Holiday

I'm demob-happy today, which when you consider I'm only going to York for the weekend is probably something of an overreaction.  It just goes to show you have take your jollies where you can when you're a man of a certain age.  In my 20s, I'd need to be flying to New York and a tear-up at Studio 54 before I got excited.  As much as I love York, it's unlikely to be overrun with former members of Chic, or Bianca Jagger on a horse.

As tradition dicates, I've spent a king's ransom on nibbles and drinks for the one-hour and fifty-five-minute train journey that one has to endure in order to get there.  If things go according to plan, in a little over two hours' time, I should be drunk and pretending to read a fashionable and difficult novel.  Yes, I wear round glasses.  What of it?

The north will rise again.

As I promised I would some months ago, I'm heading off to York tomorrow after work.  I've really warmed to the north (of England) of late.  I didn't really know and/or trust it previously.  I'd rarely been there, and then it was usually en route to somewhere else.

Mind you, I mustn't fall into the trap of defining the whole of the north of England as some charming, homogeneous entity.  It's as varied as anywhere else - more so in fact.  When you consider Liverpool and Manchester are 35 miles apart, their cultural difference from one another is staggering.  That's the joy of this country, it's incredible diversity.  We're losing it of course, in this age of instant communication, but it's still there.  I intend to sample as much of it as I can before it's snuffed out by smart phones and shit pop music.  The mission continues tomorrow.

I do have a little problem though.  I've foolishly eschewed beer for Lent, and York is home to more good real pubs than you can shake a stick at.  You don't even have to plan your evening in advance and track them down, as in other cities.  Every pub in York will have a tremendous array of ales.  You simply walk in, shake the rain off and point to a nearest beer pump.  Whatever's in the barrel beneath it will be superb, 'appen.

Lead-lined coughing

I'm ill!  Well, not that ill, but ill enough to warrant a day off yesterday.  I didn't feel able to make the ride in, and so reasoned I was insufficiently well to justify going in at all.  I'd simply be doing the germs' work for them.  No, instead I stayed at home.

Sickies, as I'm sure I've pointed out before, are a rarity for me.  I don't get ill much and even when I do, I don't like poncing around at home.  I've far too much residual Catholic guilt to enjoy that.  So I always make a point of doing something constructive with my time at home.  Yesterday, I shielded the control cavity of a 1974 Stratocaster.  This is the perfect pastime for am ailing man.  I was able to work from the dining table in the kitchen, nice and close to the radiator.  It took me about 5 hours to complete the task, during which time I estimate I drank a little over an imperial gallon of tea.

It was lovely being at home.  It was a sunny day, so I was able to stare at the garden during tea breaks.  I know it betrays a certain lack of drive and ambition, but I'd love to be retired.  Pottering around all day, drinking tea and eating Jaffa Cakes?  Yes, please.  The Rev. Sydney Smith once averred that we should all do what life intended for us.  He's quite right.  Some of us are cast in the role of earnest office Johnnie.  I am not.  I pottered, drink tea and think great thoughts.  I just need to a European monarch to put me on a generous retainer as his or her court philosopher in order that I might have sufficient funds for nibbles and treats etc., and I'll get on with head-scratching.

Loss

Today marks the first anniversary of the death of my beloved aunt.  I've been all at sea recently - unable to concentrate etc., and I ascribed this to a combination of fatigue and a nascent heavy cold.  It's like my brain is shorting-out at times; ideas flit hither and yon.  It's as if I'm a spectator to my own thoughts.  I think now that this confusion is probably a consequence of grief.  I'd forgotten the anniversary was due until my mother reminded me.  I've been feeling a lot of rage as well as the distraction.  This is how I felt when she died; my mind is reliving the memory.

This illustrates the importance of expressing grief.  I don't - can't actually - do this.  I get the initial wave - the tears, and the anger as I say.  But then when I'm on the cusp of letting it all out, I close up.  A bit of emotional scar tissue forms in my brain and I limp on.  I do need to let it go, this stuff, but it's hard.  Men in general and Irish men in particular abhor expressing raw emotion.  That's why Irishmen drink so much.  It gives you a glimpse of your emotions.  By the time you sober-up, the lid is safely back in place.

Concen................err......tration

Due to massive physical and mental fatigue of late, I'm really finding concentration hard to come by.  I can't even hold down 30 seconds of smalltalk today.  I was chewing the trivial fat with a colleague earlier, and as he spoke I found it impossible to focus my eyes properly or follow the drift of his anecdotage.  Christ knows what I looked like to him, a giant egg-glazed fruit bun I expect.  He was good enough not to point this out.

When a man is tired, that man is usually me

I'm really shattered today.  I'm definitely coming down with something - the same bug that's made the office look and sound like a trench in Mons for the last fortnight, no doubt.  In fact the only thing that's kept me for actually falling asleep is the Not Nigella Lawson twitter page (https://twitter.com/CarryOnNigella).

This admirable endeavour is a page of obviously spoof tweets from the well-upholstered sauce pot and sometime chef Nigella Lawson.  It contains the kind of fire-proof single-entendres that make England go round, and always leave me gasping with laughter.

You can get away with murder in this country if you peddle smut as long, that is, it's genuinely funny and intelligent.  I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue is the high water mark of this type of, peculiarly English, humour.  Humphrey Littleton used to say some outrageous things on there, and they always passed without comment or censure.

The chap who runs the Nigella site accepts contributions, so the following were composed when I should have been doing something altogether more worthwhile and therefore dull:

My pet hamster's food gets all over the furniture at home.  I spent this morning flicking the nuts off a tallboy.

I recently attended a Buckingham Palace garden party.  I met lots of important people, and ended the evening with a Sir Mellie Finger.

Went for a cycle on the bridle path earlier.  It was fun, but muddy and I ended-up with a face full of muck from some fellow’s Chopper.

The extractor fan in my kitchen makes a frightful noise. I must get a man in to peer under my hood and oil the flaps.

I accidentally spilled a bottle of Mazola all over the bird table this morning, and had to spend the entire afternoon hosing the oil off my tits.

 - My work here is done

Heaven Lent

Today is Ash Wednesday.  I'm not a traditionally religious, in that I don't believe there is a god.  I do, however, observe Lent by giving up something enjoyable.  This year I shall be abstaining from strong drink during the week.  I count Friday evening as the weekend, incidentally.  This is a hangover from growing up in London in the 1980s.  Back then, commercial television was shared by two companies.  One, Thames, did Monday to Friday.  The other, LWT, took over at 5.15 on a Friday evening.  LWT's was real glitter ball ooh-ahh viewing of the most low-brow and compelling kind.  I got into the habit as an urchin of associating their logo with the weekend.  Their weekend began at 5.15 on a Friday evening, and so does mine.

Actually, scratch that.  It's 6pm, and I'm gasping for bottle of jollop.