Spudulike

I'm reading the second instalment of Danny Baker's memoir at the moment.  This volume, like the first, is a thinly disguised love letter to his late father, Fred, or Spud, as he was universally known.

DK was clearly in awe of his old man, and with good reason - he sounds like a riot.  Here was a man absolutely brimming over with rough-hewn joie de vivre.  He was a docker with all the attendant industrial language and volatility that that role usually brings, but he was also a vibrant and funny man.  He played fast and loose at times, like Dan, but was always convinced that good times and good fortune would prevail in the end.  It's easy to see why people wanted to be around him.  The book really makes you wish you'd been around when he was in his pomp.

In fact Dan's entire childhood sound idyllic.  It's easy to look at the material facts and imagine it was little more than Dickensian: the council flat in Deptford, the dept-collectors calling at the crack of dawn etc.  But, as Dan is quick to point out, there was laughter, noise and fun at all hours of the day and night.  There was also a feeling of freedom and community that I suspect children these days are denied.

My own childhood home was like this.  Yes, we were skint, but that just makes to revel in what scant pleasures you could afford.  A week in the Isle of Sheppey was a joy to me as a boy, an absolute joy.

Dawn of the shed

As befits a man my age, I spent this weekend constructing a shed.  Shed technology has moved on apace over the last few years.  These days they're all plastic prefabs with windows and faux-tiled pitched roofs.  Say goodbye to creosote misery.  All that notwithstanding though, one still has to bolt the whole thing together, which took myself and my day-labourer, Mrs O, about five solid hours.

I really have to go to the well, character-wise, when performing tasks like this.  It's not something I'm particularly good at by nature, construction.  I have scant reserves of patience too, which doesn't help.  Luckily, Mrs O can always read the runes and steps in with tea and biscuits before my mental rev counter enters the red.

In the end I think we made quite a creditable fist of it.  It looks quite nice in situ.  I am no longer in my twenties, incidentally, in case you were in any doubt.  Anyways, it looks inoffensive and now contains the detritus that was previously under our stairs, stuff that should probably have been turfed into a skip back in the 90s.  But there it is.

Now it's finally done, I feel like an Olympic champion.  I've worked so very hard for so very long to realise this dream, and now it's a reality.  What am I going to do with the rest of my life?  I'm too young to retire.

We Three Kings of Orient Are

My football club, Leyton Orient, are in the throes of a massive disruption at the moment.  During the summer, in a fit of temporary madness, some Italian billionaire or other decided to buy the club.  Why he chose to do this now, and why Orient is between him and his wayward marbles.

The club, which admittedly, is debt-free, thanks to the good offices of its previous owner, Barry Hearn, is in a parlous state otherwise.  Local rivals West Ham are about to move into a new ground a stone's throw from Orient's.  They, being a top-flight outfit (at least in name), will purloin Orient's traditional catchment area for fans.  Much as I love The Os, I wouldn't wish supporting them on my worst enemy.  I support them because I have too; that's where I'm from.  You have to be born or at the very least have spent your formative years in their (vee small) catchment.  Basically, there's a 2 mile segment of about 240 degrees to the north and east of the club's ground inside which sentiment demands you support them.  To the south is West Ham territory.  And any further than 2 miles from the ground brings you into the gravitational fields of any number of massive London clubs.

It should be clear to even the dullest Italian wit then that this is a club that will never attract a large and moneyed cohort to its home games.  And that presupposes that the club survives the West Ham scandal at all.

Added to this, our Italian has behaved in the way all billionaires do, i.e. to threaten and demand instant success.  As a direct consequence of this hectoring in broken English, our long-serving manager resigned on Wednesday.  So far, so poor.

Why are billionaires so cliquéd?  Is it because they give all their mental energies to cultivating money?  Perhaps.

Ready Steady Go-Slow

It's Thursday, today.  And thank the baby Jesus for it.  It's been a very long week thus far.  I've spent the majority of it emerging from a heavy cold.  This has left me physically bereft.  I spend all my time either sleeping or yawning.  This leaves scant resource for gadding about and witticisms.  The time, when in a slough of physical despond like this, passes ever so slowly.  I'm hanging on by my fingernails for the weekend to scoop me up in its frivolous arms do the necessary.

It comes to something when your life is a bitter grind for the most part, with only the occasional low-octane piss-up at the weekends to lighten the load.  I keep thinking of pastures greener when it's like this, of working with my hands, of joining a circus or taking up base-jumping.  The trouble is I'll read a similar lament by some pampered wining lifestyle columnist in The Times on Saturday and realise that these thoughts are wholly unoriginal and, therefore, not worth acting on for a confirmed contrarian like myself.  I'll then set my jaw against the notion, and determine to stick to the largely meaningless bourgeois existence....that'll show 'em!

