I suspect that we’re living through an important period of evolutionary history. The human arse is becoming obsolete.
In years to come scientists will stand – not sit – in conference halls and lecture theatres discussing what happened to the gene pool in the 1990s to cause a generation to be born without buttocks. Maybe its mother nature’s way of evening things out - her response to the advent of home entertainment systems and office work. Maybe by forcing people to prop themselves up on hard points of bone instead of a handy, fleshy cushion, she’s encouraging us to be more active and spend less time lounging around. Then again, maybe she just has a profound sympathy for the manufacturers of padded upholstery products and is simply putting more business their way. Unless, of course, there’s a special piece of fashion equipment for sale in the kind of shops I never go in - some sort of ‘bum girdle’ that compresses and binds buttocks into contorted shapes using a method similar to that employed by Chinese women on their feet in the 19th Century.
Whatever the reason, I can’t see any other way to explain how teenagers manage to keep their jeans hanging off their hips in the current way. They don’t seem to be reliant on belts or anything. Is the inner lining stitched to the material of their underwear and then the waistband reinforced? I don’t understand how they don’t fall down – even when they go skateboarding.
It seems a particularly dumb style, a rather desperate and hopeful punt by the fashion industry to overcome a product wall. They’ve already tried dark jeans; stonewashed jeans; ripped jeans; jeans flecked with bleach. There have been skinny jeans; baggy jeans; flared jeans; turn-up jeans – there was even a period in the early 90s when they tried to get people to wear them backwards. All of these ideas have been through several cycles already, they obviously needed something fresh to make people spend money, otherwise they could just leave their old pair in the wardrobe for a couple of years until they come back into style again.
Although probably cooked up by marketeers - perhaps even in cahoots with the underwear industry eager to gain more exposure for their branded products – the history of the style supposedly comes from American gangsta rappers who, because of all the drive bys and pimping and everything, often found themselves getting arrested. When placed in the cells, the police would take away their belts to stop them hanging themselves - hence, their jeans would slip down.
This sartorial development was then copied by the kids on da streets who were all obviously very eager to be mistaken for criminals placed on suicide watch and the trend subsequently grew. It moved from the ghettos of Harlem to the fashion spreads of Vogue, eventually filtering down to nice, safe middle-class suburbanites the world over. It’s even ended up in South Yorkshire where it seems to have been modified further to fit the different environment.
The woman standing in front of me in the queue at the supermarket yesterday certainly managed to add her own unique flare to the style anyway. She hadn’t bothered with those shop bought jeans that are made to be loose fitting around the waist and shorter in the leg. Instead she’s wearing ones that are at least three sizes too small for her. She’s also of an older generation so is blessed with a full bottom, the jeans reach about halfway up it. The most startling thing however, is her decision to go without underwear. Those two wads of wobbly white flesh flopping over her waistband certainly grab your attention – on first glance she looks like she’s got four arses. It’s a ‘dagenham smile’ a builder would be proud of and I’m positive that if she were to bend over, the whole shop would actually be able to see her anus.
It’s a vision that’s difficult to push from your mind once it’s in there. I hope to god that no marketeers spotted her or we could be seeing a lot more horrors like that by next summer. The thought worries me so much that, for the good of society, I think she should be taken to an American prison to be shown how to wear her jeans properly.
23 March 2010
17 March 2010
Acting Your Age
It’s a good indication that you’re getting old when you start looking forward to baths. Fancying the housewives on TV ads for household products is probably a good sign as well. There are other little giveaways too. For example, I’ve recently discovered that I really like peas. Also, nowadays, when one of my friends announces that they’re going to have a baby, my automatic response is more likely to be: ‘Congratulations!’ rather than: ‘Shit, I’m sorry to hear that, what are you going to do?’
There are physical signs too. I’m beginning to feel the effects of smoking – a severe shortness of breath and a throaty, phlegm filled laugh. I eat the same amount as I always have but now I have a waistline that’s rapidly getting out of control and I’m starting to realise that there are some foods that I just shouldn’t touch.
