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Eating Out Alone

Posted in Personal, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on Mar 21, 2012| Leave a Comment »


Last night I did something I can’t recall having done before in my near sixty years – I ate out alone in a restaurant. I don’t know what that says about me, particularly as I dine out as often – and probably more – than I can afford. Perhaps I am such sparkling company that I am always fending off a queue of admirers willing to share, and be seen to be sharing, a meal in public with me? Yes, of course ………… not. It’s more a case of my being too self-conscious to be seen unaccompanied. 

Until last night.

Having passed a dozen restaurants in Covent Garden, all full, catering for the demands of theatregoers, I spied a spare table at Pizza Express, opposite Charing Cross railway station, and, as boldly as I could in the circumstances, went where I had not gone before, and entered.

I felt some trepidation about the experience, expecting everyone to stare at me and either poke fun because I had nobody to share my meal with or, perhaps worse still, cast pitying glances in my direction. This may be pathetic and irrational, not least in these days when an increasing number of people live alone, but it was, nonetheless, real.

I was met with a beaming smile by Yamina, a delightful and attentive waitress whom, I would hazard, was of middle eastern extraction, and escorted to my table. She removed the “spare” set of cutlery, thereby indicating to my fellow diners that I was truly on my own, and not just waiting for my “date”.

She promptly took my drink order of a large glass of Pinot Grigio. I declined the offer of water, not least because the prospect of having two glasses, and perhaps a bottle too, on the small table before me (and this was before any food had arrived), might prove too much of a temptation for me to spill the contents and expose me still further as a sad hick.

On returning with my drink – which comprised a wine glass AND a carafe (anxiety level spirals) – I ordered dough balls “Pizza Express”, followed by “Padana Leggera”, a thin crust pizza topped with goats cheese, spinach, caramelised red onion and garlic oil, with a veritable forest of rocket engulfing it. Yamina declared that I had chosen the “best” pizza on the menu, with which judgement, despite the absence of at least four varieties of cheeses bubbling in it, I concurred.

The food was good if not outstanding, but then, the last time I looked, Pizza Express was still awaiting its first Michelin star. It is, however, reliable, tasty and relatively inexpensive.  And, having been one of the first pizza chains in the UK, opening its first branch near the British Museum, over 40 years ago, it has maintained its position in the market in the intervening years in the face of growing competition.

Last night, the dough balls were a little dry, although the garlic butter helped to alleviate that issue. Goats cheese and caramelised red onion are a delicious combination, though the profusion of rocket atop it just took the edge off the heat a little more than I would have liked.

The service throughout was excellent. Aside from the ever-smiling Yamina, both the young man who delivered my main course and the woman – whom I presumed to be the maître dit who collected my empty plate – were equally charming and attentive. 

Now, when you have somebody opposite you at the dinner table, you are obliged to engage them in witty, intelligent conversation or, failing that, check your e mails and Facebook accounts together on your mobile phones. When you are alone, however, your thoughts tend naturally to wander over the minutiae of your life. For me, the experience of being in a restaurant, on my own, monopolised my thinking.

One fantasy I harboured that might account for the superb service I received was that the staff might have mistaken me for a food critic. Fanciful idea I know, but my alternating between taking a bite of pizza and scribbling in my notebook, must have appeared odd. Nothing like drawing attention to yourself when you’re trying to be invisible. But, in a way, I was – this article is as much a modest restaurant review as it is an exploration of my psyche. 

Or perhaps their amiability was borne out of pity for my plight of solitude.

(There I go again – it’s no big deal, really. Thousands of people do it every day, and without making such a fuss. Get over yourself).

And besides I wasn’t really alone. I had the company of a six by four foot mirror disconcertingly close to my left cheek, reflecting back my profile. Thankfully, it displayed my better side, though that is not saying much. Inevitably, I cast the occasional glance in it, but for no other reason than to snoop on my fellow diners without staring directly at them. Oddly, they appeared to have no interest in me, my scribbling or my hangups (nothing worse than being spoken about………).

After forty five minutes I paid the bill, leaving Yamina a handsome tip, and strode out into a balmy, bustling Strand where the rush hour with its constant stream of taxis, buses and pedestrians remained in full swing. 

(There, that wasn’t so bad was it? Well, OK, but I think I’ll take my wife next time).

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Desolation Row Revisited

Posted in Personal, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on Mar 16, 2012| 4 Comments »


It is 10am on a bright, brisk market day morning in March in a town in the south of England.  I order a decaffeinated skinny latté from an eager young man in the one cafe that does not reek of grease, and take a seat outside.

On his way out to me the trainee barista trips over a discarded beer can and spills the coffee over the pavement.  He apologises and returns to mop it up, but fails to offer me another cup, and then is visibly irritated when, wholly unreasonably, I request a fresh one. That said, he brings a prompt replacement, seasoned with a further apology.

