can talk about the superficiality of contemporary society and ponder whether sparrows would have been more successful if they'd had that bluey-greeny-purpley bit. We could we have magpies, crows and seagulls cast as a modern Mafia. Can only be minutes before Pixar are on the phone. It's not expensive, this office.
I’ll go and get a coffee, maybe a bagel and I’ll sit down and write, undisturbed. What was the line from that film? I’m gonna play this keyboard like Charlie Parker played the sax. It’s going to fly. But first I’ll get a coffee. And maybe a bagel.
It’s curious how you can get distracted. How a quick trip to the shops becomes, well, a longer trip to the shops. How there are some things you really need. I go and get some money and buy a Roberts radio, a pair of trainers (the others got muddy in the garden) and a new CD player and cassette deck cos they were all dusty and covered in crap because I didn't take them out of the kitchen when all that work started. OK, so a tube or whatever of Mr Sheen would have been cheaper, but really. How much fun? Oh, I know. I'll go into a supermarket and buy some furniture polish. That will make me feel better. That will make me feel powerful again. The other thing with shopping is that it's got to be notes. A credit card just doesn't do it. I've got to do the whole deal - get the wallet out, peel off the notes. Maybe I'll lick a finger as I peel off the notes.
Three hours later… Charlie Parker? A bloody junkie who died when he was 31 or something. And I bet he didn’t have to go and pick the kids up after school.
Ah, the freelance life. No 9 to 5 for me. No sitting on the 8.57 with my Puccinos double espresso and Guardian jobs page. No sitting there thinking “Where exactly is Three Bridges?” Has anyone ever been there? Hayward’s Heath, yeah. Burgess Hilll, yes. But Three Bridges? Are there Three Bridges? Did it used to be called Two Bridges? Listen, I’ve done the train bit. I know what you people think about. Train, schmain. Enough
You know that line “Careful what you wish for, it might come true”? Welcome to the freelance life. You know all those romantic notions of the open field, the endless horizon, the big sky… Well here’s another one. The bottomless pit. I don’t want to sound negative, but I’m beginning to empathise with the polar bear in a zoo. Pacing up and down, shaking his head around. “Where’s that snow? I put it down here somewhere…”
Anyway, cut a long story short, I've just taken an office. Had to really. I felt like I was living in an episode of Celebrity Big Brother. Stuck in the house, nothing to do, nowhere to go. (Let’s not even start to make up gags like “And no one’s heard of me either” or “and I’m doing it cos I’ve got no career”. It’s just not funny.) Every so often I get called down to have a chat with Big Brother and she asks me what I’ve been up to today. “Yeah, a bit of work, you know. Getting a few things together, pushing a few ideas around”.
An office. It seemed a proper thing to do. Grown up. “I’m off to work now, darling” will mean a little bit more than “I’m in the attic. Give us a shout of you want something”. To be honest, part of the appeal was that it’s in Jew Street. Where else is a lonely Jew going to go? That’s what I love about Brighton. It’s so accepting, they gave us our own street. OK, so it’s about three yards long. Still. Maybe I’ll find a lost tribe there or something.
Anyway, I've rented this office and I'm going to sit there - no phone lines, no e-mail, no plants that absolutely need watering now or else they’re going to die - and write a book, something that's a not so much a work of fiction as a commentary on the modern world. An allegory. I'm going to look at - and this is inspired - the relationship between magpies and house sparrows. It's going to look at the rise of the magpie set against the decline of the sparrow. You remember the way that magpies were rare and exotic when we were kids and sparrows were everywhere? Well, the roles have reversed now, and - and this is fantastic - we can talk about nostalgia, maybe have a scene where the protagonists talk about how sparrows were better in their day. We could have a TV spin-off: The 100 Best UK Garden Birds – and cut-away to D-list celeb reading out a scripted gag about tits. We can talk about the superficiality of contemporary society and ponder whether sparrows would have been more successful if they'd had that bluey-greeny-purpley bit. We could we have magpies, crows and seagulls cast as a modern Mafia. Can only be minutes before Pixar are on the phone. It's not expensive, this office.
I’ll go and get a coffee, maybe a bagel and I’ll sit down and write, undisturbed. What was the line from that film? I’m gonna play this keyboard like Charlie Parker played the sax. It’s going to fly. But first I’ll get a coffee. And maybe a bagel.
It’s curious how you can get distracted. How a quick trip to the shops becomes, well, a longer trip to the shops. How there are some things you really need. I go and get some money and buy a Roberts radio, a pair of trainers (the others got muddy in the garden) and a new CD player and cassette deck cos they were all dusty and covered in crap because I didn't take them out of the kitchen when all that work started. OK, so a tube or whatever of Mr Sheen would have been cheaper, but really. How much fun? Oh, I know. I'll go into a supermarket and buy some furniture polish. That will make me feel better. That will make me feel powerful again. The other thing with shopping is that it's got to be notes. A credit card just doesn't do it. I've got to do the whole deal - get the wallet out, peel off the notes. Maybe I'll lick a finger as I peel off the notes.
Three hours later… Charlie Parker? A bloody junkie who died when he was 31 or something. And I bet he didn’t have to go and pick the kids up after school.
And now we're going to start putting stuff up. Stuff like this....
