Tommy Catchup

Apologies for not having written for so long: it’s what comes from now having a full-time girlfriend and, weirdly enough, mostly preferring to talk and spend time with her rather than this computer. Though no doubt writing will prevail. In any case, I thought perhaps time for a brief recap on what I’ve been up to, just so I don’t worry all the fans in Haiti and Botswana any more than I already have.

So, first up, I went to Germany to see Mother Meera, and also for another instalment of iboga – double the dose – which I took my second night there. Weird thing was, nothing much happened, save the vomiting and the dizziness: all a bit of a letdown really. I did have this interesting dream, in which I met with my mother and had this massive realisation that, when I was born, and when she first laid eyes on me, she was afraid of me and that really heavily effected me – but that was just a dream. Plus a sort of weird dawning that all faces are ugly when you get right down to it, so I shouldn’t be so hung up on pretty women, but that was about it. And then I saw Mother Meera for four days, and ate a ton of German bread, and it was all mellow and chill and really rather wonderful.

Except, in the middle of all that, I ran into an old acquaintance of mine who was also there to see Mother. And when I say old acquaintance what I mean is: fling, lover, and maybe even love; that sort of thing. Very nice to see her; very easy and friendly and cool – she’s a jolly sort – but then she told me about this thing that had happened to her a while back and it sort of threw me through a loop. She’d been raped. She’d been raped not long after I’d last been with her. And I don’t know why but I found it almost impossibly hard to bear. I felt a million things. Guilt was one – this weird guilt that I could have maybe done something to prevent it (there were inklings around the time that I could have gone to visit her, she could have come to visit me, the timing would’ve been different, everything would’ve changed, if only we’d been brave enough to say more in our emails than we did…) – and a huge and crushing sense of helplessness, of impotence. And anger, of course, and fury. I couldn’t sleep. I cried in the night. I beseeched Mother and the gods and said, why? Why would You do it to someone so pure, so wonderful and good? You sonofabitch, why? And I dreamed of vengeance and hated men and, for two days, felt absolutely, utterly unable to contemplate the notion of ever having sex again, so disgusted was I by the act, by the thing that was even then between my legs. Men. Fuckers. Animals and monsters. I want to chop off their balls.

My friend, for her part, seemed okay about the whole thing. Time had passed, she’d done her healing, found a new guy to love and, sex-wise, everything was groovy. She said what had happened was so divorced from the act of making love she didn’t even relate the two things. She’d cried her tears and screamed her screams and the whole thing was fading from her system. And yet she wondered why too.

She and I share a common belief: we don’t believe in victims and villains and we believe that we create our own realities, that we attract circumstances and people into our lives for very specific purposes which are all, ultimately, for our own good. Something like this happens, though, and I find it hard to swallow – don’t want to believe it – or, at least, it begins a battle in my mind between the part of me that dwells in the bigger picture of the metaphysical and the eternal and then the here-and-now of the human boy-child that thinks this body is all there is and such a thing as “unfairness” exists. And yet I’ve been so long in that space of knowing and seeing, in the workings of my own life – some of which some might call “traumatic” – that it’s all ultimately good, that we do create the events of our lives, by our being, and that, good or bad, we get what we deserve. The good, though, is so much easier to see and accept – and the bad – and a bad like this – so, so difficult to reconcile with such a blasé sentence as “we get what we deserve”. And even though I’m able to accept and see it in my own life, I still find it heartbreakingly difficult when I try to apply it to the lives of others.

We talked. We walked and talked and we talked everything through. She could see that I was in pain and really struggling with the whole thing – I felt absolutely unable to see anything other than the black cloud I was under – and she wanted to help me through it. What a soul! What a strong, brave soul. She truly had done her work, and now she wanted to help me do mine, even though what I was feeling must have been a fraction of what she had gone through and I felt so stupid for feeling anything at all. I mean, what right did I have? Shouldn’t I have been the strong one, the compassionate, the supportive? But I couldn’t – and that’s all just TV-thinking anyway. I wrestled with it and I realised I just had to be what I was already being and to go with what was there. I have no idea why it affected me so – it’s not the first time that I’ve been in this situation, heard this story – but it is the first time I’ve been so overwhelmed by it, so utterly devastated and touched and lost to the feeling of injustice, to the feeling that I could or even should have done something, that it was somehow wrong. And much as I tried to put it out of my mind, to be light and happy and free – as, somehow, my friend seemed able – there was no way, my mind would clog with thoughts, and I’d become unable to speak, unable to see anything other than that. And then I’d wrestle with it, try to push it away, fail miserably, and start acting all weird, and my friend – my ex – my angel – would gently nudge me and ask me how I was feeling, what I was thinking about, and I knew that it would have to come out.

