Red Christmas – a tale of torture and woe

PART 1
It was Christmas morning in London. That is to say it was raining fiercely and there wasn’t a flake of snow to be seen this side of the South Pole. In households all over the city ugly ungrateful brats were busy tearing open lovingly gift-wrapped packages and tearfully complaining about what was inside them. In other words it was a normal Christmas morning. Well, normal for anyone whose name happened NOT to be Johnny McKenzie, otherwise known as Johnny Nothing.
“Why do I never get any presents?” thought Johnny to himself as he dragged himself out of bed with a shiver.

“Brrrrrrr! It’s cold!” thought the shiver.

The other occupants of the rat-infested council flat that Johnny called home were all asleep as he and his shiver made their way downstairs into the living room. It had been a busy night for Johnny’s parents, the loathsome Felicity MacKenzie and her useless lump of lard husband Billy. As well as drinking several gallons of something that tasted like cheap lager they had found in a skip, the grisly pair had also been laying a trap for someone. Someone whom you might know very well indeed…

On Christmas mornings in most people’s homes you might expect to find a nice juicy Christmas tree covered in twinkling lights with a fairy perched on the top. Not so in Johnny’s home. Here, there was no Christmas tree. No twinkling lights. And there was no sign of a fairy with a giant pine tree stuck up her bum. Instead, there was a sweaty old man with a straggly white beard squatting in front of the gas fire making curious gasping noises. Sort of like this: “Gasp… Gasp… Gargle…”. (Did I mention that he occasionally made gargling noises?)

The man was dressed from head to toe in a red all-in-one body suit with furry cuffs. On his wrinkled liver-spotted old head there was a really stupid looking hat. He looked ridiculous. I’m not joking – he really did look like a complete pillock. Moreover, someone had tied him up with rope and gagged him so that he could scarcely breathe. Johnny recognised the stranger instantly.

“Are you… Are you… Santa Claus?” Johnny asked in astonishment, prising the gag away from the old man’s mouth.

“Who do you think I bloody am?” spluttered Father Christmas. “Barrack Obama?”

“Not really…” said Johnny, fairly sure that this was not the president of America sitting in his living room.

“Untie me!” yelled the tied up stranger. “There’s going to be hell to pay – I can tell you!”

For a moment Johnny thought he was dreaming. “Am I dreaming?” he murmured, as if determined to play along with my description of what was happening.

“No you’re not bloody dreaming!” said Santa, as if determined to undermine my description of what was happening. “And if you don’t get these ropes off me I’ll have your guts for garters!”

Johnny frowned a little, as you do. He rubbed away a bit of that scummy stuff you get in the corner of your eye every morning (for a moment he considered eating it but changed his mind and wiped it on his pyjama trousers instead) and took a closer look at the stranger in the living room. It was not every day that you got sworn at by Santa Claus.

“Are you really Father Christmas?” he asked.

“Yes,” replied the old man irritatedly, as if he was totally fed up of answering that question. “Now will you please untie me.”

Johnny dropped to his knees and began working at the ropes that bound Father Christmas. Whoever had tied them had made a good job of it.

“No offence,” said Johnny. “but I thought that Santa Claus was just a made up person.”

“Oh… I’m real enough all right,” grumbled Santa. “Who do you think delivers all those presents every Christmas?”

“But you’ve never delivered any to me.”

“I most certainly have.”
“Well I’ve never received them.”

“Of course you haven’t – your bloody mother has always nicked them before you’ve had a chance to lay your hands on them.”

Right on cue the sound of an extinct woolly mammoth could be heard descending the stairs.

“Talk of the Devil,” groaned Father Christmas, as Johnny continued to struggle to untie him.

“Johnny stop untying him right now!!” ordered the hungover voice of the extinct woolly mammoth as it entered the room. “That silly old scrote is my prisoner!”

I suppose it’s fair to point out that it is a little cruel to compare Johnny’s mother, the delightful Felicity MacKenzie, with an extinct woolly mammoth. You have my apologies for doing so. Because woolly mammoth’s – even though they were big and hairy and smelly and prone to accidentally squishing any cavemen who accidentally got in their way – were actually quite cute. Baby woolly mammoths were particularly cute; and quite tasty on the barbecue, too, I’m told.

The same, unfortunately, cannot be said of Felicity MacKenzie, who was neither tasty nor cute. In fact, she was the opposite of tasty: quite rancidly tasteless, if such a thing is possible. The sort of human being tastebud equivalent of Brussel sprouts marinated in fart juice. And she was also the opposite of cute, which I make as being ‘etuc’, quite a meaningless word in actual fact.

She was so fat that she exerted her own gravitational pull. She was so ugly that when she was born her mother slapped herself. She was so mean that she won’t even allow me to finish this senten

Back to the story:

“Why have you tied me up!” yelled Santa Claus. “What do you want from me?”

“What do you think I want, you stupid dosser?” smiled Felicity. “I want all your presents and you’re going to give ’em to me! But before you do so, it’s time for an advertising break…”

END OF PART 1
ADVERTISEMENT

She was an evil woman was Felicity. I’m not kidding – she was really evil. More evil than Margaret Thatcher ever was – well maybe not. You can read all about her (Felicity not Margaret) in my lovely smelly book entitled: Johnny Nothing. It’s available from all half-decent book retailers in ebook and paperback formats and has a really nice yellow cover with scratchy bits on it. If you’re reading this before Christmas why not click on one of the links below and you and/or your beautiful ugly child can find out what happens when Johnny’s uncle dies and leaves him a fortune only for Felicity to steal all the money from him and go on a really long shopping spree. It’s quite exciting and all that.

 

PART 2

Felicity MacKenzie was rummaging through the large sack of presents that lay beside the still tied up Father Christmas. Beside her was a blobby heap of beer belly and builder’s crack clinker named Billy MacKenzie. If you don’t already know, he was Johnny’s dad and Felicity’s husband. As usual he was unshaven and smelled of Victorian urinals and dog breath.
“This is no good!” scowled Felicity, throwing a box of Lego across the room. ‘We want expensive gifts. Something we can flog on eBay!”

“Stop opening my presents!” urged Santa. “They’re not for you!”

“Or what?” growled Billy MacKenzie.

“Or… Or… I’ll get very cross,’ said Santa, which wasn’t really much of a threat because he was still tied up and – let’s face it – however cross he might be, Santa Claus is never going to be that scary, is he? He’s Santa Claus for goodness sake!

“I’m ravenous,” said Felicity. ”’Ere Santa – you got any food in these parcels?”

“Even if I knew the answer to that question there’s certainly no way that I’m telling you.”

“Oh la-de-da.” said Felicity, which doesn’t really mean anything but people still say it from time to time.

As Santa looked on, the horrible pair continued opening the presents in his sack. Books, CDs, socks, after shave, strange looking adult toys that required batteries, and boring games like Cluedo and Monopoly were hurled to one side.

“Should you really be doing that?” asked Johnny, who had kept quiet while all this was going on.

“Mind your own business!” said his mother, spitting out a mouthful of perfume that she had hoped might be whisky. “And get me some food you little brat!”

Johnny went into the kitchen and rooted around for something to give to his mother. Apart from a small piece of cheese that was growing a quiff, the fridge was lukewarm and empty. There was nothing in the food cupboard either. There was no sign of a turkey and all the trimmings waiting to be cooked like you might find in other peoples’ houses. The MacKenzies never bothered with Christmas dinner. They usually went to the pub and if they were feeling generous they would bring home a packet of crisps for their son.

Johnny went back into the living room to give his parents the bad news. Before he could speak, however, Felicity MacKenzie let out a hoot of triumph, whatever that sounds like. “Hold on a minute,” she announced, looking over at a very unhappy Santa Claus.. “How did you get here?”

“I beg your pardon?” he replied.

“Are you stupid? I said: how did you get here?”

“Is that an existential question or do you mean into your flat?”

“Whatever!”

“Well down the chimney, of course.”

The fact that there wasn’t a chimney in the flat didn’t seem to deter Felicity MacKenzie. “No I don’t mean that you fat old imbecile!” she said. “I mean how did you get here? How did you journey to the flat?”

“Why on my sleigh, of course.”

“On his sleigh!” yelled Felicity in triumph. “And where is it now?”

“Why, it’s still parked outside.”

Felicity MacKenzie pulled herself upright and began to cackle. “Billy,” she said, “go outside and fetch our Christmas dinner.”

Billy looked confused. “Whatdoyoumean, Fliss?” he asked.

“I’ve got a special treat for us all today,” said Felicity, licking her bulbous trout lips. “…Roast reindeer.”

“Lovely,” said Billy. “But before we eat have we got time for another advert?”

 

END OF PART 2

ADVERTISEMENT
I’m not one of those writers who’s always harping on about their books. In fact, when asked at parties I often tell people that I’m a tax inspector. Sometimes I tell them that I’m a murderer. What I was going to say, however, is that if you’re enjoying the story so far you might want to to go and download the first three chapters of Johnny Nothing from the iBooks Store or from the Kindle Store. They’re free, of course. And if you end up liking them there’s another thirty or so chapters for you to read. Hold on, what’s that nice smell?
PART 3

Although when pushed she could just about rustle up a Pot Noodle, Felicity MacKenzie would be the first to admit that she wasn’t much of a cook.

“I’d be the first to admit that I’m not much of a cook.” said Felicity macKenzie, as she sat at the head of the dining table. There. I told you so.

Nevertheless, she had made a surprisingly good job of Christmas dinner. Delia Smith would have been proud. Delicious odours of cooked meat wafted around the flat like clouds of tangy loveliness making Johnny’s tummy rumble like a long extinct volcano. Hold on… If it was extinct it wouldn’t be rumbling. Would it?

“Shall I carve?” asked Billy.

