It was dusk, and the pale sun was sinking below the tree-ragged horizon. But somehow I knew that in the valley ahead, there was another sunset. A fantastic blaze of fiery light which, if only I could run fast enough, I might just see before darkness extinguished everything. And so I ran. I ran across the brown landscape, through the scrub and the leafless silhouetted trees, until I reached the brink of the hill – the lip of the valley. And there it was. As if somehow the sun had been captured here – as if some ancient myth were true, and daylight was held ransom whilst moonlight ruled the world. But this was no ordinary daylight. For as I said, it was fiery – a deep and dangerous orange. But then it changed, and in front of me was an abyss of intense blue, with wisps of white. And without warning – surprising even myself – I stepped off the edge.
I fell gently and I realised that I was not alone. Many others were falling too.
Wednesday, 5 May 2010
Rent to the ideal/Polish interlude
There was something familiar about the man, but I couldn’t quite work out what it was. It was about ten past six, and I was on my way home from the station after another excruciatingly boring day at work. The man was standing at the junction of York Hill and Knolley’s Road, looking lost, slightly agitated. I knew I shouldn’t have let us make eye contact, but I couldn’t help it, couldn’t ignore him.
“Polskie?” he asked hopefully. He seemed almost tearful.
“No, I’m English, I replied.”
“English. I try to get to friend.” He held out an Oyster card. “Sutton, but no…”
Ok, he wanted money, Fine. I wasn’t going to brush him off, but I wanted this to be over as quickly as possible. I had already begun to dig into my pockets as he tried to explain further in one word sentences.
“I don’t have much money on me,” I said. I couldn’t actually see exactly what I had extracted from my pocket. A couple of quid I imagined. I put it in his outstretched hand. Suddenly, he grasped me pulling me into a firm embrace, weeping onto my shoulder. I tried to pull away, but his grip was strong.
“Er, I think I ought to go now, I said.” I could see people on the street staring, looking concerned, I liked to think. “I need to go. Good luck.” Eventually, he let me go, and I hurried up the rest of the hill smiling, feeling embarrassed. Telling myself that if I had been fooled, then fair enough. Rent to the ideal, as E.M. Forster put it in Howard’s End.
“Polskie?” he asked hopefully. He seemed almost tearful.
“No, I’m English, I replied.”
“English. I try to get to friend.” He held out an Oyster card. “Sutton, but no…”
Ok, he wanted money, Fine. I wasn’t going to brush him off, but I wanted this to be over as quickly as possible. I had already begun to dig into my pockets as he tried to explain further in one word sentences.
“I don’t have much money on me,” I said. I couldn’t actually see exactly what I had extracted from my pocket. A couple of quid I imagined. I put it in his outstretched hand. Suddenly, he grasped me pulling me into a firm embrace, weeping onto my shoulder. I tried to pull away, but his grip was strong.
“Er, I think I ought to go now, I said.” I could see people on the street staring, looking concerned, I liked to think. “I need to go. Good luck.” Eventually, he let me go, and I hurried up the rest of the hill smiling, feeling embarrassed. Telling myself that if I had been fooled, then fair enough. Rent to the ideal, as E.M. Forster put it in Howard’s End.
Tuesday, 4 May 2010
Muscle man
A lean young man, nicely, not overly, tanned, with well developed chest, abdominal and arm muscles – I didn’t know the technical names for them – smiled brightly out of the poster. His expression bordered on manic, a touch over the brink of enthusiastic and happy, but just about clinging onto something that could pass for normal. Apart from his muscle-induced triangular torso, he would have been attractive. But as it was, he’d have to be wearing more than a pair of white boxer shorts to appeal. Which was ironic, as it would seem that it was his body (apparently just the upper half) that was the cause of his almost-crazed expression of sheer joy. Its appearance and the new-found energy that he had, so he claimed, gained in the process of attaining it.
To the left of him, on the poster, was a – his, allegedly – testimony about how some personal training, consumption of protein drinks, and presumably, although put in an understated manner, taking of a ‘food supplement’ – the one he was endorsing in the advert – had changed his life. He’d lost two and a half stone, become fitter and even given up his boring job and started his own business because of the amazing results that this ‘no gimmick, completely healthy’ product had had in so short a time. It didn’t say what this new business was, but he had been an engineer. Wow! Brains as well as beauty. One suspected that he might have gained a new partner out of this too, but none was mentioned. It seemed like an oversight. Surely part of the point of getting a body like this was the thought that one might attract others, potential partners. But I imagined that they were trying to avoid alienating gay men, by giving him a girlfriend, and straight men by giving him boyfriend. The advert was, of course, aimed at men.
He was clutching a large framed photograph of his former sorry self. In the photo, he looked sallow, bordering on grey. He was slightly slouched in posture emanating dissatisfaction if not misery. His hair was non-descript - none of the gel-teased spikes that his new perky self had. He wasn’t thin, but he was by no means fat either. His stomach perhaps a touch puffy, a little too much flesh on the ‘love handle’ area, but really not that bad at all. At worst, he was the man on the verge of becoming a little too fat, and he looked dejected. But thanks to a certain product, he had brought himself back from the brink. I found it bizarre that he had ‘always dreamed of having a six pack’ – but then I am not a man… And almost more so that he owned a large, framed photograph of himself wearing nothing but (presumably) blue boxer shorts.
To the left of him, on the poster, was a – his, allegedly – testimony about how some personal training, consumption of protein drinks, and presumably, although put in an understated manner, taking of a ‘food supplement’ – the one he was endorsing in the advert – had changed his life. He’d lost two and a half stone, become fitter and even given up his boring job and started his own business because of the amazing results that this ‘no gimmick, completely healthy’ product had had in so short a time. It didn’t say what this new business was, but he had been an engineer. Wow! Brains as well as beauty. One suspected that he might have gained a new partner out of this too, but none was mentioned. It seemed like an oversight. Surely part of the point of getting a body like this was the thought that one might attract others, potential partners. But I imagined that they were trying to avoid alienating gay men, by giving him a girlfriend, and straight men by giving him boyfriend. The advert was, of course, aimed at men.
He was clutching a large framed photograph of his former sorry self. In the photo, he looked sallow, bordering on grey. He was slightly slouched in posture emanating dissatisfaction if not misery. His hair was non-descript - none of the gel-teased spikes that his new perky self had. He wasn’t thin, but he was by no means fat either. His stomach perhaps a touch puffy, a little too much flesh on the ‘love handle’ area, but really not that bad at all. At worst, he was the man on the verge of becoming a little too fat, and he looked dejected. But thanks to a certain product, he had brought himself back from the brink. I found it bizarre that he had ‘always dreamed of having a six pack’ – but then I am not a man… And almost more so that he owned a large, framed photograph of himself wearing nothing but (presumably) blue boxer shorts.
weak
I’m not very good at asking for things, asserting myself. For example, this morning I bought a cappuccino, just so that I could have the chocolate powder on the top. I don’t really like cappuccinos. I find them too strong, and they make me feel edgy, but it just doesn’t seem to be done to have a latte with chocolate on it. The complete antithesis of a friend of mine, whom I recently took to a trendy bar/restaurant near my work. Before I proceed, I have to say that I admire her for having the guts that I clearly lack. And there is a bit (a lot) of embrodiering here.