My mind…curse this mind! Very soon after telling me what had happened she’d said, you can ask me anything you want about it and, I don’t know, it seems to me it was like opening a door, that every foul and stinking question and idea a head can come up with presented itself to me. Usually people don’t want to talk about these things, don’t invite such openness, and my mind finds that easy enough to accept. But to open the gates to curiosity! To say, whatever you’re thinking, tell me – it was too much. Just imagine, for a moment, if you were given that kind of freedom, if you lacked any sort of inhibition whatsoever, what sort of thoughts would come into your head. And come they did. My mind wanted to know and say anything – but me, the Rory that I am, or was, and probably will be – that me was plenty inhibited indeed, and didn’t like the thoughts it was being presented with…

I don’t even know when or how it started – it’s all talked through now, all – thank God – fading into the past. But I guess there were two main strains: one, wonderings on how such a thing could take place, what it would actually look like – you can’t imagine how much I hate myself for even typing that sentence: how much more, then, when I was thinking it in the presence of one who had been through such an ordeal? – and, two, those questions of why? – and the answers that so inevitably followed.

It’s a horrible thing. I would take hours to confess that there was something wrong. And just as long to finally blurt it out. I would say, I know I’m a horrible person and you’re going to hate me for this and I won’t blame you at all – but I also knew if I didn’t say it then we’d probably never say anything again, all sense of connection between us would be lost. These things happen rarely and only with people one has a special connection with – but if you’ve felt that you’ll probably understand what I’m saying. Either that or maybe I am just horrible and mad and screwed-up. And all those things I said as well, as preamble, as procrastination – as a desperate attempt to fend off what was going on in my head. Abject misery. The nature of the thoughts. The contemplation of saying them. The knowledge of what I was inside. A wretch. A despicable man. Absolutely nothing like anyone I knew, anyone I had ever come across, anyone I aspired to be. And yet, where does all that come from anyway? For, in a situation like this, where are we to take our cues? TV shows and books and movies, where strong men suck it up, heroically say ne’er a word about their own feelings and cure all emotional and mental ills with one or two well-placed sentences before all concerned wipe their tears and happily move on to the next scene as though nothing ever happened? Or if not there then perhaps our visions of what wise and saintly persons would do, old calm-faced grandmas smilingly holding the woes of the whole world in their ancient breasts only to flabbergast everybody when the magnitude of all they’ve so patiently carried and dealt with over the decades and years is finally deathbed-revealed? Oh God, I tried so hard to be what I thought I should be – I twisted myself into holes I knew I couldn’t fit and, Lord knows, I self-castigated endlessly for how far short I fell of this vision. Would Joey and Chandler and Ross have been so evil? Why couldn’t I be like them? This mind, this mind, this mind…this mind doesn’t live in a movie, doesn’t live on the pages of some made-up Rita-Sue novel, doesn’t resemble the mind of the arsehole Buddhist monk who skips through parable after proverb astounding and amusing all with his smart-aleck sayings and perfection but who never actually existed. My mind lives here. There is, it appears, no guidebook save the one I’m writing as I go along, and all that trying to follow what I imagine it says in the grand guidebook in the sky only serves to make myself and everyone around me sad.

And so I asked, and I talked, and I beat myself and beat the words out of me and waited for her hate and anger and goodbye and all I got were calm answers and it was discussion much like any other in which someone tells you about an experience they once had (except with less laughter). I sighed and felt good and free afterwards and everything was groovy with her and we returned to our light-hearted and happy ways – and then new thoughts would arise – thoughts to replace those that had revolved and revolved in my head for hours like little demons riding a record-player turntable – and the whole thing would begin again. And these thoughts were worse, I told myself, and these thoughts couldn’t possibly be shared, and I’d push them away and hold them in and slowly, slowly they’d begin to grow and cloud my vision and while my friend laughed or told a story they were all I could hear and once I’d descended deep enough down, and got to the stage of acting all weird and dark, and going beyond even that – to anger, to coldness, to distance – it became apparent that I needed to let them out. On and on, layer upon layer – and always that amazement, that ease, that acceptance and lightness from her when I finally got around to saying it, to sharing, to clearing my thoughts and re-establishing that connection. I write this and I’m so grateful for her, and for her guidance and patience and calm wisdom through the whole process – and yet I’m embarrassed too, for even having been effected so, when still I think I should have been the one that was there for her, that I shouldn’t have let it get to me so…and yet, it did. And that was the reality. And wrong or stupid or self-centred or pig-headed or what I guess I had to accept that. She didn’t mind. She didn’t mind at all. It seems to have brought us closer together, and taught us many things, and I know with absolute certainty that had I been in her position I would have acted in exactly the same way and so why shouldn’t I believe that she would be capable of doing the same?

But, God knows, the number of times when I wished she hadn’t told me. Which is probably very unfair and small-minded of me – the child that wishes only to dwell in innocence and rainbows of puppy-dog light – but that is there too.

Except, right now, it all seems okay. Which I’m guessing, of course, is quite a controversial thing to say.

And: hey! What a woman. I might even be half-tempted to say I missed out there were I not so one-hundred-percent convinced of the utter impracticality of our working together as any sort of long-term romantic unit. But still: a marvel.