“Please do, my darling husband,” said Felicity, putting on her poshest voice.

While Felicity and Billy sat at either end of the dining table Johnny stood in the doorway to the kitchen looking on in horror as his blood soaked father began cutting the Christmas dinner into succulent slices. Still tied up on the floor was Santa Claus, who was weeping profusely.

“Stop crying you big baby and have a bit of dinner,’ said Felicity.

“But… But… You’ve murdered… My Rudolph…” cried Santa.

“Oh stop fussing,’ said Felicity. “Do you fancy a slice of nose?”

Billy MacKenzie had been uncharacteristically efficient with Rudolph. First he had dragged the whimpering reindeer into the flat by its harness. And then, using a carving set that he found in Santa’s sack, he had set about slaughtering the animal.

First he had cut Rudolph’s throat, collecting the gallons of blood that gushed from the wound in a tin pot that he used for soaking his feet. “We can use this for black pudding later,’ he had said cheerfully.

Then he had neatly sliced the still warm and trembling carcass into smaller portions, passing a leg over to his wife which she swiftly popped into the oven with a bit of garlic. The whole exercise was over in less than ten minutes. However, the mess this created was terrible. Everywhere you looked there was reindeer blood: on the walls, the ceiling, the curtains. Most of the blood was on Billy, who looked even redder than Santa Claus. It was a red Christmas.

“Tuck in,” urged Felicity.
END OF PART 3

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(Sorry about that. I had to sell this advertising spot to someone else.)
PART 4

Dinner was over. Felicity and Billy McKenzie slumped into their chairs in front of the telly, stuffed to satisfaction and watching as the Queen gave her annual speech.

“Philip and I would like to thank everybody for giving us all of your hard-earned money so that you can help to maintain an oligarchy that is thousands of years old and patently unfair to all but the select few,” she said. “It keeps us in jewels and Corgis and helicopter rides and makes sure that you, my subjects, have no hope of ever achieving anything with your lives unless you go on the X-Factor or Big Brother or Strictly or some other asinine turgid nonsense…”

“I love the queen,” Felicity said dreamily, as her stomach struggled to digest the unexpected influx of reindeer matter. “She’s always so honest to her people.”

“Yes, she has a lovely turn of phrase” agreed Billy.

The speech finished and the couple reluctantly got to their feet when the National Anthem was playing. Then they sat back down again to watch a Bond movie with a Welsh bloke playing Bond. After that there was a Dad’s Army repeat which led to the inevitable Christmas snooze followed by a Two Ronnies repeat, a Morecambe and Wise repeat and Jurassic Park 3. It was a great Christmas day. If you’re American and reading this you won’t have a clue what I’m going on about. But do I really care?

In the morning there was only one more thing to think about. The remaining bits of Rudolph had been stuffed into the fridge and under the sink and in the bath and into various cupboards. The presents that had been pilfered from Santa’s sack were already on eBay. (Although Felicity wasn’t particularly hopeful that they would make that much money from their ill-gotten gains – all of Santa’s presents seem to have come from the Pound Shop.) It was just a question of what to do with Santa Claus.

Santa Claus. All over the world that name had suddenly become hated overnight. This was because, apart from a couple of isolated regions in the south of England, no presents had been delivered anywhere else.

Santa Claus. Millions of parents were left wondering how to stop their children’s desperate tears. “But it’s not our fault,” said mothers and fathers everywhere. “It’s that evil Father Christmas who’s to blame.”

Santa Claus: you could almost swim in the wave of bitter disappointment that washed over the globe.

Santa Claus: What a smelly old rat!

On television, newscasters told tales of the hated devil named Santa Claus. Police and politicians were interviewed, universally condemning this once loved figure. A warrant for Santa’s arrest was issued by Interpol. In many countries the death penalty was reinstated in anticipation of Santa’s capture.

On boxing day there was knock on the MacKenzie’s front door. “He’s in here,” said Felicity to a man waving an identity card. Early in the morning, Felicity had called the police and told them that she had apprehended a familiar looking intruder.

“Get him boys,” said the man, and at once a dozen or so police officers bundled into the council flat.

“I caught him killing a reindeer,” said Felicity. “So Billy banged him on the head and we tied him up.”

“Thank you madam,” said another man. “You’ve done a great service to the nation.”

Santa was handcuffed and taken into police custody. Three days later he was sentenced to death without trial. The Home Secretary’s triplets had caused such a fuss when they discovered they had no Christmas presents that he had vowed to get an instant revenge.

At the execution a jeering crowd threw rancid Christmas puddings at the cowering figure of Santa Claus. Some hurled chocolate cherry liqueurs. As his head was placed into the noose, Santa was asked if he had any last words.

The old man hunched his shoulders and coughed. Then he replied: “Yes I do, actually.”

The crowd grew silent as the man known as Father Christmas or Santa Claus or Saint Nicholas uttered his final words.

“What an ungrateful bunch you are,’ he said softly. ‘For thousands of years I’ve been making and delivering presents for you all and never once have I received a thank-you for my troubles.

“Despite living in a freezing cold draughty house in the North Pole with no-one for company save for a couple of imps and a reindeer with a genetic nose impairment you’re still not satisfied.

“Despite having to sit on rooftops for most of December waiting for your little brats to post their Christmas wish list up the bloody chimney I’ve never got so much as a ‘ta very much, mate’.

“Despite having to listen to endless crappy Christmas records by the likes of Slade and Wizzard and Bing bloody Crosby you still want more.

“Despite depositing millions of gifts into your kids’ stockings for longer than I care to remember, it doesn’t stop you from hinting to them that it was actually really YOU who bought the presents.

“So goodbye and good riddance you ungrateful mob. In future YOU can fish around in red hot coal embers retrieving your semi-literate kids’ note to Santa. YOU can spend literally minutes on Amazon ordering your brats’ myriad requirements, complete with personalised message and reasonably competitively priced gift wrapping paper. YOU can take delivery of the parcels, a couple of days later, signing for them, unpacking them and then hiding them under your bed or in a cupboard somewhere. YOU can wait until your kids are asleep on Christmas Eve and then creep into their bedrooms and carefully place their gifts at the foot of the bed. And YOU can sit and watch while they open those presents believing that are not from you – their bloody parents – but from some mythical, sleigh-driving deity from the North Pole.”

There was a murmur among the crowd as the spectators took in Santa’s words. Then a crescendo of voices rose up and almost to a man began chanting the same words:

“LET HIM…” they cried, thinking of all the hard work they would have to do if Santa was allowed to go to the gallows.

“LET HIM…” they chanted, wondering how their lives might change without this universal figure of kindness and joy.

“LET HIM…” they chorused, trying to imagine what life would truly be like without Christmas.

“LET HIM… DIE.”
THE END

Nice to see you?

It was twenty-three years ago when I last saw him. His eyes were closed and an oxygen mask was strapped to his mouth. His magnificent muscular torso was a tangle of tubes and sensors. He lay on the bed like a sleeping baby. The slightest of frowns pinched his forehead as if he were dreaming the longest dream. A dream that would last for a Biblical 40 days and 40 nights before he would finally awaken to discover that his life had been ripped apart. That he could never be the person that he used to be.

In a windswept hotel on the outskirts of Essex I sit at the rear of a vast banqueting hall and wait to see his face once more. I’m wearing the suit that I wore on my wedding day and for the last three funerals that I attended. You could say that I’m not a suit person. It hangs loose on my body on account of the large amount of weight I’ve lost in the past couple of years.

‘You’ve put some pounds on,’ says a gor blimey voice, ’You used to be a skinny fella…”

The voice takes a seat across from me at the table and I recognise its owner. It’s also been more than two decades since I saw him and he’s lost his hair – although I’m not one to talk – and grown grotesquely fat. No comment.

‘You look like you’ve lost weight,’ I lie.

The other man rubs his swollen beachball of a beer gut and stares at the floor. ‘Yeah… I’ve been working out…’ he says without a trace of irony.

The stranger from my past withdraws to the bar leaving me at the dinner table to gaze at other faces. In the far corner Nigel Benn is charging 20 quid a shot to be photographed with time-ravaged fans. The former world champion boxer looks trim and wears a stylish striped jacket that would probably look ridiculous on anybody else. He grins and waves a weary fist at the camera. The middle-aged car salesman standing next to him follows his lead for posterity.

On the table closest to me I spot Alan Minter in a bowtie. I doubt you’ve heard of him. A lifetime ago I’d been an 18-year-old waiter serving wine at an event not unlike this one to a bashed up Minter, who had just lost his world middleweight title. Back then I’d been in awe of Minter but now it’s only sorrow. His position at the outskirts of the hall – almost as remote and desolate as my own location – serves as a barometer for just how much people have forgotten his achievements. He’s at the back of the queue now and others have moved forward to take his place.

The speeches begin: on a long table at the front of the hall a smiling Nigel Benn is surrounded by other refugees from days gone by. A retired boxer named Rod Douglas sits close to Herol Graham, the man whose punches put an end to his career. To his right is former world featherweight champion Colin McMillan, as well as an assortment of other ex-fighters whose blurred features remain hidden in the shadows. But I’m not here to see these people. Although they all in one way or another belong to my past I’m here to see only one person. I know he’s coming because the organiser of this tribute to Nigel Benn tipped me off and invited me along. Everybody else seems to know he’s coming, too; it has to be the worst kept secret since someone let it slip that smoking is bad for you.

A whisper from the table: ‘Michael’s here…’ And all at once I can stand it no longer. I climb to my feet and quietly exit the hall. Standing listlessly at the foot of a smartly decorated staircase are two tough looking bouncers. I ask them if they’ve seen Michael and they gesture towards a small corridor to the left of the staircase.