But... she must have tasted half the white wine menu before settling on the first one she tried, only to drink it by the glass. Later, she proceeded to order five small dishes, interrogating the impressively patient waitress (especially given that this was London) about the ingredients of each dish, asking for variations – could she have the skate without the cream sauce, and no dressing on the salad that accompanied it, the mozzarella and parma ham salad without the parma ham, the brandy snap basket of ice cream without the brandy snap biscuit. Oh, she really wasn’t holding back. It might have been the copious quantities of wine we had drunk by this point that made her so brazen, but, somehow, I think not. I’d have been sinking through the floor into the toilets below, if I hadn’t had the booze to muffle my embarrassment.
No real rason to be embarrassed.
I am just
weak.
Of course, one does not need to take it to such extremes. There’s a difference between being demanding and asking for what one wants. Something I really ought to learn, given my problem with eating out in France, and indeed elsewhere. I think I’ve only twice ever asked for a dish minus a piece of meat in France, and, on both occasions, the request was met without a hint of reluctance, incredulity, or even surprise. Something that rarely seems to happen to us in the UK. All too often, asking for something that’s not exactly as it is on the menu is met with a ‘we can’t do that’ or simply a blank ‘does not compute’ expression.
Perhaps we need to eat out in more upmarket establishments.
Anyway, in spite of my two positive experiences in France, I am still reluctant to ask for something ‘sans lardons’ (as everything invariably is ‘avec’ in Normandy.) It’s enough effort to get some French out, without asking for something different. Without seeming to be an awkward person.
My being reluctant to asking for changes to an item on a menu also extends to trying to find out if I can eat a particular thing unaltered, when I am in a non-English speaking country. This is more often than not true, even when I have sufficient language skills. My temerity, on occasions, has become too much for Tom, and, he has taken the matter into his own hands and said ‘my wife is a vegetarian. Is there anything she can eat?’ Although this really pisses me off, I can’t blame him. Many’s the time we have wasted an hour or so, trying to find a restaurant where we can eat, my blood sugar levels getting ever lower, my mood ever more foul. In a café Paris, Tom’s question was met with a disdainful snort, and a vague hand gesture towards a green salad on the menu. (If it had been Normandy, it would have had lardons in it, and maybe some andouille too.) On this particular occasion, I was especially angry with him for doing this. Partly, because I felt humiliated by the waiter’s rude, dismissive response, but also because I had really wanted to try the soupe à l’oignon gratinée, or ‘French onion soup’, as the English speaking world calls it. I knew that it wouldn’t be strictly vegetarian, and now that my vegetarianism had been brought to the fore, how could I possibly order it without looking like a hypocrite? Not that the waiter would care. But that wasn’t the point. And I suppose that, if I am truthful, that wasn’t really why I was angry. It was more that I had now had to admit to my hypocrisy to myself. I couldn’t adopt the ‘what I don’t know about doesn’t really matter’ stance.
I ordered the soup in the end anyway. It was dreadful. Greasy broth with a slice of overly toasted bread and a bit of cheese. Had much better in England.
In Tokyo, the outcome of Tom’s statement was equally embarrassing and, in the end, extremely uncomfortable, for very different reasons. Although it did make for an unforgettable meal.
The Tofu Meal.
We’d been finding it difficult to eat Japanese food in Tokyo, partly because it didn’t seem to exist in a vegetarian guise, and partly because I was loath to walk into a restaurant that had no English menu and ask if they had anything vegetarian. This was not entirely because I am a wimp about asking, in these circumstances. I just didn’t relish the thought of maybe having to walk straight out again, having been told that they didn’t have anything. This would feel rude in England, and I was very much aware of how much easier it could be to offend in Japan.
So I told myself.
So, one night, having hovered outside a tofu restaurant near Tokyo station for a while, speculating on whether it would be ok for me, Tom, once again, took the situation into his own hands, doubtless fed up with Japanese pizza and pasta dishes. “My wife is a vegetarian, do you have anything she can eat?” Or words to that effect. Tom’s request certainly seemed to send the entire staff into a fluster, as a waitress rushed off to the kitchen to consult in hurried Japanese with the chef. She soon came back nodding and beckoning us to a table. The meal that followed was to be punctuated by such overheard discussions, as they worried about each course of the meal, clearly taking my food requirements very seriously indeed. In fact, their concern to get it just right was embarrassing. They were clearly going to so much trouble. The antithesis of our Parisien waiter. There was going to be no fish or meat stock in this meal. No clam lurking at the bottom of my bowl of miso soup. The result was a meal that consisted of tofu, salad, vegetables, and broth, in various disguises, none of them too difficult to see through.
To start with, a big tofu salad, accompanied a platter of tofu, of three different textures, with a small side salad, with pretty much the same constituent ingredients as the big one. We were rather full by the time we had got through this, and not at all sure that we even really liked tofu.
Next, cubes of tofu (some of it was blue) cooked in three different ways on skewers, presented in a little 3-tiered wooden crate. By the time we had got through this, it would have been true to say that we were totally tofued out, and feeling relieved to think that that was it. We could just get our bill and get out of there. And not think about tofu again for some time to come.
But, oh, how wrong we were.
The pièce de résistance was yet to come.
Our waitress brought out a clam shell-shaped brass cauldron, with it’s own gas cooker, and placed it in the middle of our table. First, using chopsticks, she delicately placed some vegetables into the boiling stock – Japanese mushrooms, and a few others - I can’t remember what. Then came the tofu. Great big wobbling, flabby slabs of it. I really don’t know how the Japanese can eat so much in one meal full stop, let alone this much tofu. We were almost gagging on the stuff by now. The blobby blue stuff was particularly difficult, and we were running out of condiments to dip it into to make it edible. We were afraid it might be rude not to eat all of it, but in the end had to admit defeat. There came a point where even one tiny mouthful more would have been close to impossible.
Tofu desserts were on offer, but Tom settled for soya bean coffee. I swear the ‘wine’ was made of soya too.
We knew we wouldn’t be eating tofu again for some time to come. Which was a shame, as we knew that tofu was a Buddhist delicacy in Kyoto, where we were heading later in the week
Ok, well maybe this meal wouldn’t have gone any better if Tom hadn’t mentioned my vegetarianism, but at least he might not have had to suffer so much too. And I could have just not eaten the fishy bits.
He did it to me again in Kyoto, but this time the only suffering involved was me being hungry all afternoon, as I was presented with 5 small pieces of vegetable tempura, whilst he feasted on huge quantities of fish.
Perhaps the thing I really hate about Tom asking for vegetarian food for me, is that it takes away my ability to compromise a little.
But... she must have tasted half the white wine menu before settling on the first one she tried, only to drink it by the glass. Later, she proceeded to order five small dishes, interrogating the impressively patient waitress (especially given that this was London) about the ingredients of each dish, asking for variations – could she have the skate without the cream sauce, and no dressing on the salad that accompanied it, the mozzarella and parma ham salad without the parma ham, the brandy snap basket of ice cream without the brandy snap biscuit. Oh, she really wasn’t holding back. It might have been the copious quantities of wine we had drunk by this point that made her so brazen, but, somehow, I think not. I’d have been sinking through the floor into the toilets below, if I hadn’t had the booze to muffle my embarrassment.