Alcohol is another thing – I can’t drink like I once could. My hangovers used to be powerful and frightening. I’d wake up feeling like absolute death, the only way to cope being to throw up repeatedly and stand with my face in a bowl of cold water. At least I knew where I stood with them though, at least it got all the horror out of the way in one concentrated burst so that by mid-afternoon I’d be back to normal. I prefer those to the ones I get now. You couldn’t even call them proper hangovers, I just get incredibly tired and incredibly stupid. My head seems to be filled with thick treacle and I’m no use to anyone for about two days. Sometimes, I have to get hammered on red wine just to make sure that at least I’ve got a decent headache in the morning to remind me of what I’ve done.
These things all lead to the dawning realisation that I’m not going to live forever – a creeping sense of my own mortality. The future’s no longer off in the distance somewhere, vague and undefined like it was when I was younger. Instead it’s real and frightening, looming oppressively over everything I do.
The natural instinct of course is to panic. Generally this means grabbing everything you can and using it all as a barricade, safely cushioning yourself with a career, house, partner and all the rest of it. At that point you give up on the idea of changing the world and settle for simply changing the world around you.
The trouble is, those responsibilities tend to anchor you to the spot. As the wider world moves on and changes, your stable little one stagnates and narrows. Life becomes more about protecting what you’ve got rather than finding out what you want. Piddling little obsessions like guttering and bin collections and wind farms spoiling the scenery will start to assume levels of importance that you never dreamed of when you were twenty-five. Your opinions and beliefs will set rigid and you’ll use them as a stick to beat away any different viewpoint that might threaten the safety of your routine. Maybe you’ll write letters to your local newspaper moaning about how society is going to the dogs. Maybe you’ll even vote Conservative and start reading the Daily Mail – they say that you get more right-wing as you get older.
The prospect of that still scares me to death.
Ok, so I know that when I wear a cardigan, I now look less like a guitarist in an indie band and more like Val Doonican. I also know that when I see a 23 year old in a short skirt in January, I no longer think: ‘Christ, look at that,’ and instead: ‘Christ, I bet she’s cold’. But I’ll be buggered if I’m going to start acting my age. I still admire recklessness and adventure and freedom - I still want those things for myself. I’m not ready to give up on them regardless of expectations or peer pressure or my biological clock. It may be immaturity on my part, but if it is, so what? The day I settle for things is the day I do become old.
There are physical signs too. I’m beginning to feel the effects of smoking – a severe shortness of breath and a throaty, phlegm filled laugh. I eat the same amount as I always have but now I have a waistline that’s rapidly getting out of control and I’m starting to realise that there are some foods that I just shouldn’t touch.
Alcohol is another thing – I can’t drink like I once could. My hangovers used to be powerful and frightening. I’d wake up feeling like absolute death, the only way to cope being to throw up repeatedly and stand with my face in a bowl of cold water. At least I knew where I stood with them though, at least it got all the horror out of the way in one concentrated burst so that by mid-afternoon I’d be back to normal. I prefer those to the ones I get now. You couldn’t even call them proper hangovers, I just get incredibly tired and incredibly stupid. My head seems to be filled with thick treacle and I’m no use to anyone for about two days. Sometimes, I have to get hammered on red wine just to make sure that at least I’ve got a decent headache in the morning to remind me of what I’ve done.
These things all lead to the dawning realisation that I’m not going to live forever – a creeping sense of my own mortality. The future’s no longer off in the distance somewhere, vague and undefined like it was when I was younger. Instead it’s real and frightening, looming oppressively over everything I do.
The natural instinct of course is to panic. Generally this means grabbing everything you can and using it all as a barricade, safely cushioning yourself with a career, house, partner and all the rest of it. At that point you give up on the idea of changing the world and settle for simply changing the world around you.
The trouble is, those responsibilities tend to anchor you to the spot. As the wider world moves on and changes, your stable little one stagnates and narrows. Life becomes more about protecting what you’ve got rather than finding out what you want. Piddling little obsessions like guttering and bin collections and wind farms spoiling the scenery will start to assume levels of importance that you never dreamed of when you were twenty-five. Your opinions and beliefs will set rigid and you’ll use them as a stick to beat away any different viewpoint that might threaten the safety of your routine. Maybe you’ll write letters to your local newspaper moaning about how society is going to the dogs. Maybe you’ll even vote Conservative and start reading the Daily Mail – they say that you get more right-wing as you get older.