I find myself outside one of my favourite personal indulgences – a disabled toilet. I try the handle. It’s locked. But just as I’m leaving, the door swings open and a large middle aged black man with glasses and greying temples appears. We look at each other for a long moment and I gently say: ‘Michael… It’s so nice to see you…’ My voice is trembling and I’m already weak with emotion.

The man in front of me is slightly taller than I and wearing a freshly-pressed grey suit. He stretches out a huge hand in my direction and cocks his thumb towards me like Paul McCartney greeting his fans.

‘It’s so nice to see you,’ I repeat. I take hold of that giant hand and gently stroke it like a fragile flower.

‘It’s good to see you, too,’ says Michael. ‘Listen, I gotta go now… We’ll talk later.’

He shuffles past me with obvious difficulty into the darkness of the banqueting hall. Heads begin to turn as someone guides Michael slowly towards the top table. The man with the microphone stops talking. It takes several seconds before people begin to understand what is happening.

Back in my seat I watch as Nigel Benn wraps his arms around Michael. Vanquished and victor reunited. A quarter of a century ago Michael had bludgeoned Benn’s exhausted body to the canvas on a memorable night in Finsbury Park but now the pair are caught in a lover’s embrace. The sight is surreal and invigorating and life affirming. I’m breathless and dizzy. Our brief reunion has been so simple. So ordinary. In the days leading up to that moment I had been nervous, restless, full of questions. Would Michael remember me? Would he want to see me again after all this time? But it had all seemed so natural. It was more than I could ever have hoped for.

Still more speeches. Food is served: simple but edible and I make decorative chit chat with the strangers at my table. But I yearn to tell somebody about the miracle that has just occurred. About how Michael and I were once friends. About how he was a young boxer and I was a young writer and somehow we formed a partnership that meant something. About how I went to visit Michael on the night of the of the injury he sustained during a world title clash with Chris Eubank and was warned off by his girlfriend: even though it was I who had introduced her to Michael she still saw me as nothing more than just another journo, come to get his pound of flesh from the stricken figure in intensive care. About how I decided that the best thing I could do was keep away from him, let the ones who loved him do what they could. About how I stopped writing about boxing from that day and never returned.

At last a break in the proceedings and I find myself walking up to where Michael sits alone for a moment or two. We look into each other’s eyes and once again he extends his fist and once more all I can say is: ‘Michael… It’s so nice to see you…’.

Michael looks at me. His face is fatter than it used to be. Ancient scars run like dried up riverbeds above his left eye and across his chin. His hair is sprayed at the edges with white, like fake snow.

And I’m all choking up again: ‘Michael,’ I say. ‘I just want to thank you. You’ve made such a difference to my life.’

And it’s true. When I first met Michael I was penniless and struggling. Because he believed I was able to make a small mark as a sports journalist and then a writer. I owe him a debt that I can never repay.

Michael looks at me strangely. As if he feels a little sorry for me. ‘You’re too emotional,’ he says, his speech slurring. ‘You shouldn’t worry about things so much.’

‘I know,’ I agree. ‘The older I get, the more emotional I become.’

Then Michael moves his head a little closer to mine. He says: ‘I can see that you have the spirit in you…’

Alarm bells ring and I remember that Michael and his family were always religious. I interrupt him: ‘I’m sorry,’ I say, ‘but I’m an atheist. I don’t believe in God.’

‘Neither do I,’ says Michael, either lying or de-converted by his near death experience. ‘But I can see you have the spirit in you.’

‘I’m not sure about that,’ I say.

‘I love you,’ says Michael.

Did he just say that? Did he just say he loved me? My shoulders droop and I think about all the wasted years. I think about the contribution I could have made to Michael’s rehabilitation. I think about what I could have done to help him regain his health. To repay just a little of what he had given to me all those years ago. The regret overpowers me. The sense of betrayal sickens me.

‘I love you, too,’ I say. And suddenly everything is all right. We’ve taken two wildly different routes to arrive here at this hotel in Chingford on a sticky October night but here we are. I’ve watched him live out his life in the media. Seen him on the news collecting his M.B.E. Listened to the crowds cheer as he completed a marathon that took him six painful days of walking. But we’re here now. I’m 53 and he’s 50. There’s still time to rekindle our friendship. There’s still time.

Michael Watson frowns at me as I gently hold that once violent fist of his in my own. ‘What’s your name?’ He asks.

***

Chuffed that this was made Story Of The Week over at ABCtales. For anyone interested it’s a taster of a book I’m currently writing, which I may or may not be able to finish. If I do complete it, the book will be published in 2016. It’s the rather unlikely sequel to this: http://ift.tt/1DEjIG6 which will also be republished in 2016 if things go according too plan. Which at the moment they aren’t.

 

Come to Archway With Words

On Friday 16 October I’m going to be reading excerpts from my kids book ‘Johnny Nothing’ to a press-ganged group of children as part of the annual Archway With Words Festival. Do come along if you want to be deafened by a horde of screaming ten and eleven-year-olds.

It’s also worth mentioning that there are still tickets available for most of the other acts and personalities appearing.

ArchWay With Words Part Three – a 9 day odyssey of fiction, science, comedy, history, poetry, puppets and singing!

ArchWay With Words 2015 has an illustrious line up of ‘superstar authors and spellbinding speakers’. There’s headliners galore with National Treasures Joan Bakewell and Phill Jupitus, Booker winner Ben Okri and the hugely popular and cool historical novelists Jake Arnott and Tracy Chevalier.

Esther Freud, Joanna Briscoe and Matt Baylis lead the literati and there’s another terrific showing for science featuring Simon Singh returning with his original Enigma Machine, Professor Peck of the Antarctic Survey talking about polar biology and the Professor and stand-up comic Sophie Scott on the ‘Science of Laughter’.

As usual AWWW will be showcasing the prodigious local talent with writers Penny Hancock, Callum Jacobs, Heather Reyes and Caitlin Davies all speaking on the first day, but the programming net is thrown very far this year with the finale headed by New York performance artist and recent Fringe First winner Penny Arcade, in a session with punk pioneer Viv Albertine.

This year’s Spoken Word offer features the hottest London talent and is spectacularly headlined with a rare performance from Linton Kwesi Johnson. Biography is well represented too with talks on Alexander McQueen and John Peel, and special interest subjects are clue-cracking with a Times cryptic crossword setter, recordings from the urban hubbub with the London Sound Survey, ‘Hot Feminism’ and experts on the history of protest in the Capital, and London’s best swimming spots including the Thames.

We hear from playwrights Tanika Gupta and Diane Samuels, with the latter undertaking a huge creative writing project that will culminate on the 2nd weekend at Archway Market, on a day of fun with storytelling from Spud & Yam, a performance from a sitar maestro and three booksellers on hand to assist with your reading needs. With 35 events in all, this is another spectacular feast for your mind from AWWW.

AWWW2015 takes place from October 10th – 18th in Archway Methodist Church, Hargrave Hall, the new ‘Bomb Factory’, the nightclub above the Tavern and the Library. Tickets are available at archwaywithwords.com and this year Archway Library will be the very conveniently located box office. Brochures can be found in shops, restaurants and venues.

The ecstasy and the agony – why you should never take ecstasy

Back in the early nineties when ecstasy really was ecstasy not the tepid shit that they sell to the kids these days I smuggled a couple of tabs into Zante. Only two tabs: one for me and one for Marie – enough for her to fall in love with me for a night and me with her. Although I’d lost count of the number of times I’d been carrying I always got a little nervous when I went through customs. However, I prided myself on my originality when it came to hiding things. I’d never needed to swallow anything or shove it up my arse, I was too subtle for that. So on this occasion I individually wrapped the tabs in clingfilm and dropped them into a bottle of thick gloopy yellow shampoo. Then I wiped the top and put a smudge of PVA around the thread. This would add a little authentic stiffness to the lid on the off-chance that an overenthusiastic customs guard should decide to open it. I shook the bottle and held it up to the light. There was no way you could tell it was concealing anything.

Even so, I was sweating a bit when I went through; that musty, under-the-arms kind of sweat that always smells bad. Stupidly, I was wearing a biker’s jacket, a personal statement which guaranteed that I would be stopped and searched at customs. On this occasion they went one step further and pulled me into a little room and got me to empty my suitcase. If I say so myself I showed a great deal of panache as I did so, affecting the resigned but amused air of somebody who was obviously put out by what was happening to him but apparently viewing the experience in a post-modernist existential kind of way. In a display of unfeasible braggadocio I even handed the shampoo to the plump matronly uniformed woman whose job it was to go through my socks and underwear. But she wasn’t interested and eventually waved me away with mock embarrassed shrugging.

Marie was waiting for me by the MacDonald’s with that dumb face of hers sitting blankly atop a body that she appeared unaware of, although this couldn’t possibly be true. She asked me what had happened, which seemed a completely senseless question but for the time being I was content to indulge her innocence and her stupidity. If everything went according to plan I would soon have my hands on that body of hers, which seemed adequate compensation for such admirable patience.

But things started to go wrong.

Inevitably the hotel was a shit-hole. It was damp and smelled of piss. Whatever colour it had once been had been bleached away by the sun. Nothing like the picture in the brochure. And there were two single beds, which fucked me off no end. Worse still when I poured the pills out of their hiding place they had somehow reacted with the shampoo and more than doubled in size. They had become soggy, clingfilmed pouches of shampooey dust that were no good to anyone. I resolved to let them dry out in the sun for a while and curtail my nefarious plans until later. This turned out to be a bad idea because as soon as we hit the bars Marie was immediately surrounded by panting admirers who were oblivious to my presence. And before I knew what was happening she was sitting on the lap of one of them, a seven foot Devonian cavemen who really was Neanderthal, not in the pejorative sense but an actual, living breathing Neanderthal, complete with bone jutting brow, undersized eyes and oversized hands and feet capable of crushing my puny Public School digits. And then he took Marie home with him and presumably had sex with her, leaving me alone to wank away my frustrations back in that shit-hole of a hotel room. That was Day One – surely things could only get better?