No real rason to be embarrassed.
I am just
weak.
Of course, one does not need to take it to such extremes. There’s a difference between being demanding and asking for what one wants. Something I really ought to learn, given my problem with eating out in France, and indeed elsewhere. I think I’ve only twice ever asked for a dish minus a piece of meat in France, and, on both occasions, the request was met without a hint of reluctance, incredulity, or even surprise. Something that rarely seems to happen to us in the UK. All too often, asking for something that’s not exactly as it is on the menu is met with a ‘we can’t do that’ or simply a blank ‘does not compute’ expression.
Perhaps we need to eat out in more upmarket establishments.
Anyway, in spite of my two positive experiences in France, I am still reluctant to ask for something ‘sans lardons’ (as everything invariably is ‘avec’ in Normandy.) It’s enough effort to get some French out, without asking for something different. Without seeming to be an awkward person.
My being reluctant to asking for changes to an item on a menu also extends to trying to find out if I can eat a particular thing unaltered, when I am in a non-English speaking country. This is more often than not true, even when I have sufficient language skills. My temerity, on occasions, has become too much for Tom, and, he has taken the matter into his own hands and said ‘my wife is a vegetarian. Is there anything she can eat?’ Although this really pisses me off, I can’t blame him. Many’s the time we have wasted an hour or so, trying to find a restaurant where we can eat, my blood sugar levels getting ever lower, my mood ever more foul. In a café Paris, Tom’s question was met with a disdainful snort, and a vague hand gesture towards a green salad on the menu. (If it had been Normandy, it would have had lardons in it, and maybe some andouille too.) On this particular occasion, I was especially angry with him for doing this. Partly, because I felt humiliated by the waiter’s rude, dismissive response, but also because I had really wanted to try the soupe à l’oignon gratinée, or ‘French onion soup’, as the English speaking world calls it. I knew that it wouldn’t be strictly vegetarian, and now that my vegetarianism had been brought to the fore, how could I possibly order it without looking like a hypocrite? Not that the waiter would care. But that wasn’t the point. And I suppose that, if I am truthful, that wasn’t really why I was angry. It was more that I had now had to admit to my hypocrisy to myself. I couldn’t adopt the ‘what I don’t know about doesn’t really matter’ stance.
I ordered the soup in the end anyway. It was dreadful. Greasy broth with a slice of overly toasted bread and a bit of cheese. Had much better in England.
In Tokyo, the outcome of Tom’s statement was equally embarrassing and, in the end, extremely uncomfortable, for very different reasons. Although it did make for an unforgettable meal.
The Tofu Meal.
We’d been finding it difficult to eat Japanese food in Tokyo, partly because it didn’t seem to exist in a vegetarian guise, and partly because I was loath to walk into a restaurant that had no English menu and ask if they had anything vegetarian. This was not entirely because I am a wimp about asking, in these circumstances. I just didn’t relish the thought of maybe having to walk straight out again, having been told that they didn’t have anything. This would feel rude in England, and I was very much aware of how much easier it could be to offend in Japan.
So I told myself.
So, one night, having hovered outside a tofu restaurant near Tokyo station for a while, speculating on whether it would be ok for me, Tom, once again, took the situation into his own hands, doubtless fed up with Japanese pizza and pasta dishes. “My wife is a vegetarian, do you have anything she can eat?” Or words to that effect. Tom’s request certainly seemed to send the entire staff into a fluster, as a waitress rushed off to the kitchen to consult in hurried Japanese with the chef. She soon came back nodding and beckoning us to a table. The meal that followed was to be punctuated by such overheard discussions, as they worried about each course of the meal, clearly taking my food requirements very seriously indeed. In fact, their concern to get it just right was embarrassing. They were clearly going to so much trouble. The antithesis of our Parisien waiter. There was going to be no fish or meat stock in this meal. No clam lurking at the bottom of my bowl of miso soup. The result was a meal that consisted of tofu, salad, vegetables, and broth, in various disguises, none of them too difficult to see through.
To start with, a big tofu salad, accompanied a platter of tofu, of three different textures, with a small side salad, with pretty much the same constituent ingredients as the big one. We were rather full by the time we had got through this, and not at all sure that we even really liked tofu.
Next, cubes of tofu (some of it was blue) cooked in three different ways on skewers, presented in a little 3-tiered wooden crate. By the time we had got through this, it would have been true to say that we were totally tofued out, and feeling relieved to think that that was it. We could just get our bill and get out of there. And not think about tofu again for some time to come.
But, oh, how wrong we were.
The pièce de résistance was yet to come.
Our waitress brought out a clam shell-shaped brass cauldron, with it’s own gas cooker, and placed it in the middle of our table. First, using chopsticks, she delicately placed some vegetables into the boiling stock – Japanese mushrooms, and a few others - I can’t remember what. Then came the tofu. Great big wobbling, flabby slabs of it. I really don’t know how the Japanese can eat so much in one meal full stop, let alone this much tofu. We were almost gagging on the stuff by now. The blobby blue stuff was particularly difficult, and we were running out of condiments to dip it into to make it edible. We were afraid it might be rude not to eat all of it, but in the end had to admit defeat. There came a point where even one tiny mouthful more would have been close to impossible.
Tofu desserts were on offer, but Tom settled for soya bean coffee. I swear the ‘wine’ was made of soya too.
We knew we wouldn’t be eating tofu again for some time to come. Which was a shame, as we knew that tofu was a Buddhist delicacy in Kyoto, where we were heading later in the week
Ok, well maybe this meal wouldn’t have gone any better if Tom hadn’t mentioned my vegetarianism, but at least he might not have had to suffer so much too. And I could have just not eaten the fishy bits.
He did it to me again in Kyoto, but this time the only suffering involved was me being hungry all afternoon, as I was presented with 5 small pieces of vegetable tempura, whilst he feasted on huge quantities of fish.
Perhaps the thing I really hate about Tom asking for vegetarian food for me, is that it takes away my ability to compromise a little.
wartime meanness
I bet they told them that these were just as nice as lollies. The boy isn't buying it.
Nor would I. Raw carrot. The one uncooked vegetable I still can't stand, apart from obvious ones such as aubergine. Although clearly some of the cooks in places I have eaten in in London wouldn't agree with that.
Monday, 26 April 2010
I was walking down the street on my lunch break, walking at my usual unfeasibly fast pace, when I tripped and landed on my knees.
My first thought was, ‘Oh no, not again’. A bowl of petunias moment if ever there was one, for those familiar with the works of Douglas Adams.
I have done this so many times over the last ten years, I am beginning to lose count.
I just lay there for a while, stunned, annoyed. A man hurried over asking if I was alright. I didn’t answer - too shocked. He was joined by a construction worker from the site on the other side of the road, who asked if I had fainted. (I suppose that’s what women do.) Looking concerned, the first man repeatedly asked if I was alright, and after a while it eventually occurred to me that perhaps I ought to answer him.
Yes, I was fine. But how the hell was I going to get up? They offered to help me, the construction worker, surprisingly gallantly, taking off his glove before he held out his hand. It took them a little effort to pull me to my feet, effort, which I couldn’t help thinking, reflected badly on my weight, rather than on their lack of strength.
I hope I thanked them.
