Harnessing the Inner Moss

July 3rd, 2009

As a driver, my performance on the road is fairly unspectacular.  I am steady, reliable and obey the Highway Code; and a ride out with me is guaranteed to be largely unexciting.  Think Val Doonican, rather than Steve Tyler.

This wasn’t always so.  It wasn’t too long ago that I used to drive with a certain dedicated ferocity and my average journey would be enriched by excessive speed, unnecessary risks and a level of road rage that would make Vinnie Jones look like John Inman on a charity fun run.  But a series of accidents – or, rather, consequences – led me to re-evaluate my driving technique.  Having faced mortal annihilation on more than one occassion – and being now the proud bearer of 11 points on my driving license – I have become a very safe, very cautious driver.  Ruth gets embarrassed of it.  She’ll generally sink down in her seat as she tells me, in her inimitably forceful way, that the traffic is starting to queue up behind us.  It leaves me unphased.

The last crash I had was on the M4, near Swindon.  Having written off my Renault Laguna in spectacular fashion just a month or so previously, I had purchased a knackered old Fiesta.  It was a 1.1L (for Laughable).  My thinking was that I couldn’t possibly speed in this car, as it wouldn’t go fast enough to allow me to do so.  It seemed an excellent car, therefore, to ensure that I would behave myself on the nation’s highways.  When I told Ruth, proudly, that I had bought a 1.1L (for Laughable) Fiesta, as a way to curb my dangerous driving, she told me that I should learn to control the car, rather than letting the car control me.  It wasn’t the warm gush of support I had been angling for – but I was still proud of my strategy.

Unfortunately, as well as being slow, my 1.1L (for Laughable) Fiesta was also pretty knackered.  Consequently, it didn’t always stop with the immediacy one would hope.  Thus it was, my accident on the M4 saw me trying to gain anchorage before I hit a stationary articulated army tank transporter, which had come to a halt in the slow lane.  In the words of The Right Reverend Bishop O’Reilley, winner of the 1951 Beano Home-Made Carty Championship, the will was there, the brakes were not.

It was an impressive crash, even if I do say so myself.  The height of the trailer was such that I saw immediately the possibility of being casually beheaded, as I cruised towards the 42 tonnes (unloaded) of uncompromising Nemesis.  Fortunately, I was, by this time, accomplished enough in these situations to assume the crash position with easy resignation.  This position put me, thankfully, just below the beheading threshold.  Needless to say, my Fiesta 1.1L (for Laughable) wasn’t really an equal match for an heavy duty army vehicle and my car came out the least triumphant of the two.  In fact, it was royally knackered.  The whole front end was crushed, the roof was crumpled, the windows smashed and the front axle snapped in twain.  I think I sustained a puncture, too.

On this day, the police, not for the first time, won my affection.  Along with a lorryload of army lads, I managed to move my wrecked Fiesta 1.1L (for Late Deceased) on to the hard shoulder.  The police arrived and I was escorted to the patrol car.  Sitting in the back seat, I was breathalysed, questioned and all the usual gubbins.  I do like that word, “gubbins”! :-)

I was told that I was liable for a charge of careless driving, because I had clearly not been reading the road.  I wondered about trying the hereditary road-dyslexia defence, but thought better of it.  Anyway, on being told that I was to be charged, I realised that my days on the open road were numbered.  The police officer – a lovely lady indeed – asked me if I had any points.  I sheepishly told her that I did.  She asked me how many.  Eleven.

The way she nodded, put her notebook away and uttered the careful words, “We’ll just leave it, shall we?”, will stay with me forever.   The woman was an angel.  And angel in a flourescent jacket, driving a car that looked like a jam sandwich.  When she gets to the pearly gates, if St Peter doesn’t let her in, I will kick his arse personally.

So anyway, I have become a safe driver.  I keep to the speed limit and I read the road conscientiously.  I do not suffer road rage any more, because my driving is so steady, that I am in permanent control of my temper.

But you know what really gets on my nerves, regardless of this?  It is the way other drivers let loose their inner Stirling Moss, with incomprehensible timing.  When I am on the motorway, I don’t mind people going fast - if they are in the appropriate lane and they’re considerate of other drivers.  I trundle along like a bumbling old fool, watching them disappear in to the distance,but they do not annoy me.  Good luck to them, I say.

And when people tailgate me, I find it mildly irritating, but I can deal with it.  I pull out of their way at the earliest opportunity and watch them disappear, again, in to the far distance.  I don’t mind.  They just don’t want to be stuck in the car and they want to get to their destination as quickly as possible.  I can understand that.  I sympathise with it, whole heartedly.

What annoys me, is when I pull out to overtake someone in the slow lane and, just as I am creeping past them, they release their inner Stirling Moss and put their foot down.  It happens all the time and I just don’t understand it.  I know that my speed is constant, because I use my cruise control (helps me behave, and keep to the speed limit).  So they must speed up, when they realise I am overtaking them.   I don’t think it happens to other drivers – though I may be wrong, here.  It just seems to be me.  People must take umbrage (”umbrage”!  “gubbins”!!  Will the fun never end?) to being overtaken by a fogey-flavoured maroon Mondeo.  The bottom line is that I seem to spend way too much time pulling out to go past a car, only to watch it suddenly speed off in to the distance, leaving me to pull back in to the slow lane feeling that I have left a job half-finished.  It is like sex without a climax.  As a driver, I have lost the ability to ejaculate successfully.  I’m a Tantric driver.  I am the Sting of the road.

Chisel.

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Astral Projection

June 27th, 2009

So there I was yesterday, on a hot afternoon, sitting in a traffic jam in London.  I’d finished my last appointment of the week and I wanted to get home.  Such was the traffic situation, however, that I was beginning to think home was about as realisable an ambition as Britney’s determination to split me and Ruth up, and have me to herself.