On Day Two we did the beaches. Marie in a bikini, inevitably already bronzed. Me in shorts and a t-shirt that made not even a cursory attempt to hide the rolls of fat beneath. I didn’t mention the events of the previous night to Marie in the hope that they never actually happened. The Plan was back on and I was once more Dick Dastardly. We had lunch and then lay together on the sand listening to a radio. I took off my shirt, sucked in my belly and allowed the hot sunshine access to my flabby white torso as I fell into a dream. When I awoke four hours later that torso was still flabby but now it was pink and radiated its own heat source, moreover I was shivering like it was the middle of winter. I spent that second night alone again, trying to keep warm under the flea-ridden bedsheets in the shitty hotel room as everyone else on the island broiled in the Mediterranean heat. Marie was nowhere to be seen.

The next morning hit me with dehydrated agony, every part of my body blistered, my taut skin ready to crack. Unable even to turn my head. Unable to leave the hotel room for fear of the cruel burning sun. Round about six Marie finally rolled in. She had bite marks on her neck and her eyeliner had run to form black tears. She refused to speak and slumped on to her bed, immediately falling into a deep coma. I lay in the next bed listening to her grind her teeth, my balls aching and the rest of me slow cooking, too sore to sleep.

I lost track of time: Marie disappeared and I spent days and days on my own prowling the island. Staying in the shadows like a vampire, avoiding direct sunlight. Sometimes I caught a glimpse of Marie in the distance with her various companions. As well as the tall Neanderthal one, there was a black one, and a white one, and what looked like twins. One time she saw me looking at her and waved at me happily. Not a trace of concern for my well-being on her beautiful face or any regret for abandoning me. As the days trundled by I got drunker and drunker and stumbled blindly into women, desperate for attention, for companionship. Even the ugly ones swatted me away as you might do an irritating tick. However, one woman spent the afternoon with me, drinking my drinks and telling me tales of woe, of unwanted children, of beatings. She was attractive in a proletarian way and my standards had dipped so down below the bar that I would have happily have clambered on top of her. Finally, she asked to borrow money and I gratefully obliged. She said she would go back to her hotel to retrieve her forgotten purse and pay me back straight away. It would only take five minutes, she said. Then we’d get drunk together. I never saw her again.

Gangs of youths in Gazza t-shirts marched the dusty streets squeezing wobbly plastic glasses of expensive cheap flat beer between their brutish fingers. Their yells made no sense to me as I submerged myself in a bottomless lake of alcohol. I swam in that lake and through a heat haze found myself talking to one of these pink-faced youths. The words refused to emerge but I still managed to say something that this person took exception to. He was smiling like an indulgent father as he smacked me hard in the mouth and I jinked to the floor like a cow in a slaughterhouse, blood squirting from somewhere within the roof of my mouth. ‘Fucking cunt!’ he said, the first time anybody had spoken to me in what seemed like a lifetime.

In blood and pain I somehow made my way back to the room. Marie was there applying the evening’s make-up. She looked at me in confusion. ‘Are you having a nice time?’ she asked, frowning at the blood and covering her love bites with a silk scarf.

And then it was suddenly the last day. If I was ever going to enact The Plan it had to be now. The sun had turned the soggy ecstasy into a fine dry powder and I took a shower and dressed myself in clean clothing. I put on aftershave. I cleaned my teeth. My flesh was peeling like a snake shedding its skin but I felt clean for the first time since we had arrived in Greece. Marie looked even more beautiful as she sat across me at the dinner table later that evening. For the first time in close to a week we were actually alone and I was able to put my Oxbridge charm into play, pretending not to talk about money and watching the effect it had on her. I fed Marie glass after glass of gin and her words began to slur as I produced the powered ecstasy and slipped it into her drink. Then I poured the other tab into mine and downed the mixture in one. I grinned.

Marie looked puzzled. Then she looked worried. And then she nervously asked about the powder in her drink. When I told her what it was she didn’t want to know. She had never taken ecstasy, she explained, and nothing I could say or do would make her swallow the contents of her glass. ‘But I’ve just taken it…” I protested in slow motion. I’d just taken the powdered ecstasy and was about to embark on a trip that would last the whole night.

We argued for a while. I tried to make her see sense. But it was a waste of time. And so I did what any sane person in my position would do: I picked up Marie’s glass and drained it too.

Smooth fade:

I find myself standing on a beach. The biggest sun ever seen by the human eye sinks slowly beneath the waves as I’m overcome by a feeling of profound overwhelming absolute love for the world and its entire contents. I wander up to strangers and engage them in the deepest conversations that they will ever be party to. My mind travels at the speed of light. The people around me shrink to the size of pinheads. There is nothing around me but love. Love. Love. Love.

The seconds last minutes. The minutes last hours. Love. Love. Love.

I’m sucked into the midst of a crowd. Every one of them my best friend. Every one of them a stranger and an intimate. We drink and we and we drink and we drink until there is nothing left to drink on the island. But it has no effect on me. I could drink the entire world if I wanted to. I am Jesus. I am God. I am love. Love. Love. Love.

Smooth fade.

There was a loud bang and I woke up on the pavement with a cut on my shin and two pairs of eyes inches from my own. Beside me was a buckled motorbike with its engine smoking, wheels still spinning. The owners of the eyes were shouting at me angrily in Greek. They wore police uniforms. In my MDMA haze I tried to make sense of where I was and what was happening. It is only much later that I realise that I had somehow stolen the bike and been hurtling through the Zante town centre at top speed, lucky not to kill anyone. To kill myself. The shouting continued and quickly escalated. A pair of handcuffs were produced. I was about to be arrested and put in a Greek prison cell.

It was then that a miracle happened.

‘There he is!’ shouted a female voice. ‘He’s always doing this. Give the stupid sod to me and I’ll take him home.’

Four Greek eyes and two English eyes turned in surprise towards the source of the voice. She was in her late twenties, mousey blonde, Essex accent, nothing much to look at.

‘Come on,” she continued. “You two boys can leave him to me… He’s going to get it when I get him home!’

And this was the miracle: I’d never met this person before but she’d been passing by and noticed that I was in trouble. And even more of a miracle: the two Greek policeman put away the handcuffs and did as they were told. As they walked away I picked myself up and thanked my saviour. ‘You all right then, mate?’ she said, moving away from me. ‘See you around…’

And see her around I did. Because lo and behold who isn’t sitting right behind Marie and me on the flight home? And strangely enough, her name is also Marie.

By the end of the flight I was sitting next to the other Marie. And when the plane landed she did indeed take me home, as she had promised the Greek police. And I’ve never left. I even married the girl.

She’s in her late-forties now, mousey blonde, Essex accent, still nothing much to look at. And when dinner is eaten and coffee has been poured we never tire of telling our friends about the the day that we met.

God Save Jeremy Corbyn

Let’s get this straight: I’ve got nothing against Liz. I’ve never met her, I’m never likely to meet her, and I’m really in no position to make personal judgements. Moreover she’s old and wrinkled and has fluffy white hair. And everyone knows that when a person gets to a certain age you’re not really allowed to be nasty to them.

That’s not to say that there are certain things about her that I am not at liberty to comment upon. I don’t like the blue coats, for example – too much like Maggie; and I don’t like the way she waves – although I can understand that it must be quite tiring doing it all day. And I don’t like the voice – although you can’t really blame her for that. And that’s just about it really. Not much of a hate list.

But I do hate everything she stands for. Hate hate hate hate hate hate hate it. Hate to the power of twenty.

I’ve never met her husband and once again I never will. But I’m actually pretty close to hating him. He’s a racist: he makes racist comments. He makes them publicly all over the world. And he seems to be under the impression that we still have an Empire while being totally unaware of the enormous privilege that life has gifted him. He probably smells, too. I don’t like him.

And I don’t much like her sons: The eldest is obviously not the sharpest spoon in the drawer; if you’re to believe the press (yes, alright…) he apparently talks to plant, dreams of eating Tampons and seems to see himself as a self-appointed arbiter of good taste. All harmless good fun. I still don’t like him though. Although not as much as I don’t like his horrible father.

The middle son seems alright as far as he can be. He seems to keep his head down flying women and chatting up helicopters or whatever he does. He survived the recent underage sex accusation, as any celebs must do these days, and he’s not such a baldie as the rest of his brethren. We’ll never be friends but I can’t really slag him off with any great sincerity. In life you’ve got to at least try to be reasonable about things.

Can’t say the same for the youngest son, however. I actually did meet him once and he really did come across as a prime pillock. A prime little pillock flanked by embarrassed looking bodyguards. He’s tried this. And he tried that. And he’s failed at this. And he’s failed at. But then haven’t we all? Still, in fairness it can’t be easy being under the spotlight trying to make your way in the world.

The daughter: well again she’s another who seems to mostly keep her head down these days. She was bigger news in the 1970s, of course, when she won a gold medal for sitting on a horse while telling reporters to ‘naff off’. You’ve got to feel a little sorry for her: she looks even more like Queen Victoria than Queen Victoria did.

That’s the immediate family dealt with. The ones in line so to speak. The rest I steer clear of. If I see an article about them in a newspaper or magazine I generally turn the page over. If they’re on the telly I tend to look away and do something else. I have difficulty naming most of them. I know that there’s a Will and a Harry, although I couldn’t tell you who’s who. I sort of like the ginger one because he seems like someone it would be good to have a beer with. And one of them’s married to someone called Kate, who’s just dropped yet another royal sprog, a future royal baldie with genetic pattern baldness.