The prospect of that still scares me to death.
Ok, so I know that when I wear a cardigan, I now look less like a guitarist in an indie band and more like Val Doonican. I also know that when I see a 23 year old in a short skirt in January, I no longer think: ‘Christ, look at that,’ and instead: ‘Christ, I bet she’s cold’. But I’ll be buggered if I’m going to start acting my age. I still admire recklessness and adventure and freedom - I still want those things for myself. I’m not ready to give up on them regardless of expectations or peer pressure or my biological clock. It may be immaturity on my part, but if it is, so what? The day I settle for things is the day I do become old.
17 February 2010
Versions of an Event
The company accountant is everything you’d imagine an accountant to be: mid 50s, stern, abrupt and very, very serious. It was the Christmas work’s do and the rest of us sat around feeling the customary awkwardness of having to socialise with people we wouldn’t normally choose to. Not the accountant though. He’d already drunk way too much Barnsley Bitter in the restaurant before we somehow ended up in the student area of the city in a bar that was far too trendy for the likes of us.
It was Salsa night. Everyone else in the bar knew how to dance Salsa properly and were obviously regulars. We couldn’t have been more out of place if the bar had been on the moon.
I was just about coping. The volume of the music fortunately meant I didn’t have to talk too much and I began examining potential excuses for leaving. However, half an hour later, the accountant disappeared. We searched everywhere for him until, just as we’d almost given up on ever seeing him alive again, I weaved my way to the toilet and spotted a grey head of hair bouncing around on the middle of the dance floor. Arms flailing, glasses skew-whiff, he was head-banging in the middle of a pack of serious and dedicated Salsa dancers.
FOCUSING ON SOUNDS & SMELLS
The company accountant – always ready with a savage quip, a headmaster’s voice with a home-counties accent. The accompanying smell of old churches and Golden Virginia.
The trendy side of Sheffield, moneyed students in a bar blasting out South American music loud enough to prohibit conversation. The fruity alcoholic smell of extravagant cocktails mixing with the Lynx deodorant that seemed to seep from the walls.
A fug of beer fumes lingered over our table and, amid the tumult of trumpets and bongos, we took our attention off our accountant for a second and he was gone – vanished like the smoke from his roll-up on a windy day.
We braved the girating bodies and flapping silk in search of him. We followed our noses through the swathes of perfume at the bar, crossed the underlying stench of sweat on the dance-floor and made it all the way over to the nostril shrinking tang of disinfectant by the toilets.
Nothing.
Then, a wisp of grey hair amid the cloud of elegant, sweeping youngsters. Right in the centre of the dance-floor, the aura of drunkenness coming off him like musk - there was our accountant pogoing mercilessly to chilled latino beats, as inappropriate and unavoidable as a klaxon in a library.
AS FICTION
Split personality. Jekyll and Hyde. However, instead of a chemistry set and beaker, the accountant’s magic potion came from the casks of the Kelham Island Brewery.
The rest of us were sober enough to be ill at ease and uncomfortable in the student bar. I tried to stay quiet, waiting patiently for the first couple to peel away from the group and go home so that I could more easily justify my own escape. But then, panic. Our accountant was missing.
We murmured concern over the deafening thump of the Salsa music. He was in a wild enough state to create trouble with the gym-attending, easily offended clientele 30 years his junior.
Having patrolled the perimeter, scanned dark corners, checked the toilets – both male and female – and sent out a rescue party to search the streets outside, there was still no trace of him. Then, reconnoitring the dance-floor one last time, I spotted him. A mass of grey hair bouncing anything but rhythmically amid the irritated looking Salsa-ists. With horror, I watched as the trademark brown cardie came off. Next, it was twirling around his head in what appeared to be some kind of pagan fertility ritual.