I hobbled back to the office humiliated and angry with myself, and, moreover, lunchless. I limped up to the first floor – kind of hard to do when both legs wanted to limp - and announced that I couldn’t believe it, I’d just fallen over on my knees again. I sat down on my chair and began to tremble, and when someone asked if I was alright, I found myself bursting into tears.
More self-humiliation.
Everyone gathered round, and inspected the two large angry red marks on my knees where blood was beginning to seep out. At least nothing seemed to be swelling up too much this time.
One time, I was on my way home, rushing to catch my train, when I tripped over a metal stand outside the shoe mender’s. I went straight down onto the concrete floor of the threshold of the station, nothing to break the fall, and landed hard on both knees. I somehow managed to get to my feet, and slowly, agonizingly, hobbled down the steps to the platform, and got on my train. In the 20 minutes it took to get to my stop, I watched with horrid fascination, as the bump on my left knee grew into something the size of an apricot. My knees had pretty much given up doing what they were supposed to do by then, (bending, mainly) and I realized I was going to have to get a taxi if I was going to get home in the next few hours. When I displayed my injury to the taxi driver (I felt I rather needed to justify a ¼ mile taxi ride) he was gratifyingly horrified, and offered to take me to A&E. I smiled bravely and said I would be alright. I spent the evening wearing bags of frozen vegetables on my knees.
At least that time it wasn’t my fault. Although that’s a moot point. My mother always says it is my fault, because I walk too quickly.
The first time this sort of thing happened, I really had no right to any sympathy, even had it been offered. I was, I have to admit, a little bit the worse for wear. I’d been out helping someone celebrate their 30th birthday. Helping a bit over zealously, perhaps. On the way home, when the bus reached my stop, I’d stepped off it and fallen flat on my face, scraping my upper lip, bashing my nose, and, of course, my right knee cap. My hands had been in my coat pockets at the time, and my reflexes weren’t fast enough to remove them in time to break my fall. I lay on the pavement, motionless, for what seemed like a minutes, but were probably seconds, feeling blood trickling down my face, out of my nose. When I finally managed to get up, there were big spots of it all over the pavement, and all over my coat. In fact, I never got round to taking that coat to the dry cleaners. It was black, so the blood didn’t show up much. But I knew it was there, and it retained those stains, as an admonishing reminder of my foolishness until the day it was finally thrown out.
I couldn’t bear to go to work the next day. I was in some shock, but also excruciatingly embarrassed by the unsightly scab that was developing on my upper lip.
Not to mention the black eye.
This didn’t stop me from gingerly going out to see if the spots of blood were still there though, out in the public domain.
For the next few weeks, I had to live with the scab, as it cracked every time I smiled or opened my mouth too widely to yawn.
Sandwiches made with baguette were out of the question.
The odd thing about these falls is that other, seemingly unrelated, bits seem to get injured too. During the latest incident, I had fallen on both knees hadn’t I? There were the grazes and the small bump on my left knee to prove it. Then how come I had a big blue bruise the shape of Africa, and several scratches on my upper right arm? Even the time I tripped over an irregular paving stone in Tooting, when the few seconds it took to hit the floor (right knee took the brunt again this time) had seemed to stretch out, with horrid clarity, into minutes, - when I seemed to see the minutiae of what was happening as I tottered on the brink between up righting myself and falling flat on my face - even then, I sustained injuries that seemed to bear no relationship to how I landed.
I don’t think of myself as accident prone, but, then when I think about it, maybe I am. I’ve chopped the end of my finger off with secateurs, while pruning lavender. It grew back .The finger tip, I mean. In fact, it grew back big time. I ended up having to have some of this miraculous growth burnt off with silver nitrate sticks before it got out of hand (so to speak). Not something I would like to experience again. Although, God knows what would have happened if they hadn’t done it. Maybe I’d have a famous record-breaking 5ft long finger. I could have made a career appearing on chat shows, touring the country, a modern day freak show.
I also managed to slice through another finger (well, not right through) whilst cleaning a kitchen knife. I still have some loss of feeling from where I must have severed the nerves. Oh, and there was the time I walked into a lamppost and gave myself a black eye. I’d been pointing out some interesting architectural feature on the upper story of a building, and failed see the obvious coming.
Still, I’ve never had stitches… although perhaps I ought to have done.
Perhaps I should slow down a bit.
Still this time, it wasn’t so bad. The pain lessened in about an hour. My legs stopped battling it out for which one got to limp, my left leg winning on account of it having a bump and a graze on it’s knee as opposed to a mere graze.
But do you know what the worst of this latest incident was? Now everyone in my office knows that I sometimes wear pop socks.
Addendum
I just did it again….
My first thought was, ‘Oh no, not again’. A bowl of petunias moment if ever there was one, for those familiar with the works of Douglas Adams.
I have done this so many times over the last ten years, I am beginning to lose count.
I just lay there for a while, stunned, annoyed. A man hurried over asking if I was alright. I didn’t answer - too shocked. He was joined by a construction worker from the site on the other side of the road, who asked if I had fainted. (I suppose that’s what women do.) Looking concerned, the first man repeatedly asked if I was alright, and after a while it eventually occurred to me that perhaps I ought to answer him.
Yes, I was fine. But how the hell was I going to get up? They offered to help me, the construction worker, surprisingly gallantly, taking off his glove before he held out his hand. It took them a little effort to pull me to my feet, effort, which I couldn’t help thinking, reflected badly on my weight, rather than on their lack of strength.
I hope I thanked them.
I hobbled back to the office humiliated and angry with myself, and, moreover, lunchless. I limped up to the first floor – kind of hard to do when both legs wanted to limp - and announced that I couldn’t believe it, I’d just fallen over on my knees again. I sat down on my chair and began to tremble, and when someone asked if I was alright, I found myself bursting into tears.
More self-humiliation.
Everyone gathered round, and inspected the two large angry red marks on my knees where blood was beginning to seep out. At least nothing seemed to be swelling up too much this time.
One time, I was on my way home, rushing to catch my train, when I tripped over a metal stand outside the shoe mender’s. I went straight down onto the concrete floor of the threshold of the station, nothing to break the fall, and landed hard on both knees. I somehow managed to get to my feet, and slowly, agonizingly, hobbled down the steps to the platform, and got on my train. In the 20 minutes it took to get to my stop, I watched with horrid fascination, as the bump on my left knee grew into something the size of an apricot. My knees had pretty much given up doing what they were supposed to do by then, (bending, mainly) and I realized I was going to have to get a taxi if I was going to get home in the next few hours. When I displayed my injury to the taxi driver (I felt I rather needed to justify a ¼ mile taxi ride) he was gratifyingly horrified, and offered to take me to A&E. I smiled bravely and said I would be alright. I spent the evening wearing bags of frozen vegetables on my knees.
At least that time it wasn’t my fault. Although that’s a moot point. My mother always says it is my fault, because I walk too quickly.