So that’s been in my thoughts a lot these last few weeks and I guess it’s taken me this long to figuring out how and if I should say anything about it here. But writing is what I does – writing and living, in the main – and I do seem somehow doomed and blessed to have to write down every single thing that ever happens to me, in one form or another. Which is probably what I’ll spend the rest of my life doing: just living and writing down what happens and leaving it there for the future generations. It’s not a bad lot to have, if it is my lot. It’s not as bad as Jonah’s.

In other news, I won a 100% fees paid bursary to do an MA in Writing at the University of Leeds, which is about the best news I’ve had in a long time. Four thousand, two hundred pounds it’s worth. A 12-month course which just started yesterday. And perhaps it’s my big break and, certainly, it’s the fulfilment of something or other: my formal education, perhaps. My undergraduate tutor pointed me in that direction when I finished my BA in 2006 but I put it off for worry of the cost – ie, tightness – and various other things. Well, the moment I committed to blowing off my tightness and saying, to hell with the money! was the moment the powers that be decided they were going to give it to me for free anyways. Lucky me: I am a lucky chap. And so instead of girlfriend and I jetting off to Mexico for a year of canyon-living loveliness, we’re back instead in the world’s finest large city and I’m once more a student. Went over yesterday, Freshers’ Fair – whatever that is: just an opportunity to collect some free pens (the Lebara one was the best; Virgin the worst) – and there I am, back in the world of incredibly young and excited recently-children, girls who all look the same and boys who…well, I don’t look at the boys. Or I try not to: the whole thing makes me shiver. But, thing is, it don’t touch me, we’re MA, we’re older and more select and we got our own little areas that say “Postgrad” on the door, kettles and sofas and it’s the sixth-form common room all over again, those upper echelons, oh boy…

Nice. Happy. Me. Good.

And now the work begins.

So I guess I’m all caught up. I’ve left London – so long London! I won’t be missing you! – and I’m currently up north in Huddersfield staying with girlfriend’s parents and building them a rather challenging twenty-five metre fence in exchange for bed and board. The fence is a thing of beauty: it’s straight and true and I’ve done a good thing there. And now all we have to do is find our own place to live. Obviously LS4 is the neighbourhood of choice – we’ve been scuppered in one perfect house we found over there – but I do keep getting this strange draw over to South Elmsall; and if Ali finds out today whether she’s landed a job in the practicality-neighbouring – and awesomely-named – Grimethorpe then, weird beyond weird, I reckon we’ll be moving there. Friend’s got a house spare she wants to rent out cheap; I’ve got mad ideas of running for council or for mayor (whichever has the most power) and I do keep banging on about doing something good there, about maybe making it into a book (“One Year in Hell” – the companion piece to my Mexico canyon-dwelling book “One Year in Paradise”) and it really wouldn’t surprise me somehow, Mother Meera’s curious ways and her strange and silent gaze beaming down on us all like a Ray Harryhausen Zeus. Phew! Now that would be weird, and daunting, and mad. Would I really do it? Run for mayor? Try and do something good? That’d be the challenge. But if I didn’t I’d know once and for all that I really am all talk and no trousers: the man who loves the idea but hates the doing, content only to grumble and to dream and then lay himself in bed, as he is now, rather than to put himself out there and get his hands dirty and risk. But we’ve got to do something with this life! I mean, haven’t we got to try?

Bike Mayhem 2

Girlfriend and I were in Hyde Park yesterday, stopped by a water fountain to quench our thirst and right by it was a combination lock (no bike attached) sort of just sitting there; figured I might as well give it a try while she was a-sippin'. And, whaddya know, within 20 seconds I'd popped her off. Madness! This one was numbered 1904. I don't know how I do it. Still, had no interest in nicking it - thinking owner most likely returning - so what I did was put it back in a slightly different place, coiled rather than hung loose, just to give them a little mind-swizz when they came back. What is this weird magnetic power!?

Bike Mayhem

Q: What are the chances of beating odds of 30,000-to-1?

A: Pretty good, as it goes. Which the following story will illustrate.

So I’m up in Oxford the other day with the missus and, as I always get to doing when I’m wandering around Oxford, I start salivating and whooping about all the old abandoned bikes they have littered around their streets there. Millions of ‘em, I swear! Just stood there – not even chained to things – crazy rich Japanese students long gone back to Japan – Oxford undergrad rah-types dropped out or got drunk one night and can’t remember where they left it or just plain tired of the whole cycling business, lost their keys get daddy to buy a new one – and there they sit, chained all rusted and tyres flat, wheels bent, bits slowly being buzzarded away by tight-ass gypsy scavenger souls such as myself: millions of ‘em, I tells ya! And I gets to dreamin’ about bustin’ some of those locks – liberating ‘em, as I’ve done a couple of times in London, rebuilding and putting ‘em back on the road, easier than you think, with a couple of mighty swings of hammer and – lordy, lordy! – why didn’t I bring it and my spanner when I keep on telling myself, never go nowhere with a hammer and a spanner and…

We see a decent Dawes mountain bike. Rusty chain? Check. Tyres going flat? Check. Bits starting to go missing? Check. Though just the handlebar grips, nothing major. It’s on a combo-lock – puny little things, really, up against a couple of lusty swishes. But I ain’t got nothin’ to swish with. Ah, the dream – and then, the other dream: the dream I was having wherein I sit and wonder, hey, just how long would it take to go through all possible combinations anyway? I dream it out loud. I dream it with my hands. I think, let’s give it a little go. Except…

Except who can be bothered with that? Let’s just have a little play and move on (all this takes place, by the way, because through various circumstances we were late for the showing of a movie and ended up wandering instead – delightful synchronicities such as that, more of which later). I have a go at birth-years: obvious choice. I try the eighties. No dice. I try the nineties – young people are so young these days! – but nothing there either. Not seventies, surely? But it is. 1974 and off it pops. I hold up the two ends of the lock. I giggle. And off we walk with our newly acquired bike. Now we’re hungry.