From the doubtful comfort of my three and a half legged plastic chair I scan the establishments around me – “Nails Palace – Professional Nail Care for Ladies and Gentlemen”, “Cash Generator – the Buy, Sell and Loan Store”, “Tanning Heaven”, “Tattoo xxxxxx Ltd”, “Cheques Cashed”, “We buy Gold – any Condition”, “Residential lettings”, “Betfred” bookmakers and the “Community Store”, run by the Salvation Army and offering “Heart to God, Hand to Man”.

“Eel Pie Island”, which specialises in  all day breakfasts, announces itself in large, yellow lettering to be a “Caf’e” (I doubt the apostrophe police saw that one coming). Upstairs is a dental surgery which, somehow, seems appropriate.

The “Hot 4 U Pizza, Chicken and Kebab” shop is closed, victim of too much competition in the fast food field, proof that you can have too much of a good thing. Breakfast for those not crammed into McDonald’s consists of sausage and bacon rolls and fresh cream puffs. Obesity seems a badge of honour.

The traditional gentleman’s barber shop is missing his iconic red and white striped pole. Nothing for the weekend here.

The local pub is also boarded up. A ragged, handwritten paper sign flaps in the light breeze. Somebody has inserted an “i” between the words “to” and “let”.

The compensation culture is in full swing. The frontage of the “Claim Shop” is emblazoned with a huge sign proclaiming “have you been involved in an ACCIDENT or suffered an INJURY through no fault of your own!!!”.

A council street cleaner fights a losing battle with bottles, cans, and food packaging, strewn over benches and pavement.  On the opposite side of the road a modern day Steptoe proceeds in stiff but stately fashion along the pedestrianised street, peering professionally in all directions for unwanted morsels.

The air reverberates in a veritable Babel. English is spoken, or rather shouted, liberally infused with swear words, but it is no more heard than is Polish, Russian, Arabic, Turkish or Punjabi.

Young gap-toothed men wearing baseball caps or hoods and gripping cans of super strength, but astonishingly cheap, lager, swagger past, trailed by tattooed teenage mothers already carrying their next child, barking at their toddlers who are committing the heinous crime of  being  ……………….. children.

As the weather is uncommonly mild, plain white vests, accompanied by sometimes matching sweat pants, appear to be the dress code of choice, at least for the men. Whilst this might be an attractive look on a young man with taut muscles in the right places, it does not sit well with balding, unshaven, middle aged men, stomachs bursting from a diet of gassy beer and burgers. Bare arms are bedecked with body art depicting snakes, eagles and pseudo-oriental slogans.

Their Staffordshire bull terriers, acquired for menace, encircle each other, doing nothing more threatening than sniffing at each other’s private parts.

And yet, I am observed quizzically, even suspiciously, by passers-by with my fancy coffee, book for reading and, especially, notebook and pen desperately trying to capture the vivid images around me.

The young mums congregate outside Gregg’s and Iceland to share a cigarette, compare frilly pram and buggy decorations and show off the clothes they have just bought for Bailey and Madison in Primark. As the conversation turns to X Factor and piercings, their progeny become increasingly testy, provoking screeching admonitions to “shut up…… now”.

Shoppers seek bargains in the many charity shops, notably Scope, Cancer Research, Oxfam, British Heart Foundation and Demelza (for children in hospice care), but the upstart 97p conv£nience store has recently closed, sent packing by the more established and cavernous 99p emporium.

In the bustling market the stalls selling inexpensive imitation leather jackets, shell suits and sweatshirts are doing a good trade.  Following close behind are those offering household goods and toys, jewelry, watches, mobile phones, rugs and carpets, curtains, handbags, purses and luggage – the selling point in every category being cheapness.

Country crooners from the fifties dominate the airwaves from the two stalls specialising in CDs and DVDs. A local driving school and the RAC try to rein in passers by, but most people here do not drive. Surrounded by fast food outlets, the centrally positioned greengrocer is still highly popular, as is the plant stall.

The meat wagon man is not so successful despite his saucy entreaties to “come on girls, don’t be shy, give my lovely meat a try”. A further invitation to feel his pork loins goes similarly unheeded. Despite his impressive discounts, a middle aged couple try to barter with him to no avail – another sale lost.

An octogenarian sea dog (this is a naval town, after all), dressed in a tweed jacket and waistcoat that displays several medals, shuffles past pushing a shopping trolley. Woe betide anyone who gets in his way, for a wheezy verbal volley and a clip from his walking stick will befall them. He sports a flourishing white beard reminiscent of Uncle Albert’s in the TV sitcom, Only Fools and Horses.

A slowly warming sun glints through the trees as I drain my latté and head for The Works in the hope of picking up a bargain book to add to the already overstocked shelves at home.