The radio afforded me no pleasant distraction.  As much as I respected Michael Jackson, the radio stations were all passing comment and frankly, had nothing to say.  It had got to the stage where the news reporters, knowing there was nothing further to say on the matter – but unwilling to move on to other news items – decided it was perfectly legitimate to start rolling out vox pop comments on the tragic news.  So it was, I heard tearful Americans dragging up horrific cliches (I actually heard this one) like:  It was the day the music died.  Can you believe that?  And when the usual ego-led comments started coming out from – predictably – Bono, McCartney, Madonna and front-line politicians who, frankly, should know better, I nearly suffered terminal spontaneous combustion.  And the radio knew silence for the rest of my journey.

I was rendered, existentially, in limbo.  Stuck in London, not moving, with nothing but the sound of countless idling engines filling the air around me.  Oh – and the angry sounding of car horns.  Because even though we weren’t moving, there were probably little territory battles going on, so small as to be imperceptible.  Drivers battling over mere inches, in the sorry belief if they could move their car forward by a foot, they’d break the traffic jam and find the open road.  I’m telling you – it was a stalemate situation, woven in to the jaded fabric of hope.  It was like the Somme, in there.

And my mind wandered.

I started thinking about astral projection.  How cool it would be, I thought, if I could learn to astrally project.  I would be the most efficient, most laid-back – and most instantly recognisable – sales rep on the block. 

So here is the scenario.  It’s a Friday afternoon and I am due in central London for a two o’clock appointment.  Usually, this would involve having to leave a goood two hours in advance, battling the London traffic, fighting for a parking space and turning up at my meeting hot, stressed and bothered.  Not to mention the static “journey” home.  But if I could astrally project, I could trundle down at my leisure.  A few minutes before the meeting, I’d still be at home – probably just finishing a nice brew.  I’d don my suit, get myself in to the lotus position, relax my body and free my soul.  I’d attain the sufficient level of focussed self-awareness and wait for the inevitable.  Soon enough, my astral self would detach itself from my body and I’d be air-borne.  I’d fly through the walls of the house, zip up to the A14, zoom down the M11, cut through the London traffic and get to my meeting with minutes to spare.

Floating casually in to the conference room, I’d hover my way through the meeting, in the lotus position.  Other than the slightly quirky self-presentation, it would be great.   I’d be relaxed, focused and able to give my full attention to my customers.  Then, at the end of the meeting, I’d float away gracefully and cruise back to Cambridge.  I’d be home minutes after the close of negotiations.  Perfect.  They could have a proposal almost as soon as I’d left the room.

How I’d love to bomb up the M11, swerving through stationary traffic, watching the expressions of unhappy resignation on my fellow salesmen.  No doubt I would get some funny looks (not least because people would wonder how I could travel at such speeds without my tie flapping in the wind), but I could cope with that.

I have read about astral projection in various Hare Krsna pamphlets and through the eyes of devoted fakirs.  With all due respect to the devotees, I personally believe they are coming at it from the wrong angle.  The peak of their ambition, in terms of astral mobility, seems to be to visit other planets.  I admit that this would be fascinating and would definitely be worth doing – but only for a quick visit.  There can’t be much to see.  It’s a bit like being on holiday.  If you’re on holiday, visiting a new place, and you drive past (for example) a Motorcycle Museum, you might decide to pop in for half an hour.  It’s not the reason you went on holiday; but it might prove interesting as a short distraction.  And so it is with Astral Projection.  If you’re in the area, pop over to a planet for a butcher’s – but don’t make it the final point of destination for your liberated soul.

The practical benefits of astral projection are manifold.  Easy sales appointments are one possibility.  But what about your value as a spy?  Or as a reconnaissance party for the emergency services (perhaps the fire service need to know if anybody needs rescuing from a burning building, before they risk their own lives by going in)?  How about being a news reporter, able to get to any scene, anywhere in the world, in the blink of an eye?  And what about the theatre?  It could take special effects in the theatre to new levels, if the actors were able to fly around the stage – even over the heads of the audience – at will.  Indeed, it could stimulate a whole new alternative theatre genre.  The possibilities are endless.

But let’s deconstruct this further.  Let’s get on to the real reason anyone would really want to astrally project.  The Perv Factor.  Call me old fashioned, but if I learned to astrally project, the first thing I would do would be to get over to Britney’s house and hide in the wardrobe.  In body, I would look like your archetypal fakir; but my face would be pure, unadulterated Sid James.  It would be great!  If you could astrally project, you could perv on anybody.  And that warrants a smiley: :-)

I suppose that’s where this whole thing breaks down.  I’d never make my meeting in London, because (for example), Nigella Lawson lives just around the corner from my client – and I’d sooner watch Nigella lick a spoon in the abandoned privacy of her own home (I bet she’d go to town on it), than I would discuss the future of a client’s IT infrastructure.

This must be why fakirs always look so unhappy.  They have learned to project their astral self, and suddenly a universe of possiblities has opened up to them.  But their very reason for learning the art of astral projection – as an act of worship – precludes them from using the skill for illicit purposes.  No doubt this is why, when you visit a Motorcycle Museum, you see so many fakirs wandering around, taking a real interest.  This also explains why they try to hurt themselves by laying on beds of nails and walking over hot coals.  It’s a severe form of self-punishment for depriving themselves of pornographic Britney; and for closing the door on Nigella in flagrante delicto with a spoon.  I’d so the same.

Anyway, I’m going to go and try it out.  Britney, get the kettle on.  I’ll be over in ten minutes.

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

The Eclipse of Glory

June 26th, 2009

Matt.  Sean.  Nice to see you here.  Sit down.  Have yourselves a brew

*                    *                    *

For anyone who has ever taken an interest in affairs of The Stef, it will be known that I have been the pointy end of Mother Nature’s randomly placed malevolence  for many years.  The woman hates me.  She loathes me.  I don’t know what I ever did to earn her bitter animosity, but she uses it to beat me severely ‘pon my jaded arris, as she chases me round the crazy golf course that is My Life.  I am the termite to her indeginous African tribesman that feeds off of hapless termites.