The first time this sort of thing happened, I really had no right to any sympathy, even had it been offered. I was, I have to admit, a little bit the worse for wear. I’d been out helping someone celebrate their 30th birthday. Helping a bit over zealously, perhaps. On the way home, when the bus reached my stop, I’d stepped off it and fallen flat on my face, scraping my upper lip, bashing my nose, and, of course, my right knee cap. My hands had been in my coat pockets at the time, and my reflexes weren’t fast enough to remove them in time to break my fall. I lay on the pavement, motionless, for what seemed like a minutes, but were probably seconds, feeling blood trickling down my face, out of my nose. When I finally managed to get up, there were big spots of it all over the pavement, and all over my coat. In fact, I never got round to taking that coat to the dry cleaners. It was black, so the blood didn’t show up much. But I knew it was there, and it retained those stains, as an admonishing reminder of my foolishness until the day it was finally thrown out.
I couldn’t bear to go to work the next day. I was in some shock, but also excruciatingly embarrassed by the unsightly scab that was developing on my upper lip.
Not to mention the black eye.
This didn’t stop me from gingerly going out to see if the spots of blood were still there though, out in the public domain.
For the next few weeks, I had to live with the scab, as it cracked every time I smiled or opened my mouth too widely to yawn.
Sandwiches made with baguette were out of the question.
The odd thing about these falls is that other, seemingly unrelated, bits seem to get injured too. During the latest incident, I had fallen on both knees hadn’t I? There were the grazes and the small bump on my left knee to prove it. Then how come I had a big blue bruise the shape of Africa, and several scratches on my upper right arm? Even the time I tripped over an irregular paving stone in Tooting, when the few seconds it took to hit the floor (right knee took the brunt again this time) had seemed to stretch out, with horrid clarity, into minutes, - when I seemed to see the minutiae of what was happening as I tottered on the brink between up righting myself and falling flat on my face - even then, I sustained injuries that seemed to bear no relationship to how I landed.
I don’t think of myself as accident prone, but, then when I think about it, maybe I am. I’ve chopped the end of my finger off with secateurs, while pruning lavender. It grew back .The finger tip, I mean. In fact, it grew back big time. I ended up having to have some of this miraculous growth burnt off with silver nitrate sticks before it got out of hand (so to speak). Not something I would like to experience again. Although, God knows what would have happened if they hadn’t done it. Maybe I’d have a famous record-breaking 5ft long finger. I could have made a career appearing on chat shows, touring the country, a modern day freak show.
I also managed to slice through another finger (well, not right through) whilst cleaning a kitchen knife. I still have some loss of feeling from where I must have severed the nerves. Oh, and there was the time I walked into a lamppost and gave myself a black eye. I’d been pointing out some interesting architectural feature on the upper story of a building, and failed see the obvious coming.
Still, I’ve never had stitches… although perhaps I ought to have done.
Perhaps I should slow down a bit.
Still this time, it wasn’t so bad. The pain lessened in about an hour. My legs stopped battling it out for which one got to limp, my left leg winning on account of it having a bump and a graze on it’s knee as opposed to a mere graze.
But do you know what the worst of this latest incident was? Now everyone in my office knows that I sometimes wear pop socks.
Addendum
I just did it again….
Tuesday, 23 March 2010
iPoddity
Recently, I have become addicted to my iPod. Tom and I have had it for a couple of years – it used to be a ‘joint’ one. For ages, I’d only use it on long train journeys, if I was on my own, or on plane trips, which were long enough for me not to feel obliged to talk to Tom for the full duration. I liked the way it seemed to provide my journey with a soundtrack, as if I were in a film. I suspect that my giving Tom his own iPod for Christmas has been somewhat instrumental in my rapid descent into hardcore addiction. I no longer have all his crap on the – now my – iPod. (The feeling is mutual. The other night he accidentally put my iPod on, and immediately ripped the headphones off himself and dropped the thing on the settee, in much the way I might if I had accidentally – how else – picked up a slug.) But the odd thing is, that was only really an issue when I used what Tom regards as being the abominable, shuffle function. But, since I started to need, first a daily, and then twice, and now a thrice daily fix, I stopped using the shuffle. Instead, I began to fixate on one album, which I would play, over and over, to the exclusion of all else, until I tired of it and moved onto the next one.
I knew I had sunk really low, right down to the depths of iPod addiction hell, when I started playing it in the street. Ok I now realize that this is no big deal. Everyone does it, but at the time it felt weird. At first, I just kept it on after I got off the train on the way to work. Then, I progressed to wearing it on my way home from the station. It took a while for me to reach this particular level, mainly because I was slightly afraid that someone might steal it from me in the area where I lived. I mean, it’s not that bad an area, but there are some dodgy types around. Every now and again, there’s a police poster up asking for witnesses to some mugging, carjacking or assault, and there has been the occasional stabbing, so I was just being careful. It’s alright for Tom to do it, I told myself. He’s 6ft4 and somewhat on the chunky side. He’s not going to be the first target for an iPod-snatcher. I am. In fact, they’d take one look at him, then at me, and mark me out as their next target there and then. They’d watch my movements day after day, and then, one day, when I least expected it, they’d pounce. One minute I’d be blissfully listening to a very loud song from a Black Lab album, and the next, I’d be ripped out of my emotionally charged cocoon of noise, and they’d be making off down the street, triumphantly clutching my scruffy, scratched iPod, leaving the earphones dangling from my ears, the other end ripped out of my bag.
I think it was the poster with the mobile phone at the entrance to the station that made me think like this. The one warning you to be careful using your phone there. The one that suggested that the moment you took it out to ring and tell your loved one that you were at the station, and on your way home, it would be snatched from you hands and whisked away leaving the person you were talking to at best confused, at worst, insulted.
Anyway, in spite of these misgivings, I suddenly decided to take the plunge one day. When I got off the train, I turned my iPod off, and took the headphones out, keeping it hidden away, while in the vicinity of the station. I wasn’t going to throw caution to the wind altogether. But, once I’d walked down the alleyway that led down to the main road and passed under the railway bridge, with a sense of guilty pleasure, I put it back on.
I don’t know why I did this. Maybe it was a bit like my first cigarette.
I’d resisted smoking until I was 16, puritanically refusing all offers and opportunities whenever they arose, vowing that this was Something I Would Never Do. I had a list of 6 or so things That I Would Never Do when I was in my teens. It included Never Visiting A Zoo – did that at 15, although not voluntarily - Never Owning or Wearing a Pair of Trainers – I still don’t - and Not Wearing a Watch – I gave in to that one when I was working in a shop, around the age of 20, and needed to know what the time was, for taking breaks etc. But, since my last one ‘exploded’ under cabin pressure on the way back from a holiday, I’ve been clean for the last 8 years.
Anyway, smoking.
One day my sister, who had been smoking for years, offered me one, and I took it. Just like that. (It didn’t last long, as I accidentally broke it in half, while inexpertly trying to flick ash off the tip. No matter, my sister, ever the one to nourish a potential addiction, gave me another. I don’t smoke by the way.) So perhaps something similar had happened with my iPod. Some voice inside me said, ‘You know you want to, put your iPod on in the street, go on…’ So, I mentally shrugged and said ‘ok’.
This not only demonstrates how low I’ve sunk, but it’s also immensely hypocritical. Many’s the time I’ve had a silent, mental rant about people wearing iPods in the street – how it makes them less aware of their immediate surroundings and therefore more likely to walk into you, or makes them meander from side to side across the pavement, making it impossible to overtake them. Of course, I convinced myself, I wouldn’t be like that. The meandering bit wouldn’t be a problem anyway, because it was rare that anyone was fast enough to overtake me (although I had my suspicions that some music slowed me down a bit.) And I would be extra careful to be aware of what was going on around me.