But why should I know who they are? Why should anyone know who they are? And why are they still here?

I can’t answer any of those questions because the very existence of a Royal Family in this day and age bemuses me.

That’s not to say that I don’t know how they got here. That’s easy. They got here by killing anybody who happened to disagree with them or had something that they wanted over a period of thousands of years. And they consolidated their power by amassing a ginormous army of bullies and simply marching into other countries and helping themselves to whatever they wanted in order to aggrandise their ‘dynasty’. And when their army of bullies got too big to afford to pay their wages they taxed their ‘subjects’ to death and duly dismantled the catholic church (not a bad thing as it happens) and appropriated all the treasures that the catholic church itself had stolen from thousands of unfortunates.

So I think we’re agreed that the Royal Family got to be the Royal Family because they were better at raping, pillaging and stealing than anybody else. They were the biggest bullies in the playground. That’s not me saying this. It’s a historical fact.

Let’s also agree that whatever power they had has gone. They’re not allowed to kill people anymore and would probably get a very firm rap on the knuckles should any of the dysfunctional bunch ever do so.

And that’s why I don’t want to be rewarded by these people. I don’t want an OBE or a CBE or an MP3 or whatever they call these phoney baloney awards. I don’t want a knighthood, a dayhood or any kind of hood. Moreover, I’ve never done anything of enough note to warrant one. I’ve never kiddy fiddled or made millions singing songs or worked in banks ripping people off and drawing massive bonuses; I’ve never told jokes (I’ve tried, believe me, I’ve tried), I’ve never pretended to be somebody else on stage, I’ve never killed anyone, I’ve never kicked or hit or swallowed a ball for money. I’ve never done anything and more than likely never will. I will never do enough to catch the attention of this murderous family so that they might pin a little bit of shiny metal to my lapel. I don’t have a lapel.

And that’s why I don’t sing their tune. Don’t get me wrong: I’m as patriotic as the next man. On those rare occasions that England score a goal in the World Cup finals I’ve been known to frighten my daughter to death with my drunken shouting. I get all tense when Andy Murray loses. I even paid a fortune to go and cheer some anonymous canoeist go for a dip in a lake during the Olympic Games. But I won’t sing their song.

I don’t believe in God and I most definitely don’t want him/her/it to save our Queen. Because she has no more right to continue breathing indefinitely than anybody else does. So if you want me to sing for my country you’d better change the song (I always thought Bohemian Rhapsody would be a good choice) because I’m not raising my voice in deference to this murderous clan. And nor should anybody else.

Yes, the queen is now old enough to have achieved the ‘bless her’ suffix but that’s as much as she’ll get from me. And from anyone with half a brain. And if she really wants her own personal tribute concert she should go and do what everybody else does to earn one: i.e. get locked away in prison for 27 years or get hungry. Very, very hungry.

And this is why I tip my non-existent hat to Jeremy Corbyn. I don’t want a political leader who wants God to save the queen. The idea is frankly preposterous. I want a political leader with the good sense not to waste time singing pointless inane songs about pointless inane tyrant offspring. So God save Jeremy Corbyn.

This is the world we live in

This is the world we live in:
Where people live and people die,
Where people fuck and people cry,
Where people walk and drive and fly,
And don’t know where or when or why,
This is the world we live in.

This is the world we’re lost in:
Where God is love and God is hate,
Depending on which town or state,
Or street where you originate,
For that is where they seal your fate,
And point you down the road you take,
This is the world we’re lost in.

This is the place we hope in:
Where bombs explode and all the while,
You go to work and try to smile,
And wonder why they want you dead,
Perhaps it’s something that you said?
More likely those who use your name,
To do their deeds and play their game,
Whichever case, it ends the same,
It’s you who is the one to blame,
This is place we hope in.

This is the place we love in:
Where people starve to death in pain,
And children die before they’re named,
For want of but a fist of rice,
That rains down on the bride,
So nice…
…to see that they are having fun,
Lives just beginning, others’ done,
This is the place we love in.

This is the land we dream in:
Where those who have are given more,
And those without are shown the door,
Where rich stay rich, and poor stay poor,
And live their lives below the law,
And kill and rob and maim and whore,
To raise themselves above the floor,
And crane their necks towards the sky,
But never know the reason why,
This is the world we dream in.

This is the land of freedom:
Where actions cost but talk is cheap,
About a megabyte a week,
Is all you need to squawk and Tweet,
And with that you can wipe your feet,
Of all the prayers you should be praying,
The info you should be relaying,
The demons that you should be slaying,
(Only saying…)
This is the land of freedom.

This is the world we live in:
A land of plenty for the few,
The rest of us must just make do,
And try our best to make it through,
This is the world we live in.

The wedding picture

This image was sent to me out of the blue the other day by my mother via Facebook Messenger. It seemed somehow incongruous that a snapshot from a bygone age would arrive in such a thoroughly modern manner. Still. I suppose that we’ve all got pictures like this in dusty biscuit tins somewhere at the bottom of cupboards. But given the events of the last few years this one struck a deep resounding chord with me.
I’m the little chap at the front, by the way, the young fellow in white with the somewhat less than masculine stance. Although in my defence one is never really going to look macho wearing white shorts and a bowtie. I guess I must have been three or four at the time and if I really strain I do actually have some sort of dim recollection of that day, well of those shorts anyway. Standing next to me is my elder sister. We both look so innocent, as should be the way with the very young; she not knowing that she would run away from home at the age of sixteen and be mother to two of her own girls within three years; me never guessing that the shock of hair I was casually sporting at the time would also run away from home by the time it reached thirty.
Standing behind me with an inscrutable expression on his face as he watches, presumably, the best man snog his new bride, is my Uncle Jack. Uncle Jack was semi-famous in Burnley, the location for this picture, for apocryphally playing football for Blackpool, for bearing a passing resemblance to Freddie Garrity of Freddie And The Dreamers fame, and for most definitely possessing a black belt in karate, which he ofttimes used to dispatch much larger men after closing time.
Directly behind him is George Wright, my step-grandfather. Despised by my own father but loved by the infantine me, George was a long distance lorry driver, one-time stand-up comedian and former sheet music salesman on Blackpool Pier. George liked to boast that he always carried £100 in cash. (When he died it was discovered that his stash was actually newspaper sandwiched between a couple of tenners.) George also had a strange penchant for having his Brylcreemed hair combed by yours truly. As a child I would spend hours and hours combing and brushing his hair as he sat and watched TV. He a special stainless steel coiffure set that he would bring out for this purpose. George would literally purr with delight as I did so. It wasn’t until years later that it struck me just how bizarre and possibly perverse this seemingly innocent activity might actually have been.
Before George died of cancer in the 1970s, he paid a visit to our house in Bristol. I remember watching him eat chicken, chewing it to a pulp and then spitting the remains on to his plate because he could no longer keep his food down. ‘I’m getting t’goodness out of it,’ he would explain in the same heavy Northern accent that sometimes advised that the best way to play snooker was to ‘hit it where it shines…’.
Directly behind him in the black bow tie is my father. I’m guessing the tie was the one that he wore when he was ‘singing in the clubs’. A fact that he would proudly remind people of ad nauseum. How I loved and hated and loved and hated and loved and hated my father. He was a source of pride and terror to me; something I’ve never really gotten over. He was an autodidact, a working class hero, an abused child, a Labour councillor, a bully, a sloth, semi-alcoholic. A mass of contradictions that even he didn’t understand. He didn’t understand me either, and probably didn’t even try to.
In the picture he looks handsome and content. When he died last year he was apparently in the running to become mayor of Weston-Super-Mare. For a control freak like him this missed opportunity will have been a source of frustration that he carried to his grave. We spoke maybe five or six times in the last thirty years. How I loved and hated him. How I despised him. How I respected him. How I wanted to be him.
Standing right behind the bride is his wife, My mother. She sought to protect me from my bullying father’s all too frequent ‘good hidings’ by smothering me with love. Literally choking me, squeezing the air out of my lungs with love. For this reason it’s difficult to determine if she’s looking at the bride or actually craning her neck to stare over at me and check that I am all right. She looks pretty in the picture, I think. I like the beehive and remember the choking odour of cheap hairspray that used to saturate the house. When I was a kid I used to think that she was the most beautiful woman in the world. Prettier than Elizabeth Taylor, sexier than Wilma Flintstone.
Towering over George Wright and my mother is Uncle Ken. He was a former Royal Guardsman and stood something like 6’ 4” in an age when 5’ 11” was considered tall. When he left the guards he worked on the trains; sometimes I would be playing football at the end of my grandmother’s street and see the train go by, him standing filthy-dirty in a heap of coal, shovelling it into the burner. When he wasn’t doing this he was drinking. And when he wasn’t drinking he was beating up Auntie Shirley.
If you look over to the right, that’s Auntie Shirley. She dressed as a bridesmaid and even though the photo is old and grainy you can see those teeth of hers that were always her defining feature. She was a naughty girl, was Auntie Shirley, and always mine and probably everybody else’s favourite. Running away to London at 18. Married to her handsome guardsman soon afterwards. Four kids. Lots of laughs. And lots of bruises. I particularly remember the bruises. The black eyes. The split lips. And I recall with crystal clarity the abject poverty that even we were shocked at when we went to her terraced house when I was a kid.
I also remember her kindness: of how I called around unexpectedly in the late-70s and when I said I liked the record she was playing she took it off the turntable and gave it to me without batting an eyelid. She didn’t have much but what she did have she was happy to give away.
And I remember the last time I saw her: about five or six years ago when I visited Burnley and she was in the latter stages of leukaemia. Of how I crept into her bedroom and held the fragile yellow hand of the jaundiced body that lay motionless on the bed. And of my cowardice later when I avoided seeing her again later because it was simply too hard for me to take. I wasn’t strong enough or brave enough to provide her with the comfort that she probably – most definitely – needed.
She’s glowing in the picture, though. Young and cheeky and effervescent and toothy, which is how I’ll always remember her.
To the right of Auntie Shirley is my grandmother. She was a former bus-conductress who fractured her pelvis in a road accident in the 1960s and never worked again. People used to say that she looked like the Queen, and if you hold this picture up against a £20 note you will probably get what they were talking about. She’s even wearing a coat like the Queen’s and holding her handbag in the same manner.
Some said she had Spanish blood in her, others that she was Jewish. Although in truth I can’t even remember where I got that information from, or indeed if I’ve simply made it up. What I do remember, however, is her love for me. And the oasis of safety that she provided for me as a child. I remember her dog, Sheeba; I remember the ornaments on the mantlepiece that used to fascinate me, I remember the bowl of fruit on the window ledge that seemed to be eternally self replenishing.
And her kindness was not only limited to me: when she learned that Uncle Ken’s violence also extended to his children, she took in the eldest, a girl named Lynette, my cousin, and legally adopted her. She brought Lynette up, gave her opportunities that she would surely never have had if she had stayed with Auntie Shirley.
I remember when George Wright died and my grandmother took Lynette and I on a tour of Europe, not wanting to waste the ticket she had previously purchased for her recently deceased husband. And I recall sitting with her in a Dutch bar listening to her explain that the last time she had visited they had played ‘Delilah’ by Tom Jones, a song that George loved. Of course, naturally, inevitably, the song stuck up again the very next instant and I was left to comfort my grieving grandmother in the awkward, clumsy way that only a fourteen-year-old boy can.
Eventually Lynette left home to join the army and years later paid a surprise visit to her adopted-mother-cum-actual-grandmother. And this is what killed our grandmother, who was so shocked to see her darling Lynette turn up expectedly that she had a massive heart attack and tragically died instantly.
These are the people whom I know and remember in this photograph but there are others faces that I dimly recognise. Is that Auntie Florrie standing to the left of Shireley? The little old lady who was actually my great-grandmother, the woman whose house was adorned with home-made rag carpets and who kept a commode in her bedroom? Is that Uncle Jordie on the far left? Auntie Florrie’s quietly spoken husband who worked down the pit and painted exquisite toy soldiers as a hobby? I don’t know but I’m sure my mother will tell me. The woman who has just messaged me while I was writing this to tell me what a ‘bonny little lad’ I was.
Not so bonny any more. Not so bonny…