History has shown that she will use all of the weapons in her arsenal to bring misery upon my life.  Usually, this comes in the form of biological warfare.  She will wait until the optimum moment – when I have a gig, when I have a job interview, when I have an important presentation – before using her skills and cunning to bring me down with hayfever, a cold or the bubonic plague.  Sometimes she will use other powers in her remit.  The weather is particularly favoured.  If I’ve planned to do something nice outdoors, she’ll make it rain;  if I have to stay inside to finish some important work, she’ll bring out the sun to torment me;  if I forget my coat, she brings the snow;  if I leave the house with wet hair, she can’t resist summoning the four winds and giving me a ghastly look that puts one in mind of what Adolf Hitler would have looked like, had he been a flower-power hippy with bed-hair.

I’m never surprised when she pulls out something new to try my resilience.  Last night, she hit a new low.  It was way below the belt, even by her standards.

So here’s what happened.  The band had a gig last night and we had the unbelievably good fortune to get Don Airey on the stage with us.  Don Airey!  An incredible musician, a keyboardist of the highest order – and a genuine 24 carat rock LEGEND!  Not only did we share the stage with this icon of rockliness, but we did a couple of acutely Airated numbers with him.  You couldn’t wish for more (unless your wish involved Britney Spears, Sarah Palin, a cucumber and a pot of strong tea).  It is the kind of thing that humbles any musician and the smiles upon that stage said it all.  We were the cat not only that got the cream, but was also given a packet of mouse-dips to help soak it up.  I won’t bore with details;  suffice to say it was a very special night for all of us.  Five lads “done good”.  Street urchins, one and all, who had risen from the pavement of obscurity, to the dizzy heights of esteemed Rockvana.  I couldn’t help but think (as I know we all were thinking):  If only Anne Widdecombe could see me now.

So anyway, it might be imagined that we were somewhat post-coital when we finished the gig and came off stage.  We had played with Don Airey and, the gig at an end, it was time to lap up the glory from an awe-struck audience.  I remember thinking, as I came off stage:  We will be adored.  We have played with Don Airey.  We will be worshipped and revered by our gushing public. 

And then I remember thinking:  The only thing that could possibly eclipse this, would be if Michael Jackson died!

And guess what?

When we oozed our bandly way in to the audience to lap up some of that adoration, we discovered that the one thing – the one thing – that could possibly overshadow our incredible achievement, had happened.  Michael Jackson had died.  And so our desperate attempts at self-promotion began; and so they fell flat.  “We’ve just played with Don Airey!”  Said we.  “Michael Jackson has died.”  Said they.  I knew immediately that she was behind it.  I mean – how often does Michael Jackson die?  Never!  And yet the one time we have something special to celebrate, he’s whipped away like an old sheet.

She’s an evil, horrible woman.  Just to get at me, she took away one of the world’s great talents.  That’s bitter.  He’s had some rough times – as David Milliband was supposed to have said on Twitter (he’s denying it, but I stick with my conviction), “never has one soared so high and yet dived so low”.  And who is in a more authoritative position than David Milliband to pass informed comment on an international pop icon?  But I hoped, as did so many of us, that he would redeem his reputation, after so many years of negative press.  He could have done it; but she took that chance away from him.  She wants locking up.

I have such high regard for Michael Jackson.  I always have – as have the majority of people in my generation.  I am so very, very sad that he has died.  But let me say this.  While the entire world mourns today, and the air is thick with talk about the Prince of Pop, five lone voices will be piping proudly from the sidelines.  And they’ll be saying, “We played with Don Airey last night!”

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Becoming Meek

June 25th, 2009

When I look at my life, I do have to wonder how I have hit my mid-thirties and yet have not managed to attain a single one of my life’s ambitions.  In fact, when I look at it, I am a microcosm of the Stef I hoped to be at this stage.

There were a few very basic aspirations, to which I looked forward.  I was going to be a published writer.  I wasn’t looking for acclaim or literary status;  I just wanted to make loads of money from sitting on my posterial lobes, like every other writer.  I wanted to bring out a novel every couple of years, do a few book signings and enjoy a loyal fan base that would keep me in a lifestyle to which I would become accustomed.  I had some pretty good ideas, or so I thought.  It would simply be a case of putting pen to paper – or fingertip to keyboard, as it has now become – and producing something.  The rest would be a walk in the park.

Well, that didn’t happen.  Put fingertip to keyboard I did.  Three novels I have written.  Three.  And they have all now become aware of eachother and fallen in to a competitive mode of existence, in which they all intend to be the last to get published.  It has led to inertia in my publishing success.  I send them out from time to time, but in accordance with their petty need to get one up on eachother, they make every effort to create a bad impression on the publisher.  I could wallpaper my front room with the rejection letters I have had.

The funny thing is, I don’t want to be published now.  I have had some interesting insights in to the world of publishing and it is not for me.  I even got close to being published, once.  But to do so, I would have had to make some serious concessions in my writing subject.  I would have to steer away from folklore, mythology and the supernatural; and move towards crime.  Here, I was told, I would find success.  Crime is a booming market and publishers are willing to take a risk on a well-written crime novel.  However, to tap in to the existing audience, it has to be full of cliche.  I started to comply, e’er hopeful of an easy buck and an easy life – but it was so tedious that I gave up and wrote about Herne The Hunter having a personality defect.  That was much more fun.

So my aspiration of making a living from writing fell flat on its rectal cushions.

Fortunately for me, it was the second prong of a two-pronged strategy for a Stefonically rich existence.  If my writing failed, my music would not.  Of this I was certain.  I have played in pubs and clubs since I was fourteen.  I have played with some fantastic musicians, of all abilities and temperaments.  I have faced down audiences of disgruntled metal heads and enjoyed the adulation of thousands.  I have covered just about every musical genre there is and have written original material for the more discerning spectator.  It was the apprenticeship I always expected, to make it big in music.

I grew up reading about my heroes.  The Rolling Stones.  The Beatles.  The Who.  The Faces.  Status Quo.  And what struck me was the apprenticeship they all served.  Prior to becoming huge multi-national rock stars, they all cut their teeth in dingy pubs and clubs.  Read any book about these bands, and you’ll be struck by the unglamorous life they once led.  To become a rock star, you have to drive around in knackered old vans, hump heavy amps in and out of clubs, deal with tough audiences and no audiences at all.  You have to put up with difficult landlords and poor facilities.  It’s a hard life; but given the end result, it is a romantic life.  It is a journey from rags to riches.