Girlfriend wants to take a little trip. Girlfriend wants her own bike too. Rack and rack is perused. Some, blatantly left to rot and rust; others…you’re not so sure about, best leave them. And then there it is: a beautiful maybe thirty years-old black Raleigh racer with a bent back wheel and a hanging off rusty chain and the handlebars all drooping loose. And it’s not even chained to anything. And it’s on a combo-lock too: we can just wheel that sad old thing away, bust her and fix her in our own sweet time – fix her with found parts, naturally – but before we do that I think, well let’s just give her a try. I start near the beginning this time. And twenty seconds later I turn to 050X (the fourth wheel is missing) and off this one pops as well. Madness. It’s like I’m magnetised to the goddamn things or something: they’re just throwing themselves into my hands. More glee giggles and off we go again, two bikes and plans to return in the morning for a tooled-up jaunt around town for parts. We leave the Raleigh by the Sainsbury’s, right by another rusting broken down touring bike and with a bit of air in the Dawes’s tyres pedal on home elated and thrilled.

And in the morning? Well, wouldn’t you just know it – while we’re discussing what to do and I’m ideally playing with the combo-lock on that neighbouring horizontal tourer – I think, start at a thousand this time – that one simply gives up the ghost and comes apart in my hands as well. 1018. Three wildly divergent number. Yet maybe three minutes code-busting time in total. Thirty-thousand to one, baby: oh yeah. And now we two have three, and the work begins.

The racer needs some tightening, a new back wheel, some pumping and some brakes. We find the wheel and brakes by the train station on an almost crumbling old Peugeot with a sticker threatening scrappage if not removed soon. We fix her up, pump her up, and she’s a beaut. The tourer needs a front innertube and a rear tyre and a new seat: easy. And the mountain bike just wants a good pump and some grips. It’s a few hours work, a fiver for an innertube – did scavenge one but that blew up – and some fun time outside a bike shop cobbling it all together and borrowing the nice boys’ pump. And then we end up by the train station thinking about plans: what to do now (we’ve got camping gear, thinking about a little trip) and how to get all this back to London? Conclusion we come to: let’s cycle down to Avebury, via the White of Horse of Uffington, have some nights in a tent, and then come back to Oxford, pick up the spare, and train ‘em all back home and maybe keep ‘em, maybe sell some, who knows? I says finally, and prophetically it now seems, what we need is someone to sell the third to here, then we’re not tied to Oxford, we’ll be free (although there are a couple of wheels I want from the train station for another bike back home). All is decided. And outside we go, and right by where I’ve locked the three bikes – sort of odd the position I’ve chosen, right in front of the train station – there’s a guy standing and I’m thinking, here we go, our customer. More glee.

Hiya, I says, how’s it going? You want to buy a bike?

He looks at me puzzled, scratching his head.

It’s weird, he says, this bike here – the tourer – it’s exactly like one I had stolen a few weeks back, except it’s different. But the bell, these markings here, they’re definitely mine.

A slight gulp. But it’s all good, I feel.

What’s different, I say?

The back tyre, he goes, and the saddle. When did you buy it? he says.

Aha. We found it. We found it this morning. It was abandoned. Is that your lock? I ask.

No, he says, it had a different lock.

We found it by the Sainsbury’s on The Plain.

I left it on Cowley Road, he says.

And, blah blah blah, we do the boring bit of the conversation and it turns out that it is this bloke’s bike, and we’ve either nabbed it from the thief, or from someone the thief sold it to, and by some miracle upon miracle this poor nice chap has got his bike back all fixed and groovy and he gives us a fiver for the innertube and we send him on his way with a nice new lock and all three of us are standing there shaking our heads and laughing at this little slice of awesomeness. I mean, what are the chances? Of our being there, of those bikes being there, right in his view as he’s on his way home from work? Even when I chained ‘em up I thought it was an odd place, when on the actual bike rack would’ve been better – unless the whole purpose was to reunite this chap and his wheels. It’s the mystic icing on the beautiful cake of fate in a whole series of odds-busting events – and it solves our problem too, reducing our situation to a mere one-bike-each and freedom to get on the road. It makes my head shake for hours…

PS Notes on this story:

1. I don’t think it’s wrong to liberate abandoned bikes. I do take care to ascertain that they’re genuinely abandoned. And I really hope I’m right in this.