I’m not sure why I feel so guilty about listening to my iPod. Why is it such a guilty pleasure? Maybe its because it’s such an immense pleasure, listening to music turned up loud, without having to worry about it bothering other people, it just doesn’t seem decent to do it in public. Such intense pleasure should only be enjoyed behind closed doors –a bedroom, or an hotel room, perhaps.
And that’s another thing. I don’t quite believe in earphones. That other people really can’t hear what I am hearing. Well, I know they can’t, but I still find the whole thing odd. I’m paranoid about having my music on so loud that other people will hear that annoying buzz or, worse still, actual tunes. So, at least once on each of the occasions I am listening to it, I have to take the earphones out and hold them a few inches away from my face to check that nothing’s audible. Sometimes, I do it twice. Some people might say that that’s obsessive behaviour, like flicking a light switch on and off, even though you can see whether the light’s on or not. But I just like to think I am being considerate to others. Or, more truthfully, avoiding embarrassing myself.
Recently I’ve taken to trying my iPod out in different types of places. I know it probably looks rude to be walking through Ikea, Tom at my side, with it on. But it’s an experiment, I tell myself, so it’s ok. The experiment is to see if wearing an iPod in Ikea makes the experience any less hideous. At first, I realize, that it does to seem to be achieving this effect, to some extent. It almost drowns out the sound of screaming children, although it can’t stop them hurtling into you, and somehow the music seems, miraculously, to soften the glare of the harsh lighting. Even my obligatory for-an-Ikea-trip slight hangover doesn’t seem so bad.
So, for a while all is well in Ikea with an iPod, apart from the fact that it’s obviously pissing Tom off. But, hey, so what? He’s just jealous he didn’t think to do the same. (Although, how sad would that look? The two of us, side by side, too immersed in technology to interact with one another, to have a relationship, to all outward appearances.) Anyway, I’m all chilled out here. I can live with his irritation. But, as we get closer and closer to the check out, I feel my anxiety levels inexplicably rising slowly, but perceptibly. They have almost reached screaming level, by the time Tom staggers towards me under the weight of the bookshelves he is trying to lift onto a trolley. Ok. I give up. I turn it off and put it away in my bag. I don’t want to be cured of my addiction right now, and Ikea could well provide the sort of aversion therapy that might achieve this.
Actually, I do feel a slight need to curb my addiction when it comes to using my iPod on the train. I know I really ought to be reading. I enjoy reading, of course, if I can find something I like, but at the moment, it’s taken on a new role. I regard it as food for my own, so far, rather unsuccessful attempts at writing. I hope that if I feed them enough, one day they might grow into something beautiful, or at least serious. I try to ration myself. One journey reading, the other, iPod.
However, I’m not very good at this rationing thing. Take last night, for example. Lately, the writing thing has been getting a bit out of hand, as far as I am concerned. I haven’t been doing the other stuff, stuff I ought to be doing, like putting washing away, cooking and, sometimes, eating even. Or anything really. Even watching TV. Since getting back from France at Easter, I have gone from getting home and automatically turning on the TV, to watching nothing all night. Instead, I scuttle up to the attic to write and/or edit. But, last night, I had a simple plan to foil all this.
I would go home, spend 40 minutes making a chilli for dinner, 15 minutes feeding and watering the tomato plants, write until Tom got home, eat and sit with him for a bit. Then write for another hour. Then watch TV for an hour. Oh’ and I wasn’t going to have any wine that night either.
When I got home, I realized we’d run out of onions. I couldn’t be bothered to go down the hill to get any, or more to the point come back up afterwards, and I couldn’t make chilli without one, could I? There was a pizza in the freezer. That would do, wouldn’t it? And did the tomato plants really need watering? It had rained earlier in the day. They could wait another day for some food surely. So, I poured myself a glass of wine and went upstairs and wrote for the next three hours, neglecting to eat anything, and was not entirely sober when Tom finally got home. You’d think there might be flip side of this - that I could use reverse psychology to get me to do the things I know I ought to. But no. If I told myself I could just have baked beans for dinner, or nothing if that’s the way I felt so inclined, that I could write for as long as I wanted and drink a whole bottle of wine, that’s exactly what I’d do. Anyway, I have digressed.
I find the whole concept of personal music devices a very strange thing. The idea that there are hundreds of people all walking round in their own little worlds, each different. You’d think there might be some sort of solidarity between in-the-street mp3 player users. That they might have some secret sign or code that signifies their camaraderie, that they are in a sense all sharing a similar, singular experience. But no. Of course not. Part of the nature of them is that they isolate you. And then, I suppose, most people don’t think of using them as anything out of the ordinary. Perhaps I won’t, given time.
Tom was on the bus coming home from Balham the other week, listening to his swanky new, much better than mine, matt finish iPod, when the elderly man next to him tapped him on his shoulder. Tom politely slipped his earphones off.
“Can you hear anything when you’ve got that on?” he pointed at the iPod.
“Er, no, not really,” Tom replied.
“Well, that’s such a pity. We’re on such a nice bus, and everyone’s in such a good mood, and you can’t have a conversation?”
“Do you think they’re antisocial?” Tom asked politely. I imagine. The man thought for a moment.
“Stops you having conversations,” he answered. “So, yes, yes I do.”
Like Tom was in the habit of having conversations with strangers on buses anyway. It wasn’t his iPod that stopped him doing that.
“Now, here’s a conversation,” the man continued warming to his theme. “Cricket.” He looked at Tom defiantly as if he had thrown down the gauntlet. “What do you think to that?”
Now, Tom is quite a cricket fan, so he was quite capable of conducting a conversation about the ins and outs of it. Tom expressed his opinion on some technical point which means nothing to me. This seemed to take the man by surprise. Clearly he thought that wearing an iPod meant not just that one didn’t have the opportunity to converse, but that one had lost the ability. That it sucked all intelligence and knowledge out of its wearer like some strange alien device in a science fiction programme. Tom one. Stranger nil.
I am now trying to come up with new iPod experiments – new odd and inappropriate circumstances in which I might wear it. Find out whether being engulfed by own personal sound wall will enhance the experience or otherwise. I have contemplated wearing it in the bath. I assume it would be safe. But I’m not one for long baths. I get bored easily and I hate the way the hard London water makes one’s skin wrinkle up so quickly.