Your eyelids are growing heavy...

Purely routine

Routine's a funny old bag, isn't she?  Sometimes I cannot cope without her comforting arm around my shoulder.  Usually it's when I'm mentally or physically frazzled.  That means most mornings of course.  I don't honestly think I'd be able to make it to work more than about 30% of the time were it not for my well-honed routine.  I eat the same things for breakfast, do the same things in the same order.  This means I only have to turn on my brain after I've arrived at my desk.  As we use 99% of our available energy powering our brains, this is vital.  If I had to think and make rational decisions before leaving the house, I'd turn up at work drooling and boss-eyed - not much use, therefore, for whatever it is I'm supposed to do for a living.

Verbiage of reason

I'm having something of a crisis with my reading material at the moment.  I like to have, in fact must have, a book on the go at all times.  To ensure that there's no unpleasant book-free hiatus, I always cue up a new one as I approach the drawing room denouement chapter of my current read.

Once I've committed to a book, I don the hair-shirt and simply have to finish it.  So it is then that I find myself wading through Balzac's Cousin Bette like a condemned man on the long walk to the gallows.

I read Pere Goriot when I was young and enthusiastic (remember those days?) and adored it.  I had great hopes for this book then.  Unfortunately, it's shite - verbose, slow, confusingly-plotted and all the characters are loathsome.  I've only kept reading it in the forlorn hope that there's a chapter looming in which all the protagonists are making their way across a level-crossing when they're hit by a runaway train full of red-hot anvils.

No joy so far.  On with chapter ninety then.

Mystical Hoo Hah

One of my neighbours is a avid practitioner of yoga, so much so in fact that she's training to become a teacher of that ancient and venerable art.  One assumes then that she must be quite good at it.  When not bending, stretching and contemplating, she is just your everyday London 30-something - i.e. likes a drink and a fag.  This dichotomy fascinates me.

I remember years ago, the husband of a friend of mine was something in the world of tai chi.  There was no apparent dichotomy in this chap.  He practised obsessively, ate nothing that he wasn't prepared to kill first himself (no, really), drank no alcohol and generally led the life of a trainee acetic.  He was very well regarded by the tai chi cognoscenti too.  There was talk of him being put forward if the old slow kung fu made it into The Oympics.  He was no slouch when it came to tai chiing then.  But there was a dichotomy when you got close enough to him: he was by far and away the most uptight human being I've ever met.  You could just feel the unease seeping out of him like sweat.

If he could become a master of tai chi, then all its claims to afford insight and calm to its adherents were clearly bullshit.  The truth of the matter is slightly more material and prosaic then the ancients would have us believe.  If you're born with some natural aptitude and practice hard enough, you'll get good.  You don't need to dismantle the ego and assume your place in the cosmic consciousness first either; you just need to get up early, put on a pair of jogging bottoms and get on with it.

This realisation was initially quite disspiriting for me.  They really doesn't appear to be anything beyond the objective material "out there" that our senses assure us exists.  Transcendence is very probably an accident of sentience, a result of neurons randomly firing-off, as many scientists also now believe dreams to be.  We used to ascribe great significance to dreams, didn't we?  But now most informed, rational observers of neural science agree that they almost certainly mean fuck-all.

Antiquis Scotia

Well, the hustings are over; the votes have been counted, and Scotland is still a part of the UK.  As I said before, I was happy to go with whatever the Scottish people decided.  It's not for an English-born Brit like me to stick my oar in in this debate.  

The English are the dominant power in this kingdom...yes, they are...so when it comes to judging how valid the union is, it's not for us to say.  All we can do is note the genuine concerns of the Celtic Brits, and try to address them.

However, all that said, it does feel a little disappointing that the status quo has been maintained.  I really hoped we could have rebuilt the UK.  I also think it would have been fantastic for England and the English too.

For those of you unfamiliar with this sceptred Isle, travelling around Wales and Scotland with an English accent can and will attract the ire of the locals.  There is a very real and visceral dislike of the offices and institutions of the union in those countries, and the English are held to be responsible for the creation and maintenance of these instruments.

I had hoped that if the union were recreated along fairer lines, we could live alongside each other as peaceful siblings.  No more would the union flag been spurned by some Welsh and Scots.  The English could have adopted Jerusalem as their anthem, as most of them want.

These Hoots Are Made For Walking

Today is Scottish referendum day here in the (still currently) UK.  I've been amazed at the violent opinions some people hold on the matter of the union.  Northern Irish protestants have a vested, historical interest in its continuing, and that I can fully understand.  What I can't get my nut around is the English being exercised by this vote.