Florence this is not. Nor is it Bath or Edinburgh. But it is a area of contrasts. Despite having some of the worst school exam results in the country it boasts four universities, and the local sports centre has been refurbished and rebranded as an Olympic training venue.

If the picture I have portrayed here only depicts one side of that, it is because that is what I see on this March Monday morning.

And, as someone infinitely more eloquent than I said “it’s alright ma – it’s life and life only”.

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A Cat, Two Ponies and an Absent Labrador

Posted in Personal, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on Mar 13, 2012| 2 Comments »


Recently my wife and I did some house sitting for friends. It had been a welcome short break for us too – leaving our three bedroom terraced house in town for a spacious five bedroom detached cottage deep in the Kent countryside, with ten acres of land and nothing on the horizon but trees and the occasional oast house.

Our duties had not only been confined to the “country pile”, but a minor menagerie too. Firstly, we were asked to attend to the needs “on demand” of the family cat, a deaf, sixteen year old with the onset of dementia and the personality of an East End mobster. Then there was the cacophonous collection of ducks, moorhens and pheasants that hung out together around the pond, and the mass of birdlife, including woodpeckers, assorted tits and finches, wood pigeons, thrushes and others at their feeding station.

And finally, there were two shetland ponies, one palomino and the other chestnut, whom, for the first 24 hours, we were responsible for steering into their stables in the evening and out of them into the field the next morning.

Originally, we had been expected to look after the elderly black labrador dog too, but she had been unwell of late and travelled away with her owners. Disappointing though this development was, it did allow us to walk a lot further, which we took full advantage of.

But let’s return to the cat. We were told to feed him “when he whines”. That sounds easy – until you discover that he whines at least once an hour as he stands over a dish that, a short while ago, was gleaming with cat food, steamed with such delicacies as tuna, salmon and sardine. Periodic bowls of prawns completed his exotic, and clearly delicious, diet.

Once replete, his “demand” then extended to standing by the back door, insisting, in steadily increasing volume (remember, he is deaf), that, despite the fact that he could use the cat flap designed for the purpose is located in the front door, he be let out via that route (only to return by the cat flap, of course).

His life appears to be a constant cycle of eating and sleeping – which he did for hours on end, usually curled up by the side of the sitting room T.V.  Just occasionally, he would ordain that he be stroked for a few moments, but not for long enough to engender sentimentality or diminish his street credibility. And, after all, we needed to know our place.

Now, I know his alternately independent and needy manner is only his cat nature, but it was the way in which he articulated the latter that was particularly alarming, and not a little scary. Dependent, I presume, upon his level of dissatisfaction at being ignored when he “whines”, he has an extraordinary range of sounds, from the traditional miaow, to a cute, lamb-like bleat, a remarkably human conversational tone and, ultimately, a hair-raising growl – the last usually doing the trick (crikey, where’s his food?).

Despite repeated staring competitions, and raised voices on either side, I’d like to think that, by the end of the weekend, whilst not becoming great friends, we had at least arrived at a tenuous understanding, though which of us was David Cameron and which Boris Johnson, I would not presume to guess.

And then there were the ponies. As their stables had already been “mucked out”, and their food and water prepared, our duties on the first evening were merely to guide them from the field into their respective stables, with the reverse operation the following morning. Now I’ll confess that we were not a little anxious about this.

Would they – especially as were strangers – take this opportunity to make a run for it when that gate was opened at 5.30pm? Or would they attack us, annoyed that they had been obliged to wait so long for their evening meal (despite the fact that they had each eaten a ton of grass during the day)? Or, perhaps, even worse, and I acknowledge that this would have been the least likely scenario, would they refuse to budge at all?

So we prepared very carefully for the ordeal.

Gate to outside world and freedom firmly closed?

Check.

Stable doors open to receive residents?

Check.

Route to compost heap cut off by strategically placed wheelbarrow (and male human of advancing years)?

Check.

Here goes – gate to field opened.

What happened there?

Within two seconds, and in a whirl of dried mud, hay and galloping hooves, they were ensconced in their respective stables, muzzles in their buckets of feed, hay and apples, oblivious to our concern as we picked ourselves up from the stony path.

For details of the following morning’s similar stampede, just read the foregoing account in reverse order.

Piece of cake then – or, perhaps, bowl of hay might be a more suitable metaphor.

The entertainment provided by the animals aside, it was a glorious weekend with warm spring sunshine throughout.

Fine weather helps of course, but these few days have confirmed that country life agrees with me. The only sounds were delightfully natural ones – the ducks greeting the dawn which, unfortunately, for some, appears to have broken at 2am, the diversity of birdsong, the calling of woodpeckers across the valley, and even the whinnying and kicking from the stables as the ponies became impatient to be released from their overnight custody.