Although my addiction means that I am listening to music at every opportunity, you can still tell that I am not an experienced junkie. My earphones are constantly falling out, they seem to get tangled even though I wrap them round the body of the iPod when I’m not using it. I struggle with the controls. I try to wheel it round to the track I want, then when I remove my finger, it inevitably – perversely, in my opinion - continues onto the next one. I’m not quite sure whether to set the thing going, then put the headphones on, or the other way round. I forget to set the control freeze button to orange, and suddenly find myself deafened. (How come it never goes quiet? I bet there’s some abstruse theory about going clockwise being the natural state of things…)
And another thing, when you’re listening to it on the train, where are you supposed to look? I don’t like reading when I’m listening to music. I either like to really listen to it, or to let my thoughts wander. But, in the meantime, where to look? Looking at the headlines on people’s papers is tempting, as long as one doesn’t try to read more than that. Looking to see what books people are reading is another. Of course, my favourite thing is just to look at people, their faces, to note their expressions, watch their mannerisms. Some people might say I stare, but I say I’m just taking in detail, being observant. But there’s a problem with this activity. I don’t know if it’s just me – Tom says it is – but I can’t really seem to manage to keep this up for more than about 30 seconds before the said ‘victim’ looks up and catches my eye. I have to look away, of course, and then there’s a dilemma. Dare I look again and risk second eye-contact? I mean, one eye-contact incident could just be a coincidence. I just happened to glance their way when they looked up. But twice? They’re going to think I’m weird. And do I care about that? Well, yes, I rather do, actually. So, in between furtive glances, I stare at the door frame, the floor, the far end of the carriage, anything inanimate almost, although looking out the window makes my neck ache unless I’m sitting next to it, and, if I have the choice, I rarely am. Perhaps this is why some people have their eyes shut on the train. It’s not because they didn’t get enough sleep the night before, as I’d always assumed.
Talking about really listening to music, as opposed to drifting off into thoughts, I am frequently surprise how very, very wrong I have got some of the lyrics to even songs I think I know well. For example, I could have sworn that there’s a line in David Bowie’s Quicksand that goes “Knowledge comes with tax relief.” Ok a bit odd, but not totally implausible, I think, given them method of lyric writing Bowie used to claim he used – writing sentences on strips of paper then almost randomly putting them together. And then this evening I discover, after 25 years, that what he is actually singing is “Knowledge comes with death’s release.” (Um, I think.) I like to think that’s just the wonders of digitally remastering, but…
The one bad thing I have to say about my iPod is that I no longer have the right to feel smug. I am no longer safe in the knowledge that, whatever other health-threatening habits I have, at least I won’t go deaf from listening to music too loudly.
The one really good thing is that, wearing it in the street, those horribly overly-enthusiastic people with clip boards, who are trying to make you sign up to a direct debit to a charity, no longer attempt to stop me.
I knew I had sunk really low, right down to the depths of iPod addiction hell, when I started playing it in the street. Ok I now realize that this is no big deal. Everyone does it, but at the time it felt weird. At first, I just kept it on after I got off the train on the way to work. Then, I progressed to wearing it on my way home from the station. It took a while for me to reach this particular level, mainly because I was slightly afraid that someone might steal it from me in the area where I lived. I mean, it’s not that bad an area, but there are some dodgy types around. Every now and again, there’s a police poster up asking for witnesses to some mugging, carjacking or assault, and there has been the occasional stabbing, so I was just being careful. It’s alright for Tom to do it, I told myself. He’s 6ft4 and somewhat on the chunky side. He’s not going to be the first target for an iPod-snatcher. I am. In fact, they’d take one look at him, then at me, and mark me out as their next target there and then. They’d watch my movements day after day, and then, one day, when I least expected it, they’d pounce. One minute I’d be blissfully listening to a very loud song from a Black Lab album, and the next, I’d be ripped out of my emotionally charged cocoon of noise, and they’d be making off down the street, triumphantly clutching my scruffy, scratched iPod, leaving the earphones dangling from my ears, the other end ripped out of my bag.
I think it was the poster with the mobile phone at the entrance to the station that made me think like this. The one warning you to be careful using your phone there. The one that suggested that the moment you took it out to ring and tell your loved one that you were at the station, and on your way home, it would be snatched from you hands and whisked away leaving the person you were talking to at best confused, at worst, insulted.
Anyway, in spite of these misgivings, I suddenly decided to take the plunge one day. When I got off the train, I turned my iPod off, and took the headphones out, keeping it hidden away, while in the vicinity of the station. I wasn’t going to throw caution to the wind altogether. But, once I’d walked down the alleyway that led down to the main road and passed under the railway bridge, with a sense of guilty pleasure, I put it back on.
I don’t know why I did this. Maybe it was a bit like my first cigarette.
I’d resisted smoking until I was 16, puritanically refusing all offers and opportunities whenever they arose, vowing that this was Something I Would Never Do. I had a list of 6 or so things That I Would Never Do when I was in my teens. It included Never Visiting A Zoo – did that at 15, although not voluntarily - Never Owning or Wearing a Pair of Trainers – I still don’t - and Not Wearing a Watch – I gave in to that one when I was working in a shop, around the age of 20, and needed to know what the time was, for taking breaks etc. But, since my last one ‘exploded’ under cabin pressure on the way back from a holiday, I’ve been clean for the last 8 years.
Anyway, smoking.
One day my sister, who had been smoking for years, offered me one, and I took it. Just like that. (It didn’t last long, as I accidentally broke it in half, while inexpertly trying to flick ash off the tip. No matter, my sister, ever the one to nourish a potential addiction, gave me another. I don’t smoke by the way.) So perhaps something similar had happened with my iPod. Some voice inside me said, ‘You know you want to, put your iPod on in the street, go on…’ So, I mentally shrugged and said ‘ok’.
This not only demonstrates how low I’ve sunk, but it’s also immensely hypocritical. Many’s the time I’ve had a silent, mental rant about people wearing iPods in the street – how it makes them less aware of their immediate surroundings and therefore more likely to walk into you, or makes them meander from side to side across the pavement, making it impossible to overtake them. Of course, I convinced myself, I wouldn’t be like that. The meandering bit wouldn’t be a problem anyway, because it was rare that anyone was fast enough to overtake me (although I had my suspicions that some music slowed me down a bit.) And I would be extra careful to be aware of what was going on around me.
I’m not sure why I feel so guilty about listening to my iPod. Why is it such a guilty pleasure? Maybe its because it’s such an immense pleasure, listening to music turned up loud, without having to worry about it bothering other people, it just doesn’t seem decent to do it in public. Such intense pleasure should only be enjoyed behind closed doors –a bedroom, or an hotel room, perhaps.
And that’s another thing. I don’t quite believe in earphones. That other people really can’t hear what I am hearing. Well, I know they can’t, but I still find the whole thing odd. I’m paranoid about having my music on so loud that other people will hear that annoying buzz or, worse still, actual tunes. So, at least once on each of the occasions I am listening to it, I have to take the earphones out and hold them a few inches away from my face to check that nothing’s audible. Sometimes, I do it twice. Some people might say that that’s obsessive behaviour, like flicking a light switch on and off, even though you can see whether the light’s on or not. But I just like to think I am being considerate to others. Or, more truthfully, avoiding embarrassing myself.
Recently I’ve taken to trying my iPod out in different types of places. I know it probably looks rude to be walking through Ikea, Tom at my side, with it on. But it’s an experiment, I tell myself, so it’s ok. The experiment is to see if wearing an iPod in Ikea makes the experience any less hideous. At first, I realize, that it does to seem to be achieving this effect, to some extent. It almost drowns out the sound of screaming children, although it can’t stop them hurtling into you, and somehow the music seems, miraculously, to soften the glare of the harsh lighting. Even my obligatory for-an-Ikea-trip slight hangover doesn’t seem so bad.