2. For hours afterwards we were obsessed with looking at bikes: my brain ‘n’ eyes were magnetised towards them. I didn’t even want anymore. But the possibilities, man, the possibilities…

3. Now when I look at combination locks I think, poor saps, it’s about as much use as a piece of string. Even to go through all ten thousand numbers would only take about two hours. But I’ll bet you I could crack ‘em much faster than that. Thank God I ain’t into nicking.

4. The Raleigh is now my main bike. Ali wanted it but it was too big for her. Shame. I was gonna give her my old Peugeot – smaller, actually a better bike – but what with the whole moving-to-Leeds thing coming up I figured a clear out was a better idea. So I sold it yesterday for seventy quid. Got that one for free off the internet; just needed the frame welding. I done pretty good out of bikes a-lately…

5. Don’t try this at home, unless you know what you’re doing. Cheers! :-)

groovy email

Dear Rory,

A School Bursary has become available.  We are able to offer you an award equivalent to 100% of Home/EU fees, £4,200, on condition that you take up your place on the programme.

Before I send you the official letter, could you let me know if you still would like to be part of the Writing MA and if you'd consider taking the Bursary?  If at all possible, I'd like to know by Friday 29th July.  I apologize for the tight deadlines.  We are trying to allocate these bursaries to deserving and promising students like you.

All the best.
Dr. Javier Stanziola
Post-Graduate Taught Programmes Director






And I reply:

Yes please!! :-)

 

I´m all over it. Am in Germany at the moment on travels - is there something I need to do to confirm? Basically, I´m there with bells on. :-)

2 good, 3 bad

Went to Brixton to play football last Thursday evening and outside the library I spy two shady black guys on bikes hovering suspiciously by the railings. One's got a bike seat in his hand. He's sort of looking at another chained up bike. That bike's lacking its seat. Two and two equals four. I pedal on up.

What you doin' with that seat?

What seat?

That seat behind your back.

I reach around and take it from him.

That's my mate's bike, I tell him, lying.

And then he goes on about how my mate shouldn't leave his seat unlocked, that dodgy people'll nick it - and the wheel too - and if not him then someone else, and he's had things nicked, it's just the way the world is. He's a bit whacked. His mate looks on and shrugs his shoulders, raises his eyebrows in agreement as if to say, I know he shouldn't be nicking things but what can you do?

We banter for a bit. Light-hearted. I'm not interested in being an ass with this guy: this is the way he sees the world and there's nothing much gonna change that. But I can't let him go without trying to impart a little something.

Come on man, I say, how do you think this guy's gonna feel when he comes back and sees his seat gone? You ever had a biked stolen from you? How did you feel?

Horrible, he says.

Well there you go. So why you wanna be putting that feeling on someone else?

He gets it - but it's all still fair games in his world. Oh well; maybe he'll think about it later - one day - in his old age - in the next life. I'm proud of myself for not getting angry with him: for doing the right thing by saving the seat, but also what I think is the right thing by him by not being an ass and still doing my best to remember that this dude's human, that the way he sees things and acts make total right sense to him.

Then the owner comes up, a young guy with nice headphones on.

Hey. What's going on here? What you doing with my seat?

I turn to him. But before I can say anything the thief starts blabbing about how him and his mate were riding by and they saw me and stopped me from nicking it. It's a joke.

That's your story? I say. After what we've just talked about?

But in his eyes and in his mind it's real - it's what he's got to do - this lying - and there's gonna be no convincing him otherwise. No point trying.

Go on, I say, and nudge him on his way, and let him know he's free.

Weirdly enough, I can kind of see where he was coming from. I'm terrified of getting caught doing something wrong too. And once upon a time, I would've said anything to get out of it.

I hand the seat back, briefly tell the gobsmacked owner the story, have a little chuckle, and leave him feeling grateful and lucky. Nice chap. Funny incident. And then off to football.

Football's fun. Lots o' goals, lots of great saves (by me). We hammer the other team. And then we have a little mini-game at the end where one of ours changes for one of theirs. We have plenty of chances but our striker don't seem able to score. And the guy we've inherited - who's gone in goal - is playing like he still wants his old side to win. Sonofabitch. As usual, when it's over, I feel like saying something about it. I always say shit like that, feel a need to point out when someone's done crap. An' I done it with this guy a few times before. So I bite my tongue. But then another player mentions how the guy that switched from our team must've been the lucky mascot and I think, no, not having that, everyone must realise and know: "more like secret agent G- in goal for us," I say, like an ass. And I remember that all the way home.

Half-way home I come cycling past the school while a crowd are coming out from probably some school play or something. I go careful past them. But then one family of three bursts out from between some cars without looking - not the grownups, not their little girl - and I have to swerve to avoid them. Unfortunately the little girl - well, she's maybe nine - panics and runs in the direction that I'm swerving and we have a very slight bump. She don't hit the ground or nothing though and she's okay. I stop and turn and say, are you all right? Are you sure? Must've been a bit of a fright eh? And then I go merrily on my way. Somewhere in there I'd observed a voice that would've wanted to berate them and get irate and say, hey! watch where you're goin'! but - well, there's no point in that. Prime concern is her feelings. Is making sure all are well. Is not being a critical ass when there's no need. I've done good there. And I remember that all the way home too.