As I finish this piece a pheasant scoots across the meadow in a hilarious audition for the role of the roadrunner in the re-creation of the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons. A squirrel clambers clumsily onto a bird feeder, only to be ganged up on by a crowd of coal tits. I will, however, gloss over the shenanigans in the vicinity of the pond where three male mallards chase and ultimately pin down a single female. Spring has undoubtedly sprung.

I would write more but I can hear the cat whining again.

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Twenty Nine Miles – Or the Night We Almost Died

Posted in Personal, tagged , , , , , , , , , on Mar 7, 2012| 8 Comments »


It was March 2002, a mere half year since that brilliant, terrible morning in New York City that changed our lives forever. The world, and especially the United States, remained in a state of anxiety and foreboding about the direction in which it was moving.

Security was tight, therefore, as we landed at San Francisco International Airport on a damp, dismal Tuesday afternoon.  With an eleven hour flight and early check-in, we had been travelling already for eighteen hours. We were already regretting the decision to drive the 180 miles direct to South Lake Tahoe that evening for our holiday in Heavenly ski resort.

After dragging our heavy luggage from the arrivals hall to the car hire centre at the far side of the airport, we were informed that a large storm was approaching Tahoe, and advised that we should seriously consider upgrading to a 4×4 vehicle.  Whilst subsequent experience has taught us that this is a regular ploy to extract a significant chunk out of our holiday spending budget before we have even left the terminal, this appeared a more plausible scenario on this occasion.  However, we declined the upgrade but collected our obligatory snow chains before searching for our car.

We drove away from the airport at around 4pm, the beginning of the evening commute, just as the rain that had been threatening since our arrival set in.  Experience had taught us that rain at this level meant snow at much higher elevations.  How would we be able to attach the snow chains to the car?  We had never done it before.  And when would we know it was the right time to do so? Fortunately, at a small price (this is America after all), these decisions were made for us later in the journey.

The run to the Bay Bridge was frenetic, and, as the rain got heavier, so did the traffic.  Our wipers were working overtime through the stretch of the I-80 from the Oakland end of the bridge past Emeryville, Albany, El Cerrito, Richmond, Vallejo, Bernicia, Fairfield, Vacaville, Dixon, Davis and all the way to Sacramento when we joined the US 50.  Between Folsom and Placerville the incessant rain turned to sleet and then full-blown snow, obscuring the intermittent views of the Sierra Nevada mountains that we would customarily enjoy.

The road narrowed from a relatively straight freeway to a constantly twisting single lane, and the tyres struggled to cope with the ever-thickening snow.  As quickly as they had created a groove it was covered over again, awaiting the next vehicle to attempt to carve through it.  We had only, in terms of distance, a sixth of our journey left, but we feared that this would be the most challenging and potentially frightening part of the journey.

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We passed a handful of “lookouts” with their signs warning of “snow removal equipment” and of snow chain installers at work. It was only, however, when we reached the distance marker denoting that South Lake Tahoe was twenty nine miles away, that we were brusquely hailed down by the abominable snowman who installed the chains efficiently if a little grumpily. We may have been another $20 light but a small measure of reassurance had been restored.

After all, it was “only” twenty nine miles wasn’t it?  How bad could it be?

We’d negotiated steep mountain passes in the Alps before, hadn’t we? Of course we had, piece of cake then.

Oh, but hold on a minute, we’d been sat on a coach whilst an experienced native of the region took the wheel. Not so simple then.

Yes, but, once this was over, we had a hot meal and a stiff drink awaiting us on our arrival in South Lake Tahoe. And just think how exciting it will be to ski on all this fresh powder tomorrow morning.

British stiff upper lips notwithstanding, we both silently fought our fears.

The snow was now pounding against the windscreen, at least that is what we assumed was accounting for the only sound assaulting the silence high in the mountains. The intermittent cracks in the white darkness, were the headlights of oncoming trucks hurtling past in the opposite direction. The drivers had seen it all before.
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Although we could hardly have been moving more slowly, no other vehicle passed us on the entire journey. There had been seven others at the lookout when our snow chains had been installed. Where could they have gone? There was no other road to take. Perhaps they had given up for the night – something we had not for one second contemplated, however bad it got, because that would have been even more dangerous.  We had to press on – we may have been doing barely ten miles an hour at this point, but every rotation of those snow chained gripping tyres got us a little closer.

We may not have been able either to rationalise or articulate it in such terms at the time, but we had both adopted an, at least outwardly, calm, practical demeanour – Janet maintaining a steady, straight course, building fresh, deep grooves in the snow whilst I, as much by intuition than calculation, assessed our proximity to the side of the road, instructing her to make slight adjustments to the car’s position as necessary. Hearts skipped a beat every time I recommended a small movement to the middle of the narrow road just as a truck sped past, or what seemed, directly at, us!