CHAPTER ONE – Charity Begins At Home
So I was sitting at home, thinking. Glossy magazines are full of these "Things You Should Do Before You're 40" type articles and, you know, it's always the usual… Driving a Porsche into a brothel, hanging out in a jeans shop in Churchill Square, going across the Sahara on a bike… things like that. Sahara, Schmahara, most of them I've done but there’s one thing they say I should have done that I haven't: the mid-life crisis. And I should. It's such a classic experience, such a classic thing to do that I really should try and fit it in. I'm at that mid-life stage and these things require planning and precision. Now’s the time to change ends at half time. Sit down and have an orange. Look back and where I’d been. Consider tactics for the way forward. Maybe I should start thinking about it.
I looked at Maxwell Wolf. He looked at me. What is it with dogs? There’s all that unconditional love that everyone goes on about, but there’s also that look. You know, the look that says “What’s so difficult? You get a ball, get someone to throw it… It’s not complicated.” Sometimes I think he’s a real soul brother. Other times he’s a heartless bastard.
Anyway. Now this is the curious thing. Just as I had this idea, Lord Newspaper phoned me up and… and this is the spookiest thing. He told me that he'd had the same idea himself. The very same idea.
"Fancy that", I said when he told me. "You're going to jack in your job, your livelihood, just to experience this thing called mid-life crisis. Just like me! Talk about two hearts beating as one", I said. "We can go down that spiral together, crawl the bookies and take up art, start drinking and become a novelist, create bespoke furniture out of driftwood for fashionistas... We can do this together. I'll get the wood, you get the nails!”
"Ah", said Lord Newspaper. "That's not exactly what I meant. What I meant was that maybe you should experience this on your own. I think you should stop doing this job of yours and see how you get on."
The penny dropped. "What will it be?" I said laughing at the synchronicity of it all. "A double-page feature? No, better. Maybe a three-part series, an expose on mid-life crises today. How having a mid-life crisis can bring on a mid-life crisis! We could open the spread with a double page picture of me sitting on the beach, looking out to sea dreamily."
“Not quite what I meant” he said.
“You’re right. I need to do this properly” I said. “I'm a proper bloody journalist, old school. The school of hard knocks. Trained at The University Of Life, that's me. A method journalist, the Lee Strasberg of the pen.”
And I am the perfect man for the job. You've got to give Lord Newspaper credit for that. We’ve not been together that long, but he knows his man. If there's anyone who can legitimately experience not working, I am that man. Like Dumbo in that Disney film “Dumbo”, this is a part that was written for me.
"Listen", said Lord Newspaper. "That's not exactly what I meant either. Times are hard in the newspaper game and we're having to make a few cutbacks and..."
Fuck it. I was going to leave anyway.
So I was sitting at home, thinking. Glossy magazines are full of these "Things You Should Do Before You're 40" type articles and, you know, it's always the usual… Driving a Porsche into a brothel, hanging out in a jeans shop in Churchill Square, going across the Sahara on a bike… things like that. Sahara, Schmahara, most of them I've done but there’s one thing they say I should have done that I haven't: the mid-life crisis. And I should. It's such a classic experience, such a classic thing to do that I really should try and fit it in. I'm at that mid-life stage and these things require planning and precision. Now’s the time to change ends at half time. Sit down and have an orange. Look back and where I’d been. Consider tactics for the way forward. Maybe I should start thinking about it.
I looked at Maxwell Wolf. He looked at me. What is it with dogs? There’s all that unconditional love that everyone goes on about, but there’s also that look. You know, the look that says “What’s so difficult? You get a ball, get someone to throw it… It’s not complicated.” Sometimes I think he’s a real soul brother. Other times he’s a heartless bastard.
Anyway. Now this is the curious thing. Just as I had this idea, Lord Newspaper phoned me up and… and this is the spookiest thing. He told me that he'd had the same idea himself. The very same idea.
"Fancy that", I said when he told me. "You're going to jack in your job, your livelihood, just to experience this thing called mid-life crisis. Just like me! Talk about two hearts beating as one", I said. "We can go down that spiral together, crawl the bookies and take up art, start drinking and become a novelist, create bespoke furniture out of driftwood for fashionistas... We can do this together. I'll get the wood, you get the nails!”
"Ah", said Lord Newspaper. "That's not exactly what I meant. What I meant was that maybe you should experience this on your own. I think you should stop doing this job of yours and see how you get on."
The penny dropped. "What will it be?" I said laughing at the synchronicity of it all. "A double-page feature? No, better. Maybe a three-part series, an expose on mid-life crises today. How having a mid-life crisis can bring on a mid-life crisis! We could open the spread with a double page picture of me sitting on the beach, looking out to sea dreamily."
“Not quite what I meant” he said.
“You’re right. I need to do this properly” I said. “I'm a proper bloody journalist, old school. The school of hard knocks. Trained at The University Of Life, that's me. A method journalist, the Lee Strasberg of the pen.”
And I am the perfect man for the job. You've got to give Lord Newspaper credit for that. We’ve not been together that long, but he knows his man. If there's anyone who can legitimately experience not working, I am that man. Like Dumbo in that Disney film “Dumbo”, this is a part that was written for me.
"Listen", said Lord Newspaper. "That's not exactly what I meant either. Times are hard in the newspaper game and we're having to make a few cutbacks and..."
Fuck it. I was going to leave anyway.
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