The next day I go to the dentist to have a crown fitted. And after that I cycle down Brixton Hill, buy a six-inch sub from Subway and have a bit of banter with the guys in there. Sometime after that I get something wrong and that's my second "bad" but I can't remember what it was. Oh well: like everything, I suppose it doesn't matter. I guess it wasn't such a major slip.

The next day though, while I'm watching golf, roommate Tom berates me for using his ketchup, says it's a real "dickish" thing to do. Wow, I hate that he's said that to me - get all violently reactive inside, become unable to say anything that isn't filled with anger. I go quiet instead. But he continues to push me and I vent some spleen. It's all ridiculous. I remember that for a long time too, and don't like myself for it. Wish I could keep my mouth shut sometimes.

Two good, three bad. The bad things avoidable, pointless, leave me sad and unhappy. The good, nice, natural, smiley. My desire: to be that always. But hard, so hard...

Death

Just finished reading Albert Camus' 'The Outsider'. Never really bothered with those French philosopher types before. I think I did start a bit of Satre once but soon gave up, just seemed like a lot of words, not much substance. Like most philosophy I suppose. Anyway, 'The Outsider' was a nice little book, not as deep as I imagine the author would have liked to think it was - perhaps things have changed since 1942? - but an interesting character and a fun, quirky writing style. Mainly what it made me think of was a poem/song I wrote when I was about sixteen that was about the inevitable, upcoming death of my great-grandmother. She was ancient. It was bound to happen sooner or later. And, back then, I used to dread it because I knew I wouldn't mourn, wouldn't be able to get upset like I imagined other people would. And the thought of that, and the thought of having to pretend really bothered me. Seemed to me like all the crying and sadness was an act. And that the way I felt was something that would have to be contained, because people would see it as harsh, callous, abnormal. Don't remember the whole of it but it was something like: "I never want her to die/you don't know the first thing about it/and here I lie/and you know the worst thing about it/is the pain inside/why should I pretend and hide/these views of mine/the way you act, it shouldn't be like that". Well, we write a load of shite when we're teenagers and I guess we don't even know the half of what we're saying. But sometimes you look back and think, hey, wow, maybe that actually was sort of cool.

Anyway, in the event it took her quite a long time to get around to dying - she was well into her senile nineties by the time she popped her clogs - and I do believe hers was the first funeral I ever went to. And then, within a couple of years, I'd been to see both my other grandmas buried too. Funny thing is, I found them all quite jolly affairs. Nice to see everyone together. Family I hadn't talked to for ages. Sandwiches and crisps. And, more than any of that, the sense that those shrivelled up tired beat old women were off up there in the astral somewhere really having a rather funky time all free from the shackles of this body, the drudgery of their lives here on Earth. It was groovy. I imagined that and I imagined them then reborn sometime soon, all freed from their pointless and fearful minds, cute kids, toddlers in little pink dresses, bare knees pumping away on tricycles and smiles and excitement and happiness where once only lonely, stress-filled evenings of Eastenders and Coronation Street had been and it really made me smile. I remember standing there in that old black tie and feeling massively filled with joy. And then realising that I was massively grinning too. And thinking I'd better tone it down a bit. But I had a block of cheese in my pocket and that made me laugh. And then all the sincerity and sombrenous of it, people taking it seriously. There's a part of me that knows the way I see things is perhaps a little weird - and by weird I instantly realise I mean: not usual in the localised current and recent society - and yet...when I type all this and contemplate it, and think of the alternative, I realise - to put it bluntly - that it's a far superior and more beneficial and infinitely more healthy way of thinking about life. Listen: it's no measure of mental health to be considered well-adjusted to a sick society.

I remember on the way back from my dad's mum's funeral, me and him were squeezed up in the back of his drummer's van - oddly surreal enough - and he was saying to me weird things like, "she could have waited, you know," and, "I think she was selfish, going like that." "Why?" I said, "what did she have to hang around for?" "For us," he said, "for me and you and Steven [my brother]." Well what could I say to that? It was bizarre. The idea that this poor woman who spent ninety percent of her day in a state of high and lonely anxiety, fretting about every little thing, with really nothing to live for should cling on to life for the sake of three men who didn't really need her...well, there was no way I could get my head around that; I guess he was just expressing something for himself. But, for me, I couldn't have been happier for her. Really, what was there to live for? And what kind of life compared to the realm of spirit, and the re-entry into new body, new mind, with new parents and friends and adventures and, instead of nothing, a billion things to look forward to. I've heard it said that some cultures mourn when a baby is born - for that is the beginning of suffering - and celebrate when the body dies and the spirit is freed. It's an interesting way of looking at things. I can't say I subscribe to that either - but it's perhaps a bit more sensible than the alternative. Anyways, I'd say let's celebrate 'em both.