The Great Tea Wars (2001) – A Modern Parable

It would be an over exaggeration to claim that Ian was delighted when Linsey offered him a cup of tea. Delight was really not the word. Nevertheless Ian was at the very least pleased with the offer: he was new to WMP and Linsey was tall and busty. It was far better than being ignored. Even when the beverage in question arrived and it was rather less than steaming and tasted more like rusty puddle water than anything that had allegedly originated in the exotic Chinese sunshine.
Ian was careful to drink the tea with a cheery smile. Whenever Linsey looked happily towards his desk he raised the cup to his lips and gave the thumbs up like Paul McCartney announcing the breakup of Wings. It was his first day in his new job and already he’d made a friend.
However, little over an hour later Linsey’s happy demeanour began to change. Her smile rotated 180º and the crease of a frown was seen to distort her features. It took a while for Ian to comprehend the sudden change. And when he did he could have slapped himself around the head for being so dim. Of course! What an idiot! Linsey wanted him to return the favour! She wanted him to make her a cup of tea! What a delightful place to work this is, thought Ian, everybody friends together; everybody making each other cups of tea. Why there’ll probably be a biscuit run soon.
Linsey introduced Ian to Sally, a small hunched figure, whose attempts at surgically removing 20 years from her age had left her with a face like a burns victim. Wouldn’t it be lovely, said Linsey, if Ian made Sally a cup of tea as well as making one for her? Wouldn’t it be lovely indeed, agreed Ian. Heading to the kitchen to undertake his side of the bargain.
Ian certainly put some effort into it. He really wanted impress his two new friends. He washed the scum off the cups, warmed them, made sure to use the freshest boiling water and was able to deliver quite possibly three of the best cups of tea that had ever been made in this country since Catherine of Braganza forced Charles II to drink some back in the seventeenth century.
And then it was four: soon Maggie was added to the little rota, and Tom. And Lucy. And Malcolm from the picture library. Debra from accounts. The tea rota quickly became a living, breathing entity. It was like Woodstock all over again. Everybody loved one another and delighted in the creation and consumption of sacred tea. It was a branch of Communism that actually worked. Karl Marx would have been proud – and he would have been delighted with the unremitting quality of brew that was served up. But like all self-perpetuating systems there was a flaw in its flue. And in this case the flaw’s name, amongst others, was Jon.
Jon was in middle management and the wrong side of forty. Like a lot of people of that age he had a face that he deserved, which looked like it had had three previous owners. Like everyone else at WMP Jon was impressed by the exotic flavour of Ian’s tea. And he was also happy to join the rapidly growing ranks of the tea rota. What he wasn’t happy too do, however, was actually make the stuff. Why should I? thought Jon. Somebody else can do it.
Within a fortnight the tea rota had begun to swell out of all proportion. It was beginning to reach an unmanageable size.
The unlucky person whose job it was to make tea for everyone now had to patrol the office with a notepad, writing down the particular likes and dislikes of the tea rota’s members.
Some wanted sugar. Some no sugar. Some wanted milk. Some no milk. Some wanted almond milk, some soya. Some wanted decaffeinated tea, some wanted Earl Grey. Some liked their tea hot, others liked it tepid. Sandra from production refused to drink her tea unless it was in the cup with ‘You don’t have to be mad to work here – but it helps…’ emblazoned on the side. Murray the maintenance man would only drink coffee. It was a logistical nightmare. Something had to give.
Clever, devious people such as the aforementioned Jon from middle management sought to circumvent the tea rota. Whenever it happened to be his turn to make the tea he would arrange it so that he was engaged in a long telephone conversation. ‘Sally, would you mind getting this,’ he would mouth, with his hand cupped over the telephone receiver, ‘I’ll do the next one.’
Of course, there was never a Next One for people like Jon. And he was not the only one displaying a peculiar talent for avoiding tea rota duty. Ian could not help notice that Linsey was always doing something in the Ladies whenever it was her turn. He felt betrayed. It irked him that the person who had been his tea rota co-creator was always in absentia.
Ian began to hate Linsey. It was a gradual thing. Suddenly it did not seem to matter that she was tall and busty. That was purely incidental. The important thing was that the ugly cow never made tea. And as for that wanker Jon in middle management…
The weeks went by and the hatred and resentment swelled like an unlanced boil. The once jovial atmosphere at WMP was replaced by an atmosphere of mistrust and loathing. Woodstock was over and all that was left were empty Coke tins and plastic bottles full of piss. Utopian Communism had been replaced by grim Conservatism in which those who had exploited those who hadn’t. A fuse had been lit. An explosion was imminent.
As always, alcohol was the catalyst for the looming explosion. At the office Christmas party Linsey danced with Jon and neither of them stood their round. Drinks were bought for them with nothing in return. The office separated into two distinct factions. Them that did. And them that didn’t.
After the Christmas break the dids studiously ignored the didn’ts. The didn’ts merely shrugged, as if to say they didn’t care a hoot for what the dids did. Needless to say the dids didn’t make tea for the didn’ts. Civil war was a whisper away.
And then one morning Ian had had enough. Although nobody could have guessed that it was to be the very last time, Ian made one final tea round.

Clutching his notepad he made one last circuit around the office and took down everybody’s last orders:

Linsey, tea, white with no sugar
Sally, tea, black with two sugars
Jon, tea, white at no more than 70º in temperature
Malcolm, tea with lemon
Sandra, Darjeeling, microwaved for precisely 16 seconds and then gently fanned for six minutes
Chris, cream tea with scones made from Yak cream
Trevor, decaffeinated latte with a lactose free chocolate dusting in the shape of a heart with an arrow going through it

And so the list went on. Each person an individual. Every person making their own particular demand. For one last time Ian put the kettle on. He’d been hoping to ask Polly from editorial to do this for him, but she’d gone away somewhere.

Ironically, Jon was the first to notice that something was wrong. He’d already drunk more than half of his cup of tea before he began to cough. At first he thought it was just a tickle but the cough quickly grew worse. And then he felt a painful burning sensation in his throat. As he climbed to the feet in absolute agony, Jon could hear other people coughing. The noise was accompanied by the sound of groaning. One by one the entire second floor of WMP fell to the ground. Within five minutes every staff member was dead.

Everyone, that is, except Ian. Who stood alone, silently impressed that Amazon had been so efficient with his cyanide order. It had only taken a day to arrive and they had posted a card through his door telling him to pick it up from his neighbour when he got home. Ian would certainly use Amazon again.

Naturally the papers couldn’t get enough of it. The story of the  serial killer who wiped out an entire floor of co-workers dominated the headlines for more than a week. At the trial the judge looked at Ian like he was a cross between Ted Bundy and Tony Blair. He was given a life sentence, as well as a lucrative advertising contract with P G Tips.

*****

Life in prison was even grimmer that Ian had imagined. Locked alone inside his cell for 23 hours every day, Ian had plenty of opportunity to reflect on his behaviour. And then, on his seventh day in captivity Ian was finally allowed to interact with another human being. In the exercise yard, a young prisoner approached Ian with a welcoming smile: ‘It’s not so bad here,’ he said. ‘You really do get used to it after a while.’
‘Is that right?’ said Ian grimly.
‘Listen,’ said the other man. ’The name’s Brian – fancy a nice cup of tea?’
’No I fucking do not!’ replied Ian.