Over twenty years, I have been doing this.  I’ve played the dingy clubs.  I’ve dealt with the difficult landlords.  I’ve dealt with tough audiences.  And I have humped amps in and out of so many venues that I have lost count.  Over twenty years I have been doing it; and I am still doing it.  I haven’t found fame.  I haven’t found fortune.  I haven’t found riches.  I continue to wear rags.  As I travelled faithfully along the road to stardom, I must have missed the vital turning and am now headed along the A361 to obscurity.  To coin that sage of the stage, Leo Sayer:  Buggeration.

And so that’s how I have become a microcosm of what I was hoping to be.  I still write, but my audiences are smaller than 5.  I don’t make a penny from it and the only person it gives enjoyment to, is His Royal Stefness.  I still play music, but I’ve no acclaim.  I’m slowly evolving in to a sad git who plays the pub circuit and thinks he’s cool.  Actually, I don’t even have the comfort of that illusion.  No way do I think I’m cool.

So it is, I have decided that it is time to fall back on my Final Contingency Plan.  I always had this stashed away in my back pocket.  I didn’t want to use it, but Life has left me with no option.  If I want status, if I want money, if I want an easy life, it is the last option available to me.

The meek shall inherit the earth.  – Matthew, 5.5

I am going to become meek.  I am going to go hammer and tong at it and make every effort to attain the heights of meekness.  I want to be so impossibly meek, that when I walk down the street people will turn and say – “That was, beyond doubt, the meekest man I have ever seen.”  I am going to ooze meekness from my every pore.  On my face I will wear a permanent expression of meekness; and I will walk with a meek and feeble gait.  I am going to be pitifully meek.  So meek will I be, that people will feel sorry for me and wonder how I cope with the rigours of life.  And such will be my meekness, such an impression will it make, that I will stick in people’s minds and when they get home, they will tell their families about the meek man they saw.  Parents will hug their children, thankful that their spawn was not cursed with meekness.  Children will taunt eachother with direct reference to that weird, pathetic man they saw; they will call eachother “meeky” and in their mind’s eye, they will see a picture of me.  I am going to embrace meekness.  I will live it, eat it, sleep it, worship it.  I’ll get a dog called Sorrow and a budgie called Despair.  I might also get a tortoise, but I’ll call him Barney because that is such a cool name for a tortoise.

When I have attained the heights of meekness, I will sit back and wait for my inheritance.  I will have the last laugh.  I am going to inherit the earth.  The world will be my croissant.  What I’ll do with it, I have yet to decide.  My current plan is to sell bits of it off and make a fortune; then I can live the life of untold wealth for which I believe I was destined.  But I am well aware it may not stop there.  Effectively, I’ll be international dictator.  There is every chance that power will go to my head and I’ll impose my rules and beliefs on the world.  Where this would take civilisation, I hesitate to speculate.  What I do know is this:  People would not stand for ten minutes in a supermarket, queueing at the till, only to act surprised when they are told they have to pay, and then spend the next ten minutes rummaging around in their bag, for their purse.  Nor would they wear those weird plastic shoes with holes in them, that seem to have become the apex of civilised fashion.  Nor would they expound the virtues of Harry Potter, as though it was the only good children’s book ever written, when there are hundreds of others that simply haven’t benefitted from the omnibus of hype and the Penny Farthing of fickle fashion.  Nor would they turn every sentence in to a question, in line with the new way of speaking that is the result of the crude matrimonial dance between years of linguistic indoctrination through watching Neighbours and the final realisation of a centralised communications infrastructure that has been embodied in students and is spreading across civilisation like some kind of cultural syphillis.  All of these offences will be punishable by death.

Oh no.  Ruth’s going to go mad.  I’ve just dropped a teabag on the floor and I think it’s stained the carpet.

Despair, Sorrow and Barney - Fitting pets for the meekest of men

Sorrow, Despair and Barney - Fitting pets for the meekest of men

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

A Rude-Boy Combine Harvester

June 15th, 2009
I’m feeling pretty low.  So I am going to penetrate the cake of Steffonic fantasy with the cake-knife of indulgence and cut myself a big slice, for immediate consumption.

As sad as it is, I have a weakness for combine harvesters.  I love them.  They are such a cool piece of machinery.  They are a perfect expression of functional technology built, as they are, for a specific purpose, with nothing about them superfluous to needs.  And in the economy of their build there is a beauty.  I love the lines, the angles, the almost unshapely square cab, the big fat tyres.  I love the way you can attach different modules to bring different levels of functionality to the combine.  Reap.  Thresh.  Separate.  Bale.  Spread. 

Bloody marvellous.  We’re talking agricultural perfection here.  The daddy of rural technologies.

Poetry in well-engineered motion.

Poetry in well-engineered motion.

I used to live in a cottage in Devon and the front door opened directly out on to a small country lane.  It was a thoroughfare for combine harvesters and I loved it.  I could gaze out of the bedroom window and look down on them, as they bounced past.  And they do bounce.  Combines bounce!  Sometimes, because of a badly parked car, they wouldn’t be able to get past.  At such times, they would often idle outside of the cottage.  Can you imagine?  I was able to stroll out with a cup of tea, and just admire this great growling beast crushed up against the front of my cottage.  They have a big lumbering modesty about them that just draws affection.  They are like the cheeselog of mechanisation.  Cheeselog, if you don’t already know, is the Reading vernacular for a woodlouse.  Woodlice have regional names, across the UK (in Devon, for example, they are called Chiggy-pigs; in Somerset, they are known as Billy Bakers).  They have more regional names than any other creature.  That’s a fact.

But I digress.

So I have just penetrated the cake of fantasy with the knife of keen indulgence.  And as I draw out my plump, spongey slice….guess what I am seeing?