Wimbledon

So another Wimbledon comes to a close. Reckon I must have watched sixty hours of tennis the last two weeks. Weirdly enough, I think some of my favourite matches were from the women’s game. I know, I know, people will say that it’s not real tennis; that there’s no proper champions; that they barely hit the ball; that it’s just a case of passing it back and forth until one hasn’t strength enough to get it over the net; that they don’t deserve equal prize money, given the amount of time they spend on court and the vastly-diminished televisual audience and level of interest when compared with the men; that it’s just a procession of different yet the same not-quite-fanciable Eastern Europeans with unpronounceable, unrememberable names ending in ova, here one year, gone the next; that even the best women’s tennis player would be hard pushed to give the number six hundred in the men’s game a run for their money – but still, as far as I’m concerned, Date-Krumm vs Venus Williams and Sabine Lisicki vs Li Na were matches as good as any I’ve ever seen. Especially watching Lisicki: she had all the right ingredients. She smiled. She tried. She was a few steps beyond not-quite-fanciable – well and truly almost-fanciable, in fact – and the way she saved those two match points with a couple of big booming serves of a hundred and twenty miles an hour plus – and then served two more to win the game – was stunning. Such a shame she seemed so out-of-sorts in her semi against Sharapova. But if she keeps on smiling, and keeps on booming, she’s got a fan for life right here.

Other great matches I saw…well, it’s all become a bit of a blur right now. Baghdatis against Djokovic was awesome – especially those match points he saved, that would’ve surely took the roof off if it’d been on – and also the eventual champion’s next match against the always-entertaining Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. Tsonga knows how to whip up a crowd – and it’s not exactly difficult. Sure, you smile. And make a few funny faces. And if you can throw yourself to the ground every now and then, even if you don’t really need to – so canny, that Tsonga! – then you’ve got ‘em in the palm of your hand. Nothing Wimbledon loves more than a diver. And the commentators ooh and aah and it makes you wonder if no one’s ever tried diving before, such is their amazement. But as a master-diver myself – hell, I dive on the badminton and squash courts, to quite successful effect, and would probably dive on concrete too, if I had to – I know it ain’t no big deal, and not that tricky – ‘specially on that lovely green grass – and I’m surprised that more of them don’t do it. Ah, the days of Yannick Noah and Jimmy Connors, Becker and Leconte! But it’s so easy to hark back.

And then we come to Murray. Andy Murray. Oh, Andy, Andy Murray. Whither was thou, man? Playing such awesome tennis, cruising through to the semis, bossing Nadal around for a set and a half – and then: one sloppy volley that would’ve given him two break points in the second and – boom! – it was all over. He was never in it again. Head down – head being shook – negative and defeatist and, yet again, so pessimistic, so lacking in the fighting spirit, so purely and woefully British. I know what he was thinking when he came to hit that shot: I know it ‘cos I do it myself, in squash, in ping pong, even in tennis (which I’m not much good at; I play like a girl). He was thinking: wow, easy volley for two break points, break him, win the set, two sets up, match in the bag – I’ve beaten Nadal! I’m in the final! – and then, wow, I’m gonna do it, I’m gonna win Wimbledon, I’m lifting the trophy, imagine the headlines, imagine the smiles, the poor slumped head of my defeated opponent in his chair, the cameras flashing, the newspapers whirling, and after all those years, no more talk of Fred Perry, of Bunny Austin, of bloody Tim Henman, it’s all me me me, Andy Murray, Wimbledon Champion 2011 and – oh bugger, I’ve missed it. Well, how could he not? How could he hope to concentrate with all that going through his head? How could his body flow freely and do what comes so naturally with all that tension and excitement and adrenaline? And so he put it long. And then: oh shit, he’s got me, he’s beating me, I haven’t won, I’ve blown it, I got carried away and how could I be such a fool, will I get it back? No! Missed another one! I’ve lost it – I’m losing it. Losing the semi, losing the championship. Nadal’s gonna win, there’s nothing I can do. Oh why oh why oh why – never get carried away, never think like that, come back next year and –

It’s over. Murray’s gone. His head’s gone. Just play out the match and shake your head and think back to how many times we’ve been here before. Everybody knows. Everybody feels it. The crowd feels it as it’s happening and there’s nothing they can do. It’s the British mentality. We just don’t know how to win. Gallant losers, maybe. Plucky hearts and efforts, perhaps. But when it comes to the crunch – well, we’re just not Spanish, are we? We’re not Americans or Australians. We just don’t have that fight. Henman explains it and accepts it. But Becker and my Spanish roommate Diego are like, WTF? Maybe they can understand what was going through his head – but what they can’t quite grasp is why he didn’t sort it out, why he couldn’t put it behind him, fight on, shake off the demons of negativity and regain his belief. Yet how could they understand? They’re not British.

I wish I’d been good at tennis: I’d’ve given that crowd something to shout about. None o’ that petulance lark – and plenty of buffoonery, plenty of diving, plenty of giving my life for the cause. Your heart on your sleeve. A spring in your step. A cheeky Leconte wink and some of that handing-your-racket-to-the-ballboy and geeing the crowd up. So easy to win people over. They love a character. They’re the ones we remember.