There are some in England who insist that the vote should have been extended to all Britons, and that the Scots should have been held to abide by the wish of the majority.  This, patently, makes no sense.  It's akin to one's spouse saying "It's not working.  It's you, not me.  I'm off.", only for the other to cast his or her vote and declare a draw.  If one partner in a genuine coalition of equals decides it's over, then over it be.  Otherwise, one must acknowledge that there is an imbalance of power, and that makes a nonsense of the notion of the union.  And there, in a nutshell, is the Scots' problem with the current state of affairs.

The English used to conflate the (different) notions of Britain and England without thinking about it.  English football fans used to wave the union flag, not the cross of St George.  No Scot or Welshman would have done that.  Also, when Wales or Scotland take to the field in football or rugby, the national anthem is never played.  If it were, there would be a riot.  What's more, all English people know this.

The playing of the national anthem is so contentious among Celtic Britons that it cannot be played at a sporting event that doesn't involve England.  What kind of a nation is that?  A dysfunctional outdated one.

I hope that the Scots decide to leave the union, not because I hate the union - I don't.  But if they did, it might usher in a new age of Britain and Britishness, one in which all the nations of these islands could treat each other like equal and respected neighbours.

I also think it would help Northern Ireland.  The two traditions there cling to outside agencies, like drowning men to lifeboats - the nationalists look to Dublin, and the unionists to London.  NI will never fulfil its potential until all in inhabitants turn their attention inwards and look toward Belfast instead.

Come on, Scotland - daddy needs a winner.

Infirmity - it happens to the best of us

I've been laid low with another cold.  I attribute this to flying.  I always get off planes feeling like shite.  As has been well-documented by professional moaners in the columns of weekend broadsheets, the air one breathes on an aircraft is terrible: stale, full of harmful microbes and far too warm.  A bit like Naples in fact.

So the upshot is I retired to the nuptial bed last night, dog-tired as per, but was unable to sleep as breathing through my mouth was like trying to suck a nettle up a bendy straw.  I was catatonic this morning of course.  I did think about phoning in sick, but I have a few meagre duties to perform on Wednesday mornings that are mission-critical and that I can't really trust anyone else to do.  It would be a massive dereliction of professional duty on my part, therefore, not to have pitched-up and done the needful.  A bit like the first officer of a 747 suggesting one of the stewardesses land in Bangkok because he's got a verruca.

I've also just discovered that my presence will be required tomorrow too.  Both my departmental colleagues are at a meeting in Ireland.

Begorrah.

Hang on - my past's in there.

A late post today as I was too busy at work to complete one on their time.  Yeah, I know, wtf?

The pub that I and my schoolmates co-opted as our local when we hit 15 is being demolished.  I cycled past it this morning; it's half gone already.  I don't suppose there's much left as I type.

It hasn't been a boozer for some years now.  It was a Polish strip club for a while and then a "venue", whatever in the heck that means.  It did cut me to the quick to see it being torn down.  I had some very joyous memories invested in that pile of London Yellow bricks.

One shouldn't get too sentimental, I suppose.  I dare say there are plenty of Polish navvies who have great memories of watching strippers in there in the mid 2000s.  They'd give me pub 80s pub talk short shrift I'm sure.  There might also be one or two company functionaries somewhere who have fond memories of the place too.  "Do you remember that presentation about tax breaks for SMEs we saw there in 2011?  Legendary."

Fickle Gerkin

Mrs O and I were in central London yesterday for the end of the Tour of Britain bike race.  When I started attending these bashes, about 15 years ago, it was club cyclists only who showed-up.  Then as cycling's profile increase, so did the audience numbers.  The last two or three years have been absolutely mobbed.  Yesterday, however, it was eerily quiet again.

This was a bit of a shock, as the weather was pretty good and there were plenty of star riders present.  I suppose it must be a result of having The Tour in England during the summer.  Going to see The Tour is like going to see Led Zeppelin in the 70s -  everything is bigger, better and louder than anything else you've seen in your life.  All other bike races look like Brother Beyond in comparison.  I imagine people took one look at the riders in British version, and thought "Sod it - I'll go to Ikea instead.  I need a new splashback anyway."

I can sort of understand and empathise with this attitude.  I have a similar distant relationship with football.  I dislike watching football.  At best it's boring and at worst it's torture.  And yet every second Saturday, I delude myself into thinking I seriously intend going along to my local team if they're at home.  Then about 2 o'clock I sober-up decide to waterproof the seams on my tent instead.  And, if I'm honest, it's cheaper and more fun than watching Orient.