The ultimate combine harvester.  Here’s my fantasy.  I want to be a rude-boy, in a combine harvester that will pull the women and have all the guys salivating with envy.  I’m talking a top-of-the-range John Deere or Massey Ferguson – but with modifications that will give me status “in the ‘hood”.  I’m going to have the windows tinted;  lower the suspension;  add twin chrome exhausts, and take out the muffler so this baby ROARS.  I’m going to have the most ginormous alloy wheels known to chav-kind and I’ll buy a body-kit to include a spoiler, sideskirts and a raised air-intake on the bonnet.  Furthemore, I will have those neon blue lights underneath the combine, so that as I cruise down the road – and pull in to the carpark of my local KFC – I will make a statement.

Yeah.  That’s my dream.

I don’t feel lifted at all, but I’ll hold the vision close to my breast as some kind of cold comfort in this time of darkness.

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Training the mind, Lesson 2: Resignation

June 14th, 2009

Following on from my last post, I have categorically proved that positive thinking is a pile of steaming defecation.  At this moment in time, I am fuming.  Fuming.  I wanted to illustrate my current mood with a picture of a kettle, to suggest that I am at boiling point.  But then I realised that in fact a kettle has homely connotations and would belie the strength of my rage at this moment.  I then thought that maybe a volcano in full eruption would be a great metaphor for my rage.  But even that powerful image has its drawbacks, often being seen as a concise metaphor for male ejaculation.  While this might be seen as a positive thing – particularly for the ejaculator in question – for the woman who is scared of getting pregnant or for the innocent chap serving the said ejaculator his pie and chips, it is nothing less than disturbing.

I don’t know.  Perhaps there isn’t an image powerful enough to reflect my current state of mind.  Except this one:

Was e'er there a man with a blacker heart?

Was e'er there a man with a blacker heart?

So why have I got the hump?  Well, I had a gig last night.  It was an absolute disaster. 

I came down two days ago with something tantamount to the bubonic plague and while this gave me some anxiety as to whether I would be in a fit state to do the gig, I remained positive that in fact all would be fine.  I hardly slept a wink on Friday night because the plague was slowly but surely drawing the veil of mortality over me and I could feel my time on this Earth drawing to a close.  However, Death “his scythe did not to me introduce” and I witnessed Saturday’s dawn with tired eyes, but a determined spirit.

I spent yesterday doing all I could to get myself in to a fit state for the gig.  My voice was ropey, so I rested it all day.  I spent an hour in the steamroom at a leisure club, relaxing and lubricating the vox box.  I drank more concoctions than I care to think about – honey, lemon, orange, Ibuprofen, Paracetemol, Berocca.  I chewed on cloves and spent a fortune on some special honey that has excellent medicinal quaities.  I told myself all day that all would be well for the gig.  When I got to the gig, our keyboardist – a fantastic GP with a comprehensive knowledge of the secrets of many an olde wifes poshion – did all he could to alleviate my plague.  He has pulled rabbits out of the hat before and frankly, if he can’t cure it, no one can.

Now what I want to make absolutely clear is that I was positive about the gig all day.  I didn’t want to let the guys down; I wanted the gig to go well.  Had I been of a negative disposition, I would have called it off yesterday morning.  But I didn’t.  Because I was positive.

The gig was an utter shambles.  My voice went for a Burton and I managed maybe four songs.  Badly.  Really badly.  Susan Boyle, who I keep seeing everytime I open a newspaper; while she has (so I am led to understand) a good voice, by rights her voice should match the way she looks.  In short, she should sound like Regan from The Exorcist.  Well, that’s pretty much how I sounded last night.  I sounded Boylesque.  Matt (said doctor) took over for a few songs, but we were doomed to suffer the indignity of a failed gig.  We packed up and left, in disgrace.  Despite my positivity, my voice failed me and the gig was a non-event.  Positive thought, as I have said, is only relevant to people to whom positive things happen.

And, by the grizzled beard of God, the loss of my voice wasn’t all.  I hit an invisible kerb last night on the way to the gig and now need to get a new tyre for my car.  And for absolutely no reason whatsoever – beyond pure spite – my guitar shed a bolt last night, which attaches the strap to the body of the guitar.  I picked up the guitar to do a song (thinking that if I couldn’t sing, at least I could play) and the strap just came away, swinging proudly through the air like a willy on a nudist beach.

Positivity my butt.  In terms of dealing with my luck and the knackered hand that life deals me, I can either get angry (which will please life immensely because my anger will be futile and I will just get frustrated) or I can wear the duffel coat of resignation.

And so it is.  I have retrieved the duffel coat of resignation from its hook in the cloakroom of despair and even as I type, am fumbling with the varnished toggles to fasten it securely to my plague-ridden bodkin.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Training the mind, Lesson 1: Positivity

June 12th, 2009

I saw a talk a couple of days ago, delivered by a motivational speaker.  He was a great speaker, very entertaining.  He was also very persuasive in his recommendations for a new approach to life.  He made a big deal about positivity and while it was nothing new – motivational speakers all say the same things, in different ways – it gave me food for thought.

However, on reflection I have decided to continue following my own tested approach to positivity.  I am positive, and I always have been.  Experience has done much to justify this positivity.  Where I differ to any motivational speaker, is that I am positive things will always go wrong.  And they always do.

It is easy to play the piano of positivity, when you are born under a good luck star.  Motivational speakers and all such nauseatingly positive people have, I guarantee, lived a blessed life.  However much they dress it up in to the myth of “a positive approach will lead to positive happenings”, all they are doing is celebrating their own good luck.  They haven’t created it.  It happens to them.  And as a result, they are positive.  They get the cause and effect completely arse-backwards and not only enjoy their good experiences, but believe that they have created them.  No wonder they are so bloody smug in their outlook.

For some of us, bad luck follows us around like a black cloud; under this cloud, any display of optimism will only lead to disappointment.  Those of us cursed in this way are only too aware of the dangers of positivity.  My own bad luck is such a recurring phenomena that I refer to it as Stef’s Law.  Stef’s Law is similar to Sod’s Law, with its fundamental difference being in the severity of the outcome.  Thus it is, with Sod’s Law, when you drop a cream cracker it lands butter side down.  With Stef’s Law, when you drop a cream cracker, a lorry lands on your head.  I defy anyone to be positive under such conditions.