I wasn’t the only one watching. A pack of bouncers was gathering like storm clouds close by. The extraction of our accountant from that dance-floor would need to be planned like a military operation.
A HAIKU
Wild hair, flailing arms
Blind drunk feral accountant
In the Salsa throng.
FROM A DIFFERENT POINT OF VIEW
Boring bastards. Boring, miserable bastards. What’s the matter with you? This is fantastic! Listen to that music – can’t you feel it? Drink up, come on, let’s go and dance!
Wait, what are you doing? Don’t start talking about politics – are you mad, we’re on a night out! You, take your head out of your hands. Don’t you dare look at your watch and yawn. Keep drinking, all of you, it’s only half one – we don’t have to be at work for another eight…er...seven…no, seven and a half hours. The night is young and it’s Christmas!
What are you… get to the bar, come on! I’ll have a cocktail this time, get me a Sex on the Beach. I don’t care what it costs, I’m the bloody accountant, it’ll go under expenses.
I need to dance now, who’s with me?
What?
Miserable bastards.
Right, screw this, I’m off. Not sitting around here all night when there’s music like this playing.
Wow, they all look very good at dancing. It’s a bit controlled though, a bit too regimented, like a routine or something. You’ve got to really feel these rhythms, let it flow through you, be free with it. I’ll show you all how it’s done, I’ll get right in the middle, right in the mixer.
Excuse me, coming through, oops, sorry about that – it’ll wash out. This is more like it! Everyone – hey, everyone – watch me! This is how you do it!
I may be an old man but as you can see, I can still cut it with these youngsters. Impressive eh? Hello there my dear, what a lovely blouse you’re wearing.
CHANGING THE SETTING
I was at the gig, the gig I’d been waiting months for. The Deathpigs haven’t played here in seven years and the crowd were well up for it. The sense of anticipation had been building all the way through the support act and we must have necked at least eight ciders before the ‘Pigs even started. By the time I made my way down to the mosh pit at the front, I was already pretty wrecked – I think everyone was.
When they finally came on stage, the crowd went ballistic. Bronco had his devil mask on, Cagney was wearing all his leathers, Brody threw a bucket of fake blood into the crowd – it was amazing! When Fester picked up his bass and cranked up the amps, I was shouting so loudly that I lost my voice for three days afterwards. It was the best gig I’ve ever been to in my life.
There was one weird moment though, so strange that I can’t be totally sure that it wasn’t just a cider hallucination. Right at the start of the guitar solo in Head Full of Hate, I noticed this old guy. He was really smartly dressed with immaculate hair and well pressed clothes. There was a quiet dignity about him, he seemed to give off an aura of charm and sophistication. Baring in mind, this was when the crowd were at fever pitch - beer and spit and hair everywhere, psychos headbanging and crashing into each other and throwing bottles at the stage – the mosh pit was utter bedlam, a seething mass of black shirts and sweat. But none of it seemed to touch this old gent. He just breezed through the lot of us doing this smooth, slinky kind of dance. Never in my life have I seen anyone dance to The Deathpigs like that. In a really strange way though, it seemed to fit perfectly with the tempo and beat of Head Full of Hate, as if the old guy had natural rhythm and was totally at one with the music.
Like I said, weird.
It was Salsa night. Everyone else in the bar knew how to dance Salsa properly and were obviously regulars. We couldn’t have been more out of place if the bar had been on the moon.
I was just about coping. The volume of the music fortunately meant I didn’t have to talk too much and I began examining potential excuses for leaving. However, half an hour later, the accountant disappeared. We searched everywhere for him until, just as we’d almost given up on ever seeing him alive again, I weaved my way to the toilet and spotted a grey head of hair bouncing around on the middle of the dance floor. Arms flailing, glasses skew-whiff, he was head-banging in the middle of a pack of serious and dedicated Salsa dancers.
FOCUSING ON SOUNDS & SMELLS
The company accountant – always ready with a savage quip, a headmaster’s voice with a home-counties accent. The accompanying smell of old churches and Golden Virginia.