Dan’s Dead

It was a dreadful, barren windswept January morning that made you feel like setting fire to your teacher’s underpants just to earn a brief respite from the monotonous despair. The summer was something that had happened to someone else a long, long time ago. The winter winds were a medieval instrument of torture that scourged any exposed flesh, turning white to red and red to blue. The days were shorter than this –> Sentence. The nights went on forever; a lot longer than this sentence even if you filled it with lots of useless inappropriate words such as porridge, ambulance and suppository.

But something was about to happen and if this was an interactive ebook there would be a little button for you to push that made a sound like this: ‘Dum-de-dum-dum-duuummmm!! However, because it isn’t remotely interactive you’ll just have to imagine it.

Nobody noticed Dan as he moved slowly into the school playground. Why would they? He was an unremarkable kind of boy. The sort of kid who wasn’t even a household name in his own household. Ginger hair. Freckles. A nose that never seemed to stop running (although even Dan could never exactly understand what it was running from). Nobody noticed as he picked up the largest stone he could find and lobbed it at a window with all his might. Lots of heads turned towards the crash of shattering glass but not a single person spotted Dan.

Nobody was looking when Dan went up behind Billy Crumpster and gave him a hefty kick up the fat, spotty backside which brought tears to the eyes of the hated school bully. “How’d you like that?” smiled Dan, remembering the years of misery that he had endured at the hands and fists of this walking lump of vitriol and blubber.

“Yooowwwwww’ howled Billy, as a few of his lump-headed cronies tried not to snigger. “If I find out who did that I’ll… I’ll… Murder them!”

Nobody seemed interested when Dan took his place at the back of the classroom to watch in silence as the despised Mr. Nicolas took to the stage. “How on earth did I land myself with an ugly bunch of cretins like you lot!” said the red-nosed teacher in his customary cheerful manner. “If anybody dares to interrupt me I’ll have their guts for garters!”

Mr. Nicolas was Welsh and taught French. Or was he French and taught Welsh? Nobody really knew. He was particularly fond of throwing things at his pupils. By that I don’t mean he threw things at his own eyes. That would be stupid. I mean his pupils Chalk. Rubbers. Pens. Knives. Grenades. Anything that he could get his hands on really. He thought that picking on the kids was part of his job description. If he managed to make one or two cry he considered it a perk of the job. Like many grown-ups he wore a wig – a really cheap one made of nylon that was fixed to his head with superglue from the Pound Shop. Mr. Nicolas thought that it made him look rather fetching in a Hollywood movie star kind of way. Which is why a look of sheer horror spread across his face when he suddenly felt a cool breeze waft across the top of his head and realised that his nylon wig was missing and that he no longer looked like Brad Pitt. “Stop that noise immediately!” he yelled, caught between trying to cup his hands over his shining dome and finding something large and blunt to throw at the roomful of giggling schoolchildren. “If I find out who’s nicked my hair system I’ll make their life a misery!” Adults call them ‘systems’ because the don’t like the word ‘wig’.

Dan had never had so much fun. At break he managed to block all the teachers’ toilets with bubble gum. The headmaster had to roll up his trousers to ungum them and ended up covered in teachers’ poo. At lunch Dan put salt in the sugar bowls and dandruff in the pepper pots that he got from the scalp of ‘Flaking’ Stevens in Year 5.

And nobody had a clue that Dan was behind this wave of mischief.

He was enjoying himself. In the afternoon Dan put chilli powder in horrible Mr. Grimes’ underpants. The PE teacher spent the next hour doing a peculiar kind of breakdance that made the cross country team wail with laughter. Finally he had no choice but to run for a shower that was boiling hot one minute and freezing cold the next. When the thoroughly miserable teacher eventually managed to wash away the chilli powder he was forced to put on a dress. Somebody had stolen his own clothing. Someone whose name happened to be Dan.

Dan had always hated school. It was a place of misery. A place where bullies bullied you. A place where teachers taught you that life might be bad now but you wait until you grow up. But all of a sudden he was having a whale of a time. During the afternoon break Dan set off the fire alarms and turned on the sprinklers in the staff common room. The teachers were deafened and soaked to the skin. And before the final bell sounded Dan had one last trick up his sleeve. As the soggy teachers attempted to rise to dismiss their classes for the day they found they were unable to move. Someone had nailed their underwear to their chairs. You can probably guess who.

By the time that the school began to empty there were a lot of happy smiling faces. Many of the children had never had such a good time. Some such as Billy Crumpster, for example, didn’t look quite so happy. Most delighted of all was Dan. And if anybody who knew him could have seen his face they would have agreed that they had never seen him looking so pleased with himself. For the first time ever Dan had actually enjoyed going to school.

Perhaps being dead wasn’t so bad after all.

Rubber soles – The Shoes From Hell

It is the summer of 1976. The long, hot, scorching summer of 1976. It is the dawn of punk and the inauguration of an upsurge in safety pin sales totally unanticipated by market forces. As we sit swatting flies, rock legends Chicago, Pussycat and Dennis Roussos take turns perching cheerfully at the top of the music charts. But all the talk among those yet to buy their first razor is of the Sex Pistols: the snarling, spitting pop combo from North London shortly to be responsible for a whole generation of bad hair days. There is a wind of change in the air; the sense that something is happening, that something is spiralling out of control, the feeling that nothing will ever be the same again. And there is a man. A thirty-six-year-old man who, for the purpose of this sorry exercise in grim futility, we will refer to as my father.
Even now, the only thing I have to say about that afternoon is: What could he have been thinking? Just what exactly was going through his head?! The more charitable among you might be prepared to put his peculiar behaviour down to some form of mid-life crisis but I’m not so sure. All I know is that with just one – albeit woefully – misjudged action my father managed to wipe away a sizeable portion of any respect that I held for him and become, from my fourteen-year-old perspective, quite possibly the uncoolest man on the planet.
And what was his crime?
I’ll tell you what his crime was but first allow me to backtrack slightly and attempt to provide you with a brief pen picture of the person who committed this heinous violation of good taste. Bear with me for the odd paragraph or two and try to let me put you in the shoes of such a man:
Let’s see… You’re on the wrong side of thirty. You have a wife and three kids. You have a mortgage, a second-hand car and a steady if not particularly well paid job at a local factory. You have a garage – an allotment even – and on weekends you usually go to the pub and meet up with the family to play cards. Very nice, some might say – nothing too unusual but very nice all the same.
Then one day you hear a noise on the radio. A noise that shocks you to your very core. At first it doesn’t even sound like music because it is totally unlike any kind of music you have ever heard before. Screeching, anarchic guitars are wielded like machine guns against drab convention; the singer – if you can call him that – makes no attempt to sing but instead hurls himself at the microphone like some kind of demented daemon. Try as you might you cannot get this sound out of your head; it seems to follow you around wherever you go. Prodding you, nudging you, forcing you to remember a feeling buried deep in the pit of your memory.
Then you see pictures of the originators of this cacophony of chaos: underfed, anaemic teenagers dressed in mutilated clothing, spitting defiance and warm phlegm in the direction of anyone who happens to wander by. And no matter how much you try to ignore these images they will not go away. Despite yourself, you find yourself being drawn towards whatever it is that is occurring. Finally, when you can bear it no more, you take a long, lingering look in the mirror at the person you have become and realise that it all could be slipping away from you. So what do you do? How do you react to the realisation that your youth has been eroded away by mediocrity and routine?
Well, what my father did – according to all available evidence – was to go for a total change of image. Something that would perhaps bring him more in line with what people were wearing at that pivotal moment in sociological history. Nothing too drastic, mind you. Nothing too OTT. Just enough to let everyone know that he had not yet achieved middle-age; that he could be as hip as the next man when he set his mind to it.
***
It was Saturday afternoon. My sister and I were sitting in the living room watching TV when my father arrived bearing the package that contained the physical manifestation of an inner struggle that had obviously been going on for some time. “I’ve got something to show you,” he informed us breathlessly.
Looking nervous and excited, my father began to peel away the brown paper that covered this mysterious object. Whatever it was, I noted, it was oblong in shape.
In many ways it is a great pity that my father had chosen to keep to himself the details of whatever had caused him to take such a radical step. Surely if the Punk revolution was having such an effect on his senses it would have been far better to share this torment with someone else – someone, say, like myself. For one thing, (having read up on the subject) I would probably have been able to advise him on the most suitable locations for the insertion of safety pins; likewise, I may also have been able to offer my opinions as to the most effective means of making one’s hair point northwards (soap, actually, not hairspray or gel). More importantly, however, with a little rumour-mongering the occasion of the unveiling of my father’s new alter ego could quite possibly have evolved into a seminal family event – a Wonder Years moment, no less. A moment etched into celluloid time, such as the occasion in which that little American kid on the programme stole his first kiss, or when his dog died – a moment of extraordinary revelation to be accompanied by several paragraphs of schmaltzy, heartfelt self-awareness, delivered in an apple pie American accent: one of those rare episodes that can bind a family together.
Either that or it would have been even more buttock-clenchingly amusing.
The brown paper fell away and my father slowly began to open the box that he was hugging to his chest like a new-born puppy. What could it contain? What was inside the cardboard receptacle that held the key to the wardrobe of this unprecedented act of reinvention? Were we about to see my father discard the hosiery of establishment and step into the leathers and zips of the New Age? Would he soon be sporting a stud through his nose and a pair of bondage trousers? Just what had he bought?
The box fell open to reveal a pair of very large, very black, platform shoes.
My sister and I began to laugh as the expression on my father’s face quickly moved from one of anxious anticipation to a grimace of confusion and, finally, to one of excruciating embarrassment. Then, as our eyes pleaded with him to put an end to this act of couturiel suicide, he removed his normal shoes and stubbornly manoeuvred his feet into their modernistic replacements.
These were no ordinary platform shoes. With eight-inch heels forged from the purest moulded plastic, they filled the room with their dreadful presence. It was as if someone had scraped away the silver from the shoes that Elton John had worn in Tommy and then sold them to my dad. Already a tall man, his head now brushed the ceiling as he tottered before us and waited for our reaction.
We laughed some more.
***
Being today more or less the same age that my father was when he purchased his tribute to the Glitter Band, it is tempting to claim some form of empathy with his ill-conceived attempt at a makeover. But I simply cannot. Naturally, having myself evolved into someone who teenagers now refer to as ‘middle-aged’, I am not immune to the same sort of pangs, insecurities and gaping chasms in one’s knowledge of youth culture that led my father up the path of insanity. However, even though I am nowadays often forced to lie through my teeth when anyone mentions a pop group that happens to be in the top ten, I still cling to the conviction that, if and when my hormones demand that I make such a transformation, I would likely make a better attempt at becoming someone else than my father did. I would not, for instance, replace my current attire with the tartan kilts and crimson lip gloss of Steve Strange and his band of New Romantics from the early eighties. Nor, for that matter, would I grow what remains of my hair and slip my portly frame into the tight jeans and willowy blouses of Deep Purple circa 1973. I am more sensible than that. At least I hope I am.
Actually, in the end he turned out to be more sensible than that. In fact, the attachment between those shoes and my father was over before the wedding vows had even been spoken. The sum total of their relationship was confined to that Saturday afternoon and that room – and our mocking laughter. Those shoes very quickly took on the status of a one-night stand: stealthily discarded and given rented accommodation amongst the mothballs and copies of Readers Digest at the bottom of the wardrobe. He wore them once and only once.
***
There is, unfortunately, an aftermath to this brief meander down memory’s back alley. Perhaps even a lesson to be learned somewhere along the way. It’s what can happen when the sentimental among us allow our misguided perceptions of what constitutes fair play to take precedence over less ethereal qualities such as good sense and reality. It’s the reward I got for attempting to soften the blow by making it known to my father that those shoes, after all, weren’t as bad as our laughter that day had implied. My intention had been borne of genuine feelings of sympathy concerning his predicament; my desire had been only to make him feel a little better about himself, to restore some of the self-confidence that he had lost as a result of his aborted stylistic metamorphosis. It was the wrong thing to do.
Never being less than a thrifty sort of person, my father took my words of encouragement to be some kind of hidden signal. Extraordinarily, he somehow managed to reach the conclusion that I, in fact, had suddenly and mysteriously developed an overpowering urge for those shoes to become part of my personal property. And so he gave them to me!
The actual exchange of goods was presented to me as a fait accompli; being a constituent of a household in which the less senior members rarely possessed more than one pair of shoes (and one pair of plimsolls or daps as they are known in Bristol (pumps in Burnley)), which were replaced only when they were worn out, my father waited until my current pair were literally on their last legs before furnishing me with the items of footwear that would soon become my life’s greatest burden. Thus in one easy movement that was both cunning, cost-effective and seamless in its execution, my father hoisted the remnants of his afternoon of middle-aged madness onto my shoulders. Or rather, he provided the shoes for me to step into. Instead of reinventing himself, he reinvented me.
And so I spent the summer of 1976 a pimple-faced relic from a bygone age. The prisoner of a pair of shoes that proved an instant conversation stopper wherever I hobbled. Eight-inch heels that steadfastly refused to succumb to my numerous attempts to destroy them on the way home from school so that they would have to be replaced. A chick magnet whose poles had been irrevocably reversed. Unscuffable, unburnable and with an apparently unlimited lifespan, those shoes enabled me to experience the summer of punk from a vantage point many metres above my contemporaries.