And so, Baltacha and Murray and Robson try their best and, as ever, come close but come up short. Oh well, there’s always next year. And, of course, Murray’ll feel that his name’s written on that trophy somewhere in the future – just as Henman always did. And maybe it is, and maybe it’s not. Is he good enough? Sure he is – but that’s no guarantee of anything. A certain Malivai Washington got to the final once, not that long ago: there’s luck and weirdness to take into account too (Ivanisevic’s glorious rain god, anyone?) Still, another four or five years for him to have a crack – and if not him, someone else. And maybe one day a Brit who can embody some of that belief and that ability to win that other nations seem to manage so effortlessly – and perhaps that’ll change everything.

Anyways, let’s not forget that Murray’s only Scottish. And let’s not pretend that having him win would feel anywhere near as sweet as a bona fide Englishman’s victory. Do we really feel the same cheering him on as we did old Tim? I don’t.




...
At some point in this tournament I noticed the commentator’s were doing my head in. And I realised why: it’s ‘cos they’re all ex-pros and they keep talking about the technical aspects of the game – spin and slice and unforced errors and serving it out wide and percentages – when what I really want is some posh old bloke with a velveteen voice enhancing the drama and the beauty who’s just as amazed and impressed as I am. How many staggering points were diminished by Greg Rusedski chipping in with some pointless insider’s insight that took all the magic out of what we had just witnessed? Henman and Becker and Castle and Petchey when I’d have given anything for Dan Maskell and his innocent delight mirroring that of the millions watching. How many times listening to someone talk about how a certain player “needed to get his first serve percentage up” – so what you’re saying is, he ought to try and hit more in rather than out? – instead of rejoicing in the glory of the whole occasion. Wows and OMGs and “He’s missed it!” Seems to me it’s gone this way in a lot of sports and I’m amazed people don’t seem to have picked up on it; amazed that the people in charge of the production companies think that the best way to enhance a viewer’s experience is to stuff a commentary box full of former players and have them take the game apart with all the skill and romance of a vivisectionist’s knife. But who’re the ones we remember? Ted Lowe. John Motson. Bill Threllfall. Old plummy-voiced posh blokes who understood that less is most often more. I mean, who’s gonna be mourning John “Personality Like A Turtle’s Fart” Lloyd when he’s dead and gone? At least McEnroe talks sense. But where’s the next generation of congenial old chaps who truly love the game and have the ability to impart that love? They’re the ones I want on my screen.




...
Meanwhile, a couple of hundred thousand people were digging Glastonbury, the world’s biggest and, some would say, best music festival. I like the sound of that – I’m down with anything “biggest and best” that’s linked with our little island – but I really gotta wonder what Glastonbury’s become. Beyoncé? Coldplay? U2? Since when did Glastonbury become a festival of middle-of-the-road pop-rock? Who next year? Hootie and the Blowfish? But I guess things change: it’s not all hippies and drugs and grunge these days – not that I really like those things either – it’s posh girls in designer wellies and a bit of a lark in the country. Pah. Festivals, shmestivals: I’ve been to Glastonbury twice and, to be honest, I couldn’t give a monkeys anyhoo. First time was in 2000, when I was sort of in the area and wandered on down after hearing the fences had been smashed in. Sunday afternoon it was; I stayed for a couple of hours, walked here and there, and then got bored. And then, foolishly, I went for the full monty in 2003 – didn’t pay; worked for Oxfam doing a bit of stewarding – and I swear I spent the whole four days looking for somewhere quiet that didn’t smell of piss. Wasn’t easy. It was just noise, and retards, and crap activists, and pissed-up otherwise normal people sitting around little fires of burning plastic and metal seemingly undisturbed by the waves of black, toxic smoke that were washing over them. Mostly what I remember is these fires, and the people staring into them – people who probably wore suits and baulked at dirt any other time of the year – and it all just seemed to me like the whole thing was an attempt to create an instant third-world city in the Somerset countryside. It was pretty grim.

As for the music…well, I saw Radiohead, and I do love Radiohead. Although, when I say I saw, what I mean is that I stood in the middle of a massive crowd and, in the distance, looked sometimes at some specks on a stage, sometimes at some images on a screen – the same images people were watching on their TVs at home. But at least I was hearing them, right? Wrong. Mostly what I was hearing was the stupid bellowing of the drunks around me, out of tune and – well, credit where credit’s due – I suppose they were getting maybe half the lyrics right. Poor old Thom Yorke. He’s on the stage, looking out into the crowd, and he’s thinking, wow, this is awesome, look at all these people loving what we’re doing, feel the energy, man, dig this magical moment – we’re changing the world! And yet, the reality is this: some imbeciles bombed out of their skulls who just want something familiar they can sing along to and who actually enjoy the end of the song more than the content of it because that’s when they can scream and cheer and go “whoop!” and “yeah!” – which is what it’s all about, the music’s just the backdrop for that. It’s pearls before swine, mate. Give me a nice pair of headphones and a pure, unadulterated listening experience any day.