The trendy side of Sheffield, moneyed students in a bar blasting out South American music loud enough to prohibit conversation. The fruity alcoholic smell of extravagant cocktails mixing with the Lynx deodorant that seemed to seep from the walls.
A fug of beer fumes lingered over our table and, amid the tumult of trumpets and bongos, we took our attention off our accountant for a second and he was gone – vanished like the smoke from his roll-up on a windy day.
We braved the girating bodies and flapping silk in search of him. We followed our noses through the swathes of perfume at the bar, crossed the underlying stench of sweat on the dance-floor and made it all the way over to the nostril shrinking tang of disinfectant by the toilets.
Nothing.
Then, a wisp of grey hair amid the cloud of elegant, sweeping youngsters. Right in the centre of the dance-floor, the aura of drunkenness coming off him like musk - there was our accountant pogoing mercilessly to chilled latino beats, as inappropriate and unavoidable as a klaxon in a library.
AS FICTION
Split personality. Jekyll and Hyde. However, instead of a chemistry set and beaker, the accountant’s magic potion came from the casks of the Kelham Island Brewery.
The rest of us were sober enough to be ill at ease and uncomfortable in the student bar. I tried to stay quiet, waiting patiently for the first couple to peel away from the group and go home so that I could more easily justify my own escape. But then, panic. Our accountant was missing.
We murmured concern over the deafening thump of the Salsa music. He was in a wild enough state to create trouble with the gym-attending, easily offended clientele 30 years his junior.
Having patrolled the perimeter, scanned dark corners, checked the toilets – both male and female – and sent out a rescue party to search the streets outside, there was still no trace of him. Then, reconnoitring the dance-floor one last time, I spotted him. A mass of grey hair bouncing anything but rhythmically amid the irritated looking Salsa-ists. With horror, I watched as the trademark brown cardie came off. Next, it was twirling around his head in what appeared to be some kind of pagan fertility ritual.
I wasn’t the only one watching. A pack of bouncers was gathering like storm clouds close by. The extraction of our accountant from that dance-floor would need to be planned like a military operation.
A HAIKU
Wild hair, flailing arms
Blind drunk feral accountant
In the Salsa throng.
FROM A DIFFERENT POINT OF VIEW
Boring bastards. Boring, miserable bastards. What’s the matter with you? This is fantastic! Listen to that music – can’t you feel it? Drink up, come on, let’s go and dance!
Wait, what are you doing? Don’t start talking about politics – are you mad, we’re on a night out! You, take your head out of your hands. Don’t you dare look at your watch and yawn. Keep drinking, all of you, it’s only half one – we don’t have to be at work for another eight…er...seven…no, seven and a half hours. The night is young and it’s Christmas!
What are you… get to the bar, come on! I’ll have a cocktail this time, get me a Sex on the Beach. I don’t care what it costs, I’m the bloody accountant, it’ll go under expenses.
I need to dance now, who’s with me?
What?
Miserable bastards.
Right, screw this, I’m off. Not sitting around here all night when there’s music like this playing.
Wow, they all look very good at dancing. It’s a bit controlled though, a bit too regimented, like a routine or something. You’ve got to really feel these rhythms, let it flow through you, be free with it. I’ll show you all how it’s done, I’ll get right in the middle, right in the mixer.
Excuse me, coming through, oops, sorry about that – it’ll wash out. This is more like it! Everyone – hey, everyone – watch me! This is how you do it!
I may be an old man but as you can see, I can still cut it with these youngsters. Impressive eh? Hello there my dear, what a lovely blouse you’re wearing.
CHANGING THE SETTING
I was at the gig, the gig I’d been waiting months for. The Deathpigs haven’t played here in seven years and the crowd were well up for it. The sense of anticipation had been building all the way through the support act and we must have necked at least eight ciders before the ‘Pigs even started. By the time I made my way down to the mosh pit at the front, I was already pretty wrecked – I think everyone was.
When they finally came on stage, the crowd went ballistic. Bronco had his devil mask on, Cagney was wearing all his leathers, Brody threw a bucket of fake blood into the crowd – it was amazing! When Fester picked up his bass and cranked up the amps, I was shouting so loudly that I lost my voice for three days afterwards. It was the best gig I’ve ever been to in my life.