A nice surprise

After I posted the second part of my epic ‘My Visit To A Shrink’ here yesterday I happened to check out one of the kind people who posted responses to the piece.

Being biologically dim and off the pace I’d never heard of something called ABC Tales. If you don’t already know it’s a site that invites people to post short stories. So I posted yesterday’s blog and was very pleasantly surprised to discover that it had been nominated as ‘Pick Of The Day’.

I don’t know what the exactly means, but I suppose it’s better than being nominated as ‘Abject Wanker Of The Day’.

Here’s a link:

ABC Tales

My visit to a shrink #2

For anyone out there interested (and I’m not entirely sure that even I am interested) I visited my therapist for the second time on Monday. (Although I don’t know why I’m calling her ‘my’ therapist; she certainly doesn’t belong to me.)

I didn’t learn very much this time (does one go to therapists to learn stuff?) except for one small, very minor thing: I’m really not very good at going to therapists.

Being someone who is pathologically early (she said we’d address this issue at some point in the future if we had time) I was early. She was late. And all of this set my mind off, not necessarily into a panic, but it got me thinking as I sat there in a grubby NHS waiting room next to real sick people. Why was she late? Was it my fault or was it hers? Previously she had told me to wait in a particular place at 10:00 am and she would come to meet me. Had she not shown up because I hadn’t announced my arrival at reception? Yes that was probably it.

I waited until 10:05 and with still no sign of her I decided to be proactive. I would go and look for her.

I’d only been there once before but somehow my radar managed to find her office among the dozens of identical looking others. But as I went to tentatively knock on her door it suddenly sprang open, leaving us standing face to face. If I hadn’t been paying attention and been able to stop myself it’s highly likely that I could have ended up punching her on the nose three times. I don’t know what Freud says about hitting therapists. He probably wouldn’t encourage it,

There was a shocked silence. It was as if by coming to look for my tardy therapist (she’s not mine, by the way, really she isn’t!) I had broken some kind of monumental head-case rule. She looked at me for several long moments, like a granny staring at a mugger, and then she sort of said something like: ‘oh’. I couldn’t be sure. She’s got a very strong Chinese accent.

I broke the awkward silence by apologising for being early and for her being late. I told that there was nothing suspicious about me coming to look for her. Really there wasn’t. I was quite normal actually and I could prove it. Then she asked me to go away and sit back in the waiting room which I said I would but didn’t because – let’s face it – who likes waiting in waiting rooms? Instead I loitered on the stairs outside her office. If I was still smoking I would have had a fag. 

All of this meant a few minutes later when she came to collect me from the waiting room I wasn’t there, I was standing on the stairs. And once again there was an awkward silence as she blundered into me, almost falling over in the process. She gave me another shocked look and another ‘oh’. 

It wasn’t going well.

We went into her office and I politely asked if I could take a seat. She gave me a shrug, which I quickly translated as meaning ‘why are you asking if you can sit down? What a stupid question…’ Or perhaps she thought I was actually going to take the seat, pick it up and exit the building with it under my arm. I apologised for being polite and her silence indicated that there was obviously something uniquely strange about somebody being polite. I told her I was always polite on account of being well brought up. And as the words left my lips I couldn’t help but wonder that if I was so well brought up why am I seeing a therapist about my nasty and abusive father? Then I apologised for apologising.

There was a silence. Then another silence. And then, finally, the silence was broken by another long silence.

We stared into each others eyes. It was very intimate. One of those occasions when you know that if you break the stare the other person has won.

She won. I looked down at my feet and then gathered my senses for another bout of protracted staring. I’d get the bitch this time. Then she finally spoke: ‘What would you like to talk about?’ she asked.

What would I like to talk about? ‘Nothing,’ I replied. 

Of course I don’t want to talk about anything, I explained. Why would I? I’ve only met you once before and you’re expecting me to launch into ‘when-I-was-a-kid-my-dad-was-horrid-to-me’ mode. When I talked intimately, I explained, it was usually with someone whom I knew intimately. Or when there was alcohol involved. Perhaps, I suggested, we could both retire to the nearest boozer and after three or four pints of Guinness I’d talk about anything she wanted. Liberally. Honestly. Word-tumblingly. And in comfort. 

She demurred. Then it was back the silence. And the staring match. 

I talked about Chinese people. It seemed somehow appropriate. Of how I’ve known very few of them in my life. And of how their seemingly innate placidity always made me feel clumsy and unsophisticated around them. She didn’t offer any reaction to my observations but simply continued staring deep into my eyes. Didn’t the woman ever blink?

I talked about my illness. About being an undiagnosed hyperthyroid for several decades and how it fucked up my life. I talked about this at length. I even managed to bore myself. And finally she showed a reaction. She frowned and in so many words told me to stop ‘telling stories’ about myself and articulate my real feelings. She said that my illness was undoubtably a direct result of my childhood. 

Now it was my turn to frown: such a comment seemed like a childishly simplistic cliché. But I didn’t get time to tell her this because instead I was launching into a description of Phatic Communion – a form of communication in which words were used not to communicate but to fill empty spaces. She said she’d never heard of it but that I was doing it now. Of course I was, I told her. Naturally I was.

I told her a few jokes, which she didn’t find funny. I told her the same jokes, slower this time, having decided that I was talking too fast for her the first time. They still weren’t funny. Fortunately, I was not paying for any of this. David Cameron was.

When she wasn’t staring at me she was staring at the clock, whose fingers stubbornly refused to move and then decided to move at x10 speed. And all of a sudden, just as I was beginning to tell her how my father never allowed me to have friends as a child, it was all over before it had begun. An object lesson in how to waste an hour of your life in the most unenjoyable, awkward way imaginable.

I got to my feet and held out my hand. Once again she looked appalled. In therapist land shaking hands was obviously another monumental faux pas. I apologised for attempting to shake her hand, telling her it was because I was well brought up.

Then I apologised for apologising. Better luck next time, I thought, as I headed for the pub and the pint of cold, frothy Guinness that awaited my arrival.

Three hours later another therapist was listening patiently to my life story, gently pouring me placative pints and offering me the occasional packet of crisps.