The alternative was worse. The slightest twitch to the right would have had us plunging into the Eldorado National Forest. The sporadic fencing would not only have failed to prevent our fall, but also it was not visible as a guide to our proximity to the edge.

Height markers were barely decipherable on the hairpin bends, though we managed to make out Strawberry at 5,800 and Camp Sacramento at 6,500 feet respectively, providing comfort that we were closing in on the highest point of Echo Summit at 7,377 feet.

But our journey was not over. The snow chains had done their job so far, but now we were beginning our steep descent towards South Lake Tahoe.  Would the brakes work?  Would the chains grip the road sufficiently to prevent us running away?  Again, these thoughts went simultaneously through our minds, though nothing was spoken other than the now customary “steer slightly towards the middle” and “keep straight” admonitions from the passenger seat.

Our unease was unwarranted.  The chains performed impeccably as we descended smoothly towards our destination, braking at regular intervals.  The final challenge was to negotiate the steep, twisting hill that drops down to the lake basin. Relief, even euphoria took hold as the “Y”, the intersection between South Lake Tahoe Boulevard and the continuation of I-50 up the western side of the lake came into view.  Never had we been so grateful to see the welcoming neon of McDonald’s and Starbucks.

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During the descent the snowfall had relented, and the home straight into Stateline was just wet.  That final twenty nine miles had taken four hours to negotiate which meant that, by the time we had checked into the Embassy Suites resort, there was no hot food available.  But after 25 hours travelling we were too weary to venture out, so decided to just have a drink before retiring.

Over a glass or two we spoke for the first time of our ordeal, and how composed and worried at the same time we had been. We resolved that we would make tomorrow our non-skiing day.  As it happened, that decision was academic as the four feet of snow and high winds closed the resort anyway, allowing us to spend the day recovering and re-acclimatising ourselves to the area.

This was not to be the only harrowing experience of this particular holiday, though the week’s skiing went relatively smoothly after that. We have made the same drive six times since that night, but, sensibly, only during the day after a night’s rest in San Francisco.  And the weather has, ironically, been fine on each occasion.

But there’s always the next time.

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Whither at Sixty?

Posted in Personal, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on Feb 22, 2012| 5 Comments »


It’s four months now since I entered my sixtieth year on this blessed, blasted planet. In fact, 2012 is a rare year for major anniversaries – the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, the bicentenary of the birth of Charles Dickens, the five hundreth anniversary of the death of Amerigo Vespucci, the centenary of the sinking of the Titanic and last, and definitely least, there’s lil’ ol’ me.

So how do you “celebrate” such a feat of stamina? Big family party? Trip of a lifetime? Crawl into a corner and curl up into a ball? Well, my 40th was spent in Amsterdam and my 50th in Paris, whilst my wife’s corresponding birthdays were played out in Paris and Venice respectively. Bit of a clue there then (though Janet also wangled a not inexpensive party for the latter in the boardroom of the local football league club)!

But I think you get the picture – we’ll be spending it somewhere other than home.

Janet has been “encouraging” me for months to decide where I wanted to spend the occasion. Unfortunately, I am no nearer making that decision than I was on my 59th birthday, though I have narrowed it down to a handful of candidates (feels a bit like I’m deciding on where the next but one Olympics or football World Cup will be held).

One trip that has been on my wish list for much of the past decade is what is known as the “Blues Highway”, effectively tracing the migration of blacks from the deep south to the north following the Civil War, and, in the process, reliving American musical history.

The tour starts in New Orleans, with extended stops at Nashville, Memphis, St Louis and eventually Chicago. Visits to such iconic venues as Graceland, Sun Studios and the Grand Ol’ Opry, would be essential, and we would also want to sample cajun and zydeco music in their locales.

A tour through blues history would not be complete without a pilgrimage to Moorhead, Mississippi where the Southern crosses the Yellow Dog or Dawg, the spot where the “father of the blues”, W.C. Handy, heard “the first blues song” in around 1903, or the crossroads (there is much dispute as to its location) at which the “king of the delta blues singers”, Robert Johnson, apocryphally, sold his soul to the devil. And an evening at the Ground Zero Blues Club, owned by Morgan Freeman, in Clarksdale, Mississippi would not go amiss.

But in August 2005 Hurricane Katrina put a temporary end to that dream.