So, for a while all is well in Ikea with an iPod, apart from the fact that it’s obviously pissing Tom off. But, hey, so what? He’s just jealous he didn’t think to do the same. (Although, how sad would that look? The two of us, side by side, too immersed in technology to interact with one another, to have a relationship, to all outward appearances.) Anyway, I’m all chilled out here. I can live with his irritation. But, as we get closer and closer to the check out, I feel my anxiety levels inexplicably rising slowly, but perceptibly. They have almost reached screaming level, by the time Tom staggers towards me under the weight of the bookshelves he is trying to lift onto a trolley. Ok. I give up. I turn it off and put it away in my bag. I don’t want to be cured of my addiction right now, and Ikea could well provide the sort of aversion therapy that might achieve this.
Actually, I do feel a slight need to curb my addiction when it comes to using my iPod on the train. I know I really ought to be reading. I enjoy reading, of course, if I can find something I like, but at the moment, it’s taken on a new role. I regard it as food for my own, so far, rather unsuccessful attempts at writing. I hope that if I feed them enough, one day they might grow into something beautiful, or at least serious. I try to ration myself. One journey reading, the other, iPod.
However, I’m not very good at this rationing thing. Take last night, for example. Lately, the writing thing has been getting a bit out of hand, as far as I am concerned. I haven’t been doing the other stuff, stuff I ought to be doing, like putting washing away, cooking and, sometimes, eating even. Or anything really. Even watching TV. Since getting back from France at Easter, I have gone from getting home and automatically turning on the TV, to watching nothing all night. Instead, I scuttle up to the attic to write and/or edit. But, last night, I had a simple plan to foil all this.
I would go home, spend 40 minutes making a chilli for dinner, 15 minutes feeding and watering the tomato plants, write until Tom got home, eat and sit with him for a bit. Then write for another hour. Then watch TV for an hour. Oh’ and I wasn’t going to have any wine that night either.
When I got home, I realized we’d run out of onions. I couldn’t be bothered to go down the hill to get any, or more to the point come back up afterwards, and I couldn’t make chilli without one, could I? There was a pizza in the freezer. That would do, wouldn’t it? And did the tomato plants really need watering? It had rained earlier in the day. They could wait another day for some food surely. So, I poured myself a glass of wine and went upstairs and wrote for the next three hours, neglecting to eat anything, and was not entirely sober when Tom finally got home. You’d think there might be flip side of this - that I could use reverse psychology to get me to do the things I know I ought to. But no. If I told myself I could just have baked beans for dinner, or nothing if that’s the way I felt so inclined, that I could write for as long as I wanted and drink a whole bottle of wine, that’s exactly what I’d do. Anyway, I have digressed.
I find the whole concept of personal music devices a very strange thing. The idea that there are hundreds of people all walking round in their own little worlds, each different. You’d think there might be some sort of solidarity between in-the-street mp3 player users. That they might have some secret sign or code that signifies their camaraderie, that they are in a sense all sharing a similar, singular experience. But no. Of course not. Part of the nature of them is that they isolate you. And then, I suppose, most people don’t think of using them as anything out of the ordinary. Perhaps I won’t, given time.
Tom was on the bus coming home from Balham the other week, listening to his swanky new, much better than mine, matt finish iPod, when the elderly man next to him tapped him on his shoulder. Tom politely slipped his earphones off.
“Can you hear anything when you’ve got that on?” he pointed at the iPod.
“Er, no, not really,” Tom replied.
“Well, that’s such a pity. We’re on such a nice bus, and everyone’s in such a good mood, and you can’t have a conversation?”
“Do you think they’re antisocial?” Tom asked politely. I imagine. The man thought for a moment.
“Stops you having conversations,” he answered. “So, yes, yes I do.”
Like Tom was in the habit of having conversations with strangers on buses anyway. It wasn’t his iPod that stopped him doing that.
“Now, here’s a conversation,” the man continued warming to his theme. “Cricket.” He looked at Tom defiantly as if he had thrown down the gauntlet. “What do you think to that?”
Now, Tom is quite a cricket fan, so he was quite capable of conducting a conversation about the ins and outs of it. Tom expressed his opinion on some technical point which means nothing to me. This seemed to take the man by surprise. Clearly he thought that wearing an iPod meant not just that one didn’t have the opportunity to converse, but that one had lost the ability. That it sucked all intelligence and knowledge out of its wearer like some strange alien device in a science fiction programme. Tom one. Stranger nil.
I am now trying to come up with new iPod experiments – new odd and inappropriate circumstances in which I might wear it. Find out whether being engulfed by own personal sound wall will enhance the experience or otherwise. I have contemplated wearing it in the bath. I assume it would be safe. But I’m not one for long baths. I get bored easily and I hate the way the hard London water makes one’s skin wrinkle up so quickly.
Although my addiction means that I am listening to music at every opportunity, you can still tell that I am not an experienced junkie. My earphones are constantly falling out, they seem to get tangled even though I wrap them round the body of the iPod when I’m not using it. I struggle with the controls. I try to wheel it round to the track I want, then when I remove my finger, it inevitably – perversely, in my opinion - continues onto the next one. I’m not quite sure whether to set the thing going, then put the headphones on, or the other way round. I forget to set the control freeze button to orange, and suddenly find myself deafened. (How come it never goes quiet? I bet there’s some abstruse theory about going clockwise being the natural state of things…)
And another thing, when you’re listening to it on the train, where are you supposed to look? I don’t like reading when I’m listening to music. I either like to really listen to it, or to let my thoughts wander. But, in the meantime, where to look? Looking at the headlines on people’s papers is tempting, as long as one doesn’t try to read more than that. Looking to see what books people are reading is another. Of course, my favourite thing is just to look at people, their faces, to note their expressions, watch their mannerisms. Some people might say I stare, but I say I’m just taking in detail, being observant. But there’s a problem with this activity. I don’t know if it’s just me – Tom says it is – but I can’t really seem to manage to keep this up for more than about 30 seconds before the said ‘victim’ looks up and catches my eye. I have to look away, of course, and then there’s a dilemma. Dare I look again and risk second eye-contact? I mean, one eye-contact incident could just be a coincidence. I just happened to glance their way when they looked up. But twice? They’re going to think I’m weird. And do I care about that? Well, yes, I rather do, actually. So, in between furtive glances, I stare at the door frame, the floor, the far end of the carriage, anything inanimate almost, although looking out the window makes my neck ache unless I’m sitting next to it, and, if I have the choice, I rarely am. Perhaps this is why some people have their eyes shut on the train. It’s not because they didn’t get enough sleep the night before, as I’d always assumed.
Talking about really listening to music, as opposed to drifting off into thoughts, I am frequently surprise how very, very wrong I have got some of the lyrics to even songs I think I know well. For example, I could have sworn that there’s a line in David Bowie’s Quicksand that goes “Knowledge comes with tax relief.” Ok a bit odd, but not totally implausible, I think, given them method of lyric writing Bowie used to claim he used – writing sentences on strips of paper then almost randomly putting them together. And then this evening I discover, after 25 years, that what he is actually singing is “Knowledge comes with death’s release.” (Um, I think.) I like to think that’s just the wonders of digitally remastering, but…
The one bad thing I have to say about my iPod is that I no longer have the right to feel smug. I am no longer safe in the knowledge that, whatever other health-threatening habits I have, at least I won’t go deaf from listening to music too loudly.
The one really good thing is that, wearing it in the street, those horribly overly-enthusiastic people with clip boards, who are trying to make you sign up to a direct debit to a charity, no longer attempt to stop me.
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