I could cite example after example of this.  At this moment the most crippling proof, is the fact I seem to have come down with pneumonia in the middle of the summer.  How does that happen?  I feel wretched.  And what makes it worse is that I have a gig tomorrow night.  Oh sweet joy of the valley green.  There is nothing I love more than a new gig; but I am going to shuffle pitifully in to tomorrow’s performance like John Merrick on speed.  God only knows how I am going to sing – I’m going to have to sniff and snuffle my way through two-and-a-half hours.  That’s if my voice doesn’t go.  And knowing my luck, it probably will.  Ooops.  No.  Let’s stay positive:  I am positive my voice will go.

During the motivational talk, the speaker did a crowd-pleasing routine during which he threw a whole bottle of water over the stage.  It was a good piece of performance.  Had it been me up there throwing the water around, however, it would have led to certain disaster.  There would have been electrocutions, first degree burns and – I can guarantee – a hydrophobic attorney sitting in the front row that would have sued my posterial lobes off for causing undue stress and suffering.  And that’s what the speaker will never grasp.  He is blessed and Consequence does not stamp him underfoot at every opportunity.

I’d love to sit down with him and, over a cup of tea, ask him some pointed questions.  Does he contract the bubonic plague whenever he has an important event coming up?  Does he suffer from hayfever?  Does he stub his toe every time he walks past his bed?  Does he keep getting cars written off?  Do inanimate objects try constantly to exert their superiority over him?  Does his computer always crash?  Does he repeatedly get stung by a cowboy, everytime he dares to use eBay?  When he buys second hand books, do they always end up with crucial pages missing (and as such, he never does find out how Al Capone contracted syphillis)?  Do drinking glasses shatter dramatically in to a thousand pieces, if he so much as breathes on them?  Does he keep breaking hoovers?  Does he impale his foot on a garden fork, whenever he does the gardening?  Does he keep breaking lawnmowers?  Has he so many points on his driving licence that they are actually displayed as a complex mathematical formula on the document?

I could go on. 

And so here is the lesson: A positive attitude and a negative attitude do nothing but reflect the hand life has dealt you.  To see such an attitude as a cause, rather than an effect, is naive.

Anyway, I have got to go.  I’ve just spilled my tea all over the desk.

A motivational speaker must have no idea what it is like to drop one's cream cracker, and for it to land butter side down.

A motivational speaker must have no idea what it is like to drop one's cream cracker, and for it to land butter side down.

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Cross fertilisation of expertise

June 11th, 2009

It occured to me today, as I was reading a newspaper article, how the mere attribute of being famous seems to invest a person with a perceived omniscience, transcending that of ordinary folk.  It doesn’t matter about the pedigree of the fame in question.  Fame is enough.

At the top end of this, is the way Albert Einstein is always brought out in discussions, as the ultimate weapon in legitimacy.  Off the top of my head, I can think of several examples of Einstein’s broad wisdom.  Einstein said, for example, that there is probably life on other planets, in other solar systems.  You’ll see this quoted in many books on UFOs.  The implication is that if Einstein said it, it must be true.  And then there’s the whole bees thing.  Bees are dying out at the moment, on a global scale.  It is pretty frightening for anyone with an open mind (that also happens to be peppered in neuroses, like my own) – as this poses one of the biggest threats to our eco-system since Ronnie Corbett.  But despite bucketloads of hard research on this matter, by scientists across the world – hard research that has produced hard facts in evidence of the phenomena – the issue is still reported in the popular press with decisive references to Albert Einstein, who predicted that the biggest threat to mankind would not be nuclear war, but the extinction of bees.  Ah.  Right.  Blimey.  If Albert Einstein saw it coming, then it must be true.  Alien life and bees.  Oh an he was a philosopher of the human condition, too. 

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: His eyes are closed.

That’s some real diverse expertise, for a man who carved his reputation out of an equation expounding one’s relatives.  But he was Albert Einstein.  I believe he once got mad while trying to open a can of soup in the kitchen.  He was heard to expostulate:  “Damn these tins.  You can never open them.”  This worries me profusely, as I have a lot of tinned food in my cupboard.  God pray they never get wind of Einstein’s wisdom, and learn the reality of their situation, or I’ll have to chuck the lot away.

But Einstein is at the top of the tree.  In many ways, I can forgive people for deferring to him.  He was, after all, a genius.  If you are going to defer unfettered wisdom to anyone, it may as well be a genius.

But there are people in eschelons lower down than Einstein, that are given the same unquestioning deference, in light of their omniscient judgement.  Winston Churchill was the one that got me thinking today.  The article I was reading was about cows, and how they are polluting the earth through their unbridled flatulence.  Frankly, they want to learn to blame the dog, like everyone else.  But that’s beside the point.  During the course of this article, it was suggested that edible chicken matter will one day be produced in a laboratory.  Instead of nurturing chickens for their breasts or wings, we will just grow the wings or the breasts as needed.  As evidence for this, reference was made to Churchill’s belief that this would indeed happen one day.  It’s an interesting idea and probably something we’re not a million miles away from in today’s scientific climate.  But as fascinating as it may be, the question remains:  What the hell does it have to do with Churchill?  For all his talents (defeating Hitler, inspiring an iconic insurance advert, doing an excellent impression of that statue outside Parliament), I don’t believe for a second that he was an expert on chicken husbandry or genetic engineering.  It’s ridiculous.  Surely the evidence for such advancements and possibilities should come from a scientist in the field?  Why Churchill?  I don’t understand it.

Oh and George Orwell.  George Orwell.  Personally, I think Orwell is one of the biggest (recognised) writing talents this country has ever produced.  He was insightful and sensitive; eloquent, intelligent and dedicated to understanding society.  He understood people and their motivations.  He was, in my mind, everything an outstanding writer should be:  He held up a mirror by which society could understand itself better.