The other front runner at present is the national parks and canyons of the American south west, notably Monument Valley, Bryce and Zion Canyons, the Arches and Canyonlands. Even this trip would have some musical resonance for me in the form of the great Jackson Browne / Glenn Frey song Take It Easy, popularised by The Eagles:

Well, I’m standing on a corner

In Winslow, Arizona

And such a fine sight to see

It’s a girl, my lord in a flatbed

Ford, slowin’ down to take a look at me

Come on baby, don’t say maybe

I gotta know if your sweet love

Is gonna save me

We may lose and we may win though

We will never be here again

So open up, I’m climbin’ in

So take it easy

When I first started to ponder this, our adopted second home of San Francisco figured strongly in my plans. The timing would have enabled us to attend a Giants ball game or two on their last homestand of the regular season against the Pittsburgh Pirates. But since then, in an increasingly common fit of weakness, we have succumbed to its allure and – for us – late booked a two week trip to the city in April. And we have succeeded in purchasing tickets for two of the first games of the season – against the Pirates and the Philadelphia Phillies.

This has had the added advantage of granting me a stay of execution on the fateful decision on the birthday break, though I know that I cannot hide behind that excuse much longer, hence this post.

The downside is that it may now necessarily be shorter than we had originally envisaged – two rather than three or four weeks. But we shall see.

I should also mention another U.S. option – that of staying at a friend’s condominium in Tampa, Florida – because I know he will be reading this!  He has very kindly offered to accommodate us at any time, and we will certainly take him up on that offer, though perhaps not this year. So, Melvyn, you have been spared – but only for now!

And finally, I have begun to pine again for Italy, our favourite holiday destination before the United States colonised our travelling consciousness. So I would not rule out Rome, Tuscany or Sicily at this stage, though they remain dark horses.

Or perhaps I should just take my lead from Ellen de Generes’ grandmother “who started walking five miles a day when she was sixty.  She’s ninety seven now and we don’t know where the hell she is”.

So what would you vote for?

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So Here It Is (Christmas)

Posted in Personal, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on Dec 24, 2011| 2 Comments »


The scene is a large supermarket in the south east of England at 6pm on the eve of Christmas Eve.  A constant and grating loop of seventies pop songs is playing instead of a school choir or Salvation Army Band.

Helpless men between the ages of 18 and 60, who would prefer to be still in the pub, shuffle outside The Perfume Shop and La Senza, summoning the courage to approach the giggling female assistants in their last minute hunt for that perfect present that might, at least for now, persuade their wife or girlfriend to see them in the light that they did when they first met.

A middle aged couple are doing their last minute food shopping for the “big day”.  Although they have already bought many of the Christmas-specific items – party food, snacks, chocolate – they bicker over whether they have enough to satisfy the army – alias the man’s father – who will descending upon them tomorrow, and the neighbours who will be calling in for drinks on Boxing Day afternoon.

Why are we getting bottles of apple and orange juice when we know that Jean likes wine and Peter will want a beer?  We don’t drink it and we are going away on Tuesday (the husband is forced to repeat this over the increasingly manic strains of Noddy Holder).

You say that, but that was last year – they may not be able to drink alcohol any more, they’re not getting any younger y’know.

(“So here it is, Merry Christmas”).

And why do we need to get sweet biscuits and pork pies which neither of us eat, and will only end up going home with my dad?

(“Everybody’s having fun”).

Well, he can take them home then can’t he, it’s not a problem.

(“Look to the future now”).

And we don’t need the extravagance of a Christmas tablecloth and napkins, I for one am happy to eat off a normal one.

But it’s Christmas and I want it to be special, and that’s the end of it (the husband ponders whether The Perfume Shop accepts returns BEFORE Christmas).

(“It’s only just begun”).

We will leave them now to plan their Christmas Eve search for parsnips and brussel sprouts, both of which have been ransacked earlier in the day.

A teenage couple with a small baby are trying to arrange a short term loan that, judging by the girl’s industrial language on her mobile phone, is meeting with as much success as Joseph and Mary’s efforts at securing a room at the inn.

In a quiet corner of a busy café, whilst her weary, shopping-laden mother sips a caramel macchiato, a three year old girl, oblivious to everything around her, with eyes alight and blonde curls swaying in unison, sings a medley of Frosty the Snowman, Santa Claus is Coming to Town and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.

So here it is.

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Eavesdropping at the Mall

Posted in Personal, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on Dec 21, 2011| 4 Comments »


Have you ever passed people in the street, or stood behind someone in the queue in a shop, and overheard a snatch of conversation that has intrigued you so much that you wanted to hear more, but could not as they had moved on as quickly as they arrived?

One place in which you may hear hundreds of such snippets in just a single day is the shopping mall, particularly in the build up to Christmas when the numbers of its parishioners escalate.

The Bluewater shopping centre in Kent is the fourth largest in the UK in terms of retail space, and the sixth biggest in Europe. The following quotations were all overheard by myself on a trip there on Monday 19th December. Some are amusing, others intriguing and some just plain weird. The common denominator is that I neither heard what was said before or after – those words, the context in which the comments were made – are lost forever.