There was one weird moment though, so strange that I can’t be totally sure that it wasn’t just a cider hallucination. Right at the start of the guitar solo in Head Full of Hate, I noticed this old guy. He was really smartly dressed with immaculate hair and well pressed clothes. There was a quiet dignity about him, he seemed to give off an aura of charm and sophistication. Baring in mind, this was when the crowd were at fever pitch - beer and spit and hair everywhere, psychos headbanging and crashing into each other and throwing bottles at the stage – the mosh pit was utter bedlam, a seething mass of black shirts and sweat. But none of it seemed to touch this old gent. He just breezed through the lot of us doing this smooth, slinky kind of dance. Never in my life have I seen anyone dance to The Deathpigs like that. In a really strange way though, it seemed to fit perfectly with the tempo and beat of Head Full of Hate, as if the old guy had natural rhythm and was totally at one with the music.
Like I said, weird.
31 January 2010
Lest We Forget
Imagine my horror when I turned on breakfast television the other morning to find Danielle Lloyd grinning soppily back at me. It’s not a very pleasant way to start the day.
In case you need reminding about who Danielle Lloyd is, she was one of the contestants on Celebrity Big Brother three years ago. Following the usual formula for these types of shows, when she first entered the house, nobody had the first idea who she was. Apparently her career up to that point had included some modelling work and going out with a footballer. As this hardly constitutes celebrity, I presume she was included to provide some eye-candy for the boys and so that we could all laugh at how thick she was.
Obviously, that didn’t go according to plan. 2007 was the year that the almighty shitstorm kicked off around Shilpa Shetty and the racist bullying directed at her from a coven of housemates led by Jade Goody. Effigies were burnt, diplomatic relations with India became strained and it was even debated in Parliament. The whole thing was a national disgrace and right at the middle of it all was Danielle Lloyd.
I remember watching the show at the time and despising Lloyd more than Jade Goody herself – which is saying quite a lot. At least Goody was brutish and straightforward with her bigoted stupidity, you knew where you stood with her. Lloyd however, was exactly like the worst kind of vindictive schoolyard bully, fawning around the bigger, more powerful figurehead, egging them on to go further, telling them how great they are. She was sly, vindictive and loathsome – sniping hatefully behind Shetty’s back at every opportunity then panicking when she finally became aware of the trouble she was in and rushing to toady and apologise in the most desperate and fake way imaginable in order to save her own skin.
Thankfully, since then, she’s been very quiet. Until now.
Her strategy for a comeback is horribly transparent - devised, no doubt, by a shady Machiavellian PR agency of the worst kind. Lie low for a couple of years to give people time to forget how you behaved, then appear on something light and popular where you don’t have to talk too much just to get your name in the public eye again. After that you can relaunch your career properly on the back of some charity – make sure you’re associated heavily with it, bring in some personal trauma, portray yourself as sincere and caring.
That’s precisely what she’s done. Apparently, she was on Celebrity Wipeout over Christmas and donated her prize money to a domestic abuse charity – a charity that she’s now clamped onto firmly in order to repair her image. This is why she was leering at me from the television screen at breakfast, cosying up to Bill Turnbull on the sofa as if she were just a normal, civilised human being. Undoubtedly, there’ll be a BBC3 documentary soon followed by presenting slots and god alone knows what else.
But, hang on. How exactly is she relaunching herself? What career is she coming back to? Modelling? Going out with footballers? No, she’s coming back to a career in the media.
What career in the media is this? As I stated before, when she entered the Big Brother house, nobody knew who she was – the only reason we do now is because of the furore over the racism row. If she hadn’t verbally abused an Indian actress on national television, nobody would know the name Danielle Lloyd. There’d certainly be no way that she’d be there to goad and taunt me through the television because she wouldn’t be well known enough to appear on anything.