But oh my sweet pancakes, I wish people would stop referencing Orwell every bloody time there is a debate on rights to privacy and the place of the state in the life of the individual.  You’ll be lucky to find a discussion on CCTV, identity cards, government databases, civil rights and “the right to choose”, with out hearing that something is “Orwellian”, or just like “1984″.  Good god.  Orwell himself would have hated it, because he hated cliche.  He hated the way language gets used unthinkingly, with words but not their meaning getting passed down.  As a result, the words lose their meaning and become empty shells, a common linguistic currency with no inherent value.  Their impact dissolves, consequently.  1984 has become a synonym for CCTV.  How did that happen?

Famous people are given so much credit for their inherent omniscience, though.  Stephen Fry berates the witch-hunt of politicians, as a result of the expenses row.  It’s cutting social commentary – the debate is about to get really serious.  The Stephen Fry school of thought suddenly becomes a serious ideological contender.  Stephen Fry, comedian, writer and professional panelist, is now the national expert on the complex relationship between the people, the elected politicians and the shared moral landscape.  And people listen to him.  Because he’s Stephen Fry and he was on telly the other night.

Joanna Lumley – a gorgeous actress, I concede – is suddenly catapulted to the esteemed rank of national guru on just about everything, because of her interest in the Ghurkas.  It’s a great cause, the Ghurkas.  But because she is Joanna Lumley, a famous person (who was on the telly the other night), her interest in this issue has come to be seen as reflecting a profound and over-arching grasp of politics.  There have been calls for her to stand for election.  She is in line to be the UK’s answer to the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei – the ultimate in social, political and moral wisdom.  You don’t hear a word said against her, because her status as a famous person has invested her with a wisdom far outstripping that of all normal politicians.  Her Ghurka campaign was just a taster.

It just never ends.  Paul McCartney tells us what we can eat.  Bono tells us how and in what proportion we are to give to African charities.  J.K.Rowling knows how children should be taught.  And so on.  And so on.

Advertising experts have tapped in to this way of thinking.  Get the wisest people to endorse your products – and people will believe.  Which is why the likes of Tony Robinson, Jane Horrocks, Terry Wogan and Julie Walters (to name but a few) align themselves so closely with Tesco on the adverts, that they refer to “we”.  “We believe that…” – as if they work there.  As if they stack the shelves and man the tills.

It’s bonkers.  Fame is bonkers.  The way society treats fame is bonkers.  Take Susan Boyle…

And don’t bring her back.

Tags: ,
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

In defence of The Smock

June 8th, 2009

Like many new-age men, paying in blood, sweat and tears for the luxury of our forefathers, I seem to have acquired a list of domestic duties within my marriage that would make Hercules reach willingly for the poisoned shirt.  Among everything else, I have been lumbered with ironing duties.

To be fair, these duties didn’t come as part of the marriage contract.  Suffering a thumbprint on my back the size of Berwick-upon-Tweed, I was pretty much burdened with them from Day One of my journey in to (what I had hoped would be) carnal abandon and the pursuit of hedonistic Nirvana.  In many ways, ironing is the most enjoyable of the duties I undertake – not least because the power of technology allows me to use it as an opportunity to go online and catch up with the previous week’s Radio 4 comedy shows.

Anyway, I digress.  I don’t mind ironing but by the speckled beard of God, I wish the designers would reign it in a bit on the women’s clothing front.  Trousers, t-shirts and jeans are fair game.  You can whip round these buggers with a hot iron in the time it takes Sandy Toksvig to introduce the News Quiz.  That’s fine.  I’d even go as far as to say there is something therapeutic about ironing a willing t-shirt, or an obliging pair of jeans.

But once I get on to Ruth’s stuff.  Jesus wept.  Take the skirt for example.  In theory, a skirt should be a piece of urinary manifestation to iron.  After all, what is a skirt, but a material cylindar, which can be flattened down in to easy, even surfaces?  That’s the theory.  In practise, it is a very different matter.  For some reason, Ruth’s skirts have more pleats and folds and tassles on them than Danny la Rue’s Sunday best.

And then there are the blouses.  As far as I was always aware, a blouse is basically a shirt with the buttons on the wrong side.  Shirts aren’t the easiest item of clothing to iron – but given a certain practised methodology, they can be successfully defeated.  But blouses just don’t subscribe to the same natural laws.  If the shirt were to equate to the Law of Gravity; then blouses are the very essence of Chaos Theory.  They make no sense.  They are the most angular bastard garments I have ever known.  And they are full of tailors’ booby traps.  Just when you think you have got a good run with the iron, you assume the position, commit your body to the movement only to find there is a hidden pleat, or a new angle.  You end up ironing more creases in to the common blouse (blouseus blouseum) than you take out.  It is more stressful than a buzzing fly.

And that’s another thing.  I’ve often observed that the reason house flies are so irritating is because they fly in a stoccatic, busy manner.  The most annoying thing about a house fly is that it turns at right angles.  They draw geometric shapes in the air, in the middle of your living room, while you are trying to watch Murder She Wrote.  The movement they use to achieve this is stressful to watch.  If they were only to cultivate a mode of flying by which they swooped gracefully around the room, describing soft, delicate curves in the air as they glide – then they would actually be quite a pleasure to watch.  And we wouldn’t want to go at them with a rolled up newspaper all the time.  And if we didn’t have to spend so much time going at them with a rolled up newspaper, then maybe we wouldn’t keep missing the part of Murder She Wrote where we actually find out who did it.

The other garment of Ruth’s that drives me mad, when ironing, falls in to a miscellaneous category.  I really don’t know what they are.  They are tops, sort of; but they have so much going on in their design, that they appear more like chandeliers.  Try ironing a chandelier.  It’s impossible.   The annoying thing about these buggers is that they are always made from some delicate material – so the last-ditch technique of turning up the heat and steaming the hell out of them is out of the question.  This would just ruin them.  And so it is, with the garments in question, I end up locked in an effervescent dance, using the lowest possible temperature, ironing the unironable.

It gets on my moobs.