Whilst you might be thinking that my behaviour bordered on the creepy side, I should state that acute observation of people is a fundamental requirement for any writer. Moreover, Former Press Secretary to President Lyndon B. Johnson, Bill Moyers, claimed that eavesdropping was the only place in which you could truly “delve into the life of our times”.  And with not one person either casting me a quizzical look or uttering a cross word during this exercise, I must have some talent for it!

I had originally intended to “explain” each comment by reference to the location in which it was made and the gender and approximate age of the speaker. But I think the majority  speak for themselves.

I have confined the number to 20, though I collected many more (which I promise not to inflict on you unless you insist):

1. I’ve got to get one that’s got a slit all the way down.

2. Because my calves are quite big I had to have the zip adjusted last year.

3. I’ve gotta try and find one that hasn’t got that mark on it.

4. Shall we ‘ave a look in ‘ere while we’re ‘ere?

5. Mum, come and look, come and look, they’ve got a Bristol.

6. Billy, you run off one more time and I’ll cancel Santa.

7. Forty five quid? I could make that for a tenner.

8. If I don’t get me money back I’ll kill ’em.

9. I’m tellin’ ya, it’s Southern Comfort ‘e likes, not Jack Daniel’s. 

10. I can’t afford presents like that. I’m at Uni.

11. I bought ‘er some books off Amazon. She don’t read but they were SO cheap.

12. Time for lunch. So what’s it to be – sushi or McDonald’s?

13. Alfie, there’s a spare table over there. Quick, get it!

14. I’ve bought all this lot and I’ve hardly started on my list.

15. Oh…. my…. God, it’s got a Hollister!

16. See, I told ya, Bluewater’s way more poncy than Lakeside.

17. If we keep going we’ll end up outside.

18. After all that, I need Starbuck’s.

19. That’ll do. I can’t be bovvered to look any longer.

20. We can’t go home yet, we’ve still got Mummy’s present to get.

I think a number of those comments would be heard in any other shopping mall in any other town on any other day because, understandably, they reflect many of the preoccupations of modern life – money, obsession with appearance, thraldom to designer names, tainted by desperation in many cases. The only surprising omission was any reference to The X Factor, The Only Way is Essex, and many other alleged celebrity TV shows, or what manufactured and over-hyped song would be the Christmas Number 1 – but maybe I just struck lucky.

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Confronting the Handheld Menace

Posted in Personal, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on Dec 13, 2011| Leave a Comment »


I recently accompanied my elderly father to the optometrist in the local high street for his overdue eye test.  On the wall of the waiting area was a sign proclaiming “Do not use mobile phones”  – not “We ask our customers to kindly refrain from using mobile phones” but “Do not use mobile phones”.  The message was unequivocal – they were, understandably, not permitted in an area that contained highly sensitive equipment.

I suspect you know what’s coming next – yes, half of the people congregating outside the consulting rooms were in conversation on their handheld devices, most saying nothing more illuminating than that they were “at the optician’s”. A young man sitting next to me loudly responded to a call whilst a nurse tried to explain her treatment to the woman sat on the other side of him. It never occurred to him to move away or – heaven forbid – turn off his phone.

Another sign declared “No food or drink”, which was being observed perfectly, other than by small children in buggies (strollers) who ought to have constituted an exception anyway. How ironic that we are prepared to forego the staff of life for an hour or two, but cannot survive without the comfort of that little piece of plastic and lead for just a few minutes.

But before my momentary outrage triggers a rant about the decline of respect and civility, I need to relay another shocking discovery – all the while I had muttered about, and frowned at, the widespread flouting of a quite explicit and rational instruction, I had been checking my e mails and Twitter timeline on my own phone. Now I don’t know whether, aside from the obvious distraction and discourtesy, surfing is less forgivable than speaking (I suspect the radiological damage is the same), but I do acknowledge the hypocrisy of my stance.

What it does illustrate, however, is the utter dependence we place upon the simultaneously liberating and tyrannous grip – literally – of our smartphones. androids and tablets. I tend to use my ageing Nokia N93 primarily for texting and surfing and have never understood the fascination with playing games on computers of any size or specification.  

But I doubt that I could live without it. When I commuted to work it enabled me to let my wife know if my train was running late, ensuring that dinner would still be edible when I finally made it home.  It allows me to track the progress of my favourite sports teams when I am out and about.  And it prevents me from missing an important meeting when my usually reliable memory lets me down.

I like to think that I don’t abuse the privilege of having one.  I will remove myself from a crowded public space to return a call, and, even then, talk almost too quietly (natural English reserve meets respect here).  Nor do I walk the streets with it cupped in the palm of my hand, as if expecting at any moment a call from Barack Obama asking for my views on the Syrian crisis, or a text from Bob Dylan inviting me to open for him on his next tour.   