You can't choose your family...or your team.

Pistorius on one's chips

Oscar Pistorius' ruin is complete.  Today he was convicted of culpable homicide, one of those interesting and obfuscating legal terms that no-one understands.  I don't suppose even OP doesn't really know what he's been sent down for.  All we do know is that he shot his girlfriend to ribbons; natural justice suggests he shouldn't have done this, and he must atone for this breech of etiquette by spending several years languishing in an South African prison.

The most disappointing aspect to this case is that it exposes, one again, that in order to have a "profile", i.e. to be successful and/or famous, you must first have a touch of psychopathy.  This is a dispiriting discovery.  Wouldn't it be nice for once to unearth a sleb who isn't a violent, philandering nincompoop?  Yes, I think so too.

Beef Jesus

There's no place like home.  That's true, but there's also no place like a Turkish prison, so the absolute value of the observation is questionable.  

Mrs O and I are just back from a wonderful week in Spain (sorry, Catalonia).  I had a gerr-ate time, and now of course I must atone for my sins by being miserable and questioning the worth of my quotidian surroundings and duties.

I was actually looking forward to getting home this time.  September is a time when you make your peace with the world, if you're from the northern hemisphere that is.  When the earth initially hurtles past the halfway point in its summer route around the sun, you rail against the shortening of the days.  But very quickly, Knut-style, you realise the futility of this position, and embrace the changing of the seasons.  I'd been planning winter jaunts as a result of this change of heart, but even this wasn't enough the protect me from the outrageous tedium that my job entails.

The brain and the face are in accord as I type: life is grim.  All is fatigue and ennui.  Still, a glass of sherry might pep me up, so it's not all ill-tidings.

A Wee Cough

Today is my final in the office for a bit.  Tomorrow, Mrs O and I fly out to Barcelona for a week.  Regular readers might recall that we've only recently returned from a mini-break in Spain.  We've decided to give the old back-to-back holiday protocol a whizz this year.

I suppose the only downside to it is the fact that I'm not beside myself with sweet anticipation; the break has rather crept up on me without the usual attendant excitement.  Normally t-minus two days from the off, I'm gnawing at the bit like a 9-stone horse.  Yes, it's made me rather blasé, this proliferation of holidays, not bored but blasé - like James Blunt might be.

Anyways, prior to the off comes all the boring sheight: packing a bag, making sure all the paperwork's in order etc.  Still, all that should be done-and-dusted by 8pm, which means there's ample time for a pre-hols snifter or several.  Mustn't get too trollied though - early start tomorrow.

Sniffles

God I feel poorly today.  I haven't been right for a couple of days.  I thought an early night might remedy the situation, so I turned in at 10.30 hier soir.  That's early for yours truly.  And despite sleeping reasonably well, I felt like I'd been hit by a Transit Van when I awoke this morning.

To add to the woes, Mrs O and I are off to Barcelona for a week on Thursday, so I don't want to be feeling crook when we fly.

Woe is me.

Desert Island discs

I was in Foyles yesterday afternoon.  I need to contextualise that, don't I?  Stop being so London-centric.  Foyles is a large bookshop on the Charing Cross Road in central London.  Right, so I was in Foyles, skimming the shelves for some holiday reading.  The store relocated recently into the building next door to its original home, and the extra space means they've been able to squeeze in tons of new stock.

This presents a problem.  I wasn't sure what I wanted to read, so being a methodical type, I started at A in the fiction section and carried on through the alphabet, making mental notes as I went as to books I fancied.  The problem is I have thousands of improving books to read, and only so much time left before I go doolally due to old age.  

This means I'm having to make some very tough decisions about new authors.  I did think about tearing through most of Balzac, but he wrote ninety, fairly-hefty tomes.  I estimate I'd have to give it a decade to get through them all.  I don't think I can spare ten years at this stage in proceedings.  I'm not exactly old, but I can't see the foothills of old on the horizon, and I don't want to devote the march up to them exclusively to one author, no matter how worthy and entertaining.

As it is I happened across a new author for me, Hermann Hesse.  I picked-up a copy of Steppenwolf.  It's serious stuff, but so far extremely compelling also.  I am concerned it might turn me into even more of a sociopath, but that's why I'm tremendous fun to be around for the most part, my ability to take literary risks.

I was so taken with Steppenwolf that I started reading it immediately, even though I had another book on the go.  I'm usually scrupulous in finishing one book prior to blowing the froth off another, but this time I couldn't wait.  Hesse's unlikely bedfellow in the this case is P.G Wodehouse.  And the book, "Meet Mr Mulliner", could not be lighter and more frivolous if it came with a free Labrador puppy.