I was ironing this evening and I suddenly found myself envious of medieval housewives who had nothing to contend with, when “taking to the board” (as we serious ironers refer to the act of  ironing), beyond the amiable fashion of a smock.  What a pleasure it must have been, to iron smocks.  Straight, uncomplicated sides of material, just begging to be flattened out under weighty hot metal.  Bliss.  I can imagine the sense of quiet anticipation those old goodwives must have felt, as they pulled the smock on to the board and flattened it out with a firm hand, in preparation.  And the sense of righteousness, as they drove the iron over the material; the sense of accomplishment as they saw the creases melt away.  And the sense of moral satisfaction, as they slung the ironed smock over the back of an old chair, ready for the wearing. 

It gives me goosebumps just thinking about it.

If Ruth had a smock, though, no doubt it would be the only smock in the world with a tailor’s representation of Spaghetti Junction sewn in to its very design.  That said, if I were to buy Ruth a smock, I could make sure she ended up with a plain one.

I think I’ve just thought of the ultimate Christmas present for a deserving wife. :-)

If a smock is the way to a woman’s heart, then I am going to score some Brownie points, BIG time.

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

The ultimate extinction

June 8th, 2009
I spent some time down in Hastings this weekend.  It was on the back of seeing The Mighty Quo on Saturday – a birthday present from Ruth.  Truly, she is proving her worth as a loving wife.  All I need to do now is get her to take over cooking, ironing and washing-up duties, and I reckon I’ll be boasting the ultimate in wife technology.  Oh – and she needs to learn to fetch kebabs on demand.

So anyway, in a post-euphoric state (The Mighty Quo stimulate my joyous nodule) we hit Hastings.  Actually, that’s not strictly true.  Although Hastings was the obvious choice for a few hours by the sea because it was near to where we were staying, I tried to beat the system and drove us to a place called Greatstone-on-Sea.  My  thinking was that every man and his wife and / or mistress would be in Hastings, since it was a sunny day.  My plan was devilishly simple: we could defeat the crush of the masses, by going somewhere a bit more obscure, a bit more out of the way.  On the map, Greatstone-on-Sea looked perfect.  It was just off the beaten track, seemed to have golden beaches and had – I thought – a name that boasted pride in its own existence.

What a mistake that was.  I’ve never seen a place like it.  To describe it as a beach would be more than generous.  It was next to the sea, I admit that.  But ye gods.  Despite the various tourist signs promising ancient lighthouses, the most prominent feature of the landscape was an almighty powerstation, a three-dimensional shadow in gun-metal grey.  It was hideous.  It put me in mind of the nuclear plant in Springfield.  It loomed over the entire town / village / slice of hell like a bad mood.  The two lighthouses – which could be deemed ancient by only the youngest person’s reckoning – were dwarfed by it.

And that wasn’t all.  The rest of the place was a shanty town.  I kid thee not.  I remember my Geography lessons at school and as a result, there;s not much I don’t know about shanty towns.  And Greatston-on-Sea is a shanty town.  It was unbelievable.  The stoney beach merged imperceptibly with acres and acres of marshland.  And over both beach and marshland was a whole town of derelict shacks.  Made of wood and corrugated iron, some of them had been condemned (these were surrounded by barbed wire and makeshift fencing to signify this);  the rest ought to have been condemned.

It incongruous to the aesthetic sensibilities that many of them had front gardens.  They cultivated some interesting features in these gardens – such as tin baths, pieces of scrap metal and wooden stakes, which were buried in the ground with their points sticking upwards threateningly – but such features do nothing for the general aspect of the place.  If you were courageous, stupid or suicidal, you might be inclined to venture further into the marshland, to check out the occasional “shop” that can be seen to nestle there.  These “shops” (I use the word very loosely), with badly painted names that, while I have forgotten them, are reminiscent of occultist incantations, are simply shanties with open fronts.  There is no indication of what they sell, though a distant squint would suggest that they sell bits of jagged tin, roadkill and human body parts.  They look absolutely terrifying.

Stoical as we are, we did park up in the middle of this shanty town, to check out the beach.  From the ill-maintained stoney track that we drove in on, there was a single wooden path leading to the sea.  This path provides a bridge over the stoney beach.  It is just about wide enough for two of you to walk side by side; and is about two hundred yards in length.  At the end it just stops and there is a plaque attributing it to the National Lottery Fund.  I wouldn’t have believed the National Lottery Fund gives out money in denominations of less than £10.

Needless to say, we didn’t spend long here.  It was an aberration of all things gracious.

We drove for another hour to get to Hastings and it was here that I made an observation.

Old people. 

They are changing.  While we talk about climate change, the disappearance of the rainforests, the global sprawl of urbanisation and the consequent wiping out of whole species, we are failing to notice perhaps the ultimate extinction – and it is happening all around us.

Old people used to be in many ways, a sub-species in their own right.  The delicate phrase “old dear” sums up the qualities of this sub-species beautifully.  People used to evolve over time, in to archetypal old dears.  The attributes of old dears were standard.  For women, it involved (among other obvious things) becoming small, having white hair, wearing long coats, the adoption of headscarves and acquiring a tartan pull-along shopping trolley.  For men, it involved becoming small, having a border of white hair around the cranium, adopting a walking stick and wearing grey trousers and a flat cap.  When people became old, in days gone by, they used to turn in to the same thing.  They became quintessential grandparents.

I saw a number of these old people – this sub-species – while in Hastings.  You still see them dotted around, but they are becoming so rare these days.  Hastings does seem to be one of the last strongholds.

The thing is, people seem to age differently these days.  In many ways, they don’t age.  Society makes a virtue of staying young, and using various cosmetic treatments this virtue is becoming easier – superficially at least – to attain.  Way back when, people were predestined to age – and this was nowhere more evident than in the fact they were given names such as Fred, Bert, Charlie, Dorothy, Agatha and Betty.  Nowadays, people seem destined to remain youthful until they die.  Somehow, we are learning to avoid old age – and as a result, the archetypal old dear is fading in to history.

Me, I find this really bloody sad.  Old dears are a vital part of our cultural landscape.  A world without old dears will be a poorer world indeed.

Long live the Old Dear. 

Old Dears - an institution worth fighting for

Old Dears - an institution worth fighting for

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

« Older Entries