Sadly, however, too many of my fellow citizens appear to believe that ownership of any sort of handheld electronic device entitles them to declaim loudly and tediously on public transport and in restaurants, and go about their business with their faces buried in the contraptions, oblivious to the world around them, sometimes causing danger to themselves and others.

I am getting perilously close to ranting again, so here’s a new game for you.  Next time you see someone heading towards you on the street, head bowed, nose caressing the screen display on their iPhone, iPad2 or e-reader, rather than leap out of their way into oncoming traffic or scrape your back against a wall, just hold your ground and shout “boo!” as they career into you. It’ll frighten the hell out of them! And sometimes it even elicits an apology!

But one note of caution – choose your target carefully.  It’s not advisable to select someone who is bigger or meaner looking than yourself.

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No More Bent Dongle

Posted in Personal, tagged , , , , , , , on Dec 1, 2011| Leave a Comment »


Isn’t modern medical science wonderful?  You can get a replacement knee or hip and have a heart or liver transplant if you need one.  And there are many other parts of your anatomy that can be mended and healed.  Well, today, I had my deformed dongle, which has given me a great deal of discomfort, not to say embarassment, for several months now, replaced.

Bent out of shape, not “by society’s pliers” but by my treading on it at regular intervals, it was still “doing the business”, albeit a little more slowly and gingerly than before. But today, on a pure whim, I walked in off the street in the centre of Canterbury, in the shadow of the great cathedral (perhaps, just perhaps, some divine providence was at play), and got it fixed.  My pre-Christmas blues, outlined in today’s earlier post, were alleviated at a stroke.  

The painless procedure, carried out without anaesthetic, was administered by two skilled and pleasant surgeons, and only took as long as twenty minutes because my wife, who had wandered off into adjoining wards, was needed to confirm that the replacement was in sound working order before we could be discharged.

If you’re still with me (which, of course, you are), and wonder what on earth I am prattling on about, the dongle is a mobile broadband USB stick 625, a “plug in and go” internet connection for my laptop.  The hospital at which the procedure was undertaken was a branch of T-Mobile.

Surely, you didn’t think I was referring to anything else did you?  If so, I am reminded of Max Miller when he said that “It’s people like you who give me a bad name”!

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More Musings on Christmas

Posted in Personal, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on Dec 1, 2011| Leave a Comment »


Contrary to my earlier post on this subject ten days ago it’s now 1st December and I don’t feel Christmassy at all! So this post is going to act as a short, gloomy antidote to the sense of childlike expectation that inhabited that piece.

Being English, my natural response is to blame the weather – it remains unconscionably mild, despite dire warnings in September that we would be mired in deep snow long before now, as we were last year. This morning’s intermittent squalls and drizzle add to the cheerless atmosphere that pervades our high streets and shopping centres.

Minor celebrities may have descended to earth to switch on the lights and begin rehearsals for their pantomimes, anxious retailers may be offering ever more tantalising discounts and Dean Martin may be imploring it to snow, but there is a pervading gloom that I have witnessed in four separate Kent towns over the same number of days this week.  The economic situation is, of course, an important factor.  That said, I do not see any obvious signs that people are reining in their spending, with bargains available on so many popular gift items.

No, what is most striking is the grudging, almost resentful manner in which people are going about their festive preparations.  Christmas seems an imposition, and an expensive one at that, at a time when the traditional British approach of “getting by” is what is preoccupying many people.  This is mirrored too in the paucity of Christmas trees, lights and decorations adorning domestic homes.  I cannot recall seeing so few this “late” into the season.

Despite the prompt I gave myself over a week ago, the CDs and DVDs continue to hibernate in dusty ignorance in assorted cupboards around the house.  Billy Bob Thornton will be in an especially foul mood when he is roused to reprise his seminal role as Bad Santa. I have even resisted the blandishments of the twenty four hour TV movies channel too, though that is not that difficult as it generally churns out a surfeit of bland, syrupy made for TV films, interspersed all too rarely with classics such as A Christmas Carol with the wonderful Alistair Sim.

So no wassailing or figgy pudding for me yet, nor have I sampled a single mince pie.  But perhaps it’s just me, running ahead of myself, like those young children singing Jingle Bells under their breath in my previous post.
 
Kate Rusby’s Christmas concert at the Barbican tomorrow, with its mellow mix of popular and South Yorkshire carols, may well do the trick.  The weather forecasters have indicated that a cold spell will descend upon us at the weekend, which should also add to the seasonal atmosphere.   And next week heralds the customary round of Christmas lunches, dinners and drinks, though they are likely to add more to my waistline and credit card bill than my spirits.

But I should not be complaining.  After all, I began my previous post by lamenting that Christmas forced itself upon me earlier and earlier with each passing year.  I can’t have it both ways can I?

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