This is what I find so offensive. I wouldn’t mind her so much if she’d just had the dignity to slink back into the shadows and allow people to forget about her after Big Brother. Anyone with the slightest shred of shame would have. Instead however, she’s using the fact that her face and name is known in order to establish herself on television. She’s using the fame generated by her racist bullying as a foothold to get into the media and, by doing so, assuming that the public are so dumb and fickle that we’ll have forgotten about what a horrible person she is.
It scares me that she may be proved right. It scares me that we’ll let Danielle Lloyd become famous.
If she’s going to appear on television, there should be a constant reminder of the reason she’s there. For example, when someone appears on a talk show, the host will generally introduce them by telling the audience their name and the nature of their profession: ‘Please welcome, the actor, Bill Roach’, they might say, or: ‘Today on the show, we’ve got Uri Geller, the Spoon-bender’. Therefore, whenever Lloyd appears on anything she should be announced as: ‘The Bully, Danielle Lloyd’. Or, when she appears on one of those ‘I love the 90s’ type programmes where they show old clips followed by a close up of someone vaguely famous talking you through what you’ve just seen, the caption for hers should read: ‘Danielle Lloyd’, then underneath: ‘Nasty Piece of Work’.
That way, whenever we see that vacant, self-satisfied smile of hers on our screens, we might feel a little bit disgusted at ourselves that we’ve allowed it to get there.
In case you need reminding about who Danielle Lloyd is, she was one of the contestants on Celebrity Big Brother three years ago. Following the usual formula for these types of shows, when she first entered the house, nobody had the first idea who she was. Apparently her career up to that point had included some modelling work and going out with a footballer. As this hardly constitutes celebrity, I presume she was included to provide some eye-candy for the boys and so that we could all laugh at how thick she was.
Obviously, that didn’t go according to plan. 2007 was the year that the almighty shitstorm kicked off around Shilpa Shetty and the racist bullying directed at her from a coven of housemates led by Jade Goody. Effigies were burnt, diplomatic relations with India became strained and it was even debated in Parliament. The whole thing was a national disgrace and right at the middle of it all was Danielle Lloyd.
I remember watching the show at the time and despising Lloyd more than Jade Goody herself – which is saying quite a lot. At least Goody was brutish and straightforward with her bigoted stupidity, you knew where you stood with her. Lloyd however, was exactly like the worst kind of vindictive schoolyard bully, fawning around the bigger, more powerful figurehead, egging them on to go further, telling them how great they are. She was sly, vindictive and loathsome – sniping hatefully behind Shetty’s back at every opportunity then panicking when she finally became aware of the trouble she was in and rushing to toady and apologise in the most desperate and fake way imaginable in order to save her own skin.
Thankfully, since then, she’s been very quiet. Until now.
Her strategy for a comeback is horribly transparent - devised, no doubt, by a shady Machiavellian PR agency of the worst kind. Lie low for a couple of years to give people time to forget how you behaved, then appear on something light and popular where you don’t have to talk too much just to get your name in the public eye again. After that you can relaunch your career properly on the back of some charity – make sure you’re associated heavily with it, bring in some personal trauma, portray yourself as sincere and caring.
That’s precisely what she’s done. Apparently, she was on Celebrity Wipeout over Christmas and donated her prize money to a domestic abuse charity – a charity that she’s now clamped onto firmly in order to repair her image. This is why she was leering at me from the television screen at breakfast, cosying up to Bill Turnbull on the sofa as if she were just a normal, civilised human being. Undoubtedly, there’ll be a BBC3 documentary soon followed by presenting slots and god alone knows what else.
But, hang on. How exactly is she relaunching herself? What career is she coming back to? Modelling? Going out with footballers? No, she’s coming back to a career in the media.
What career in the media is this? As I stated before, when she entered the Big Brother house, nobody knew who she was – the only reason we do now is because of the furore over the racism row. If she hadn’t verbally abused an Indian actress on national television, nobody would know the name Danielle Lloyd. There’d certainly be no way that she’d be there to goad and taunt me through the television because she wouldn’t be well known enough to appear on anything.
This is what I find so offensive. I wouldn’t mind her so much if she’d just had the dignity to slink back into the shadows and allow people to forget about her after Big Brother. Anyone with the slightest shred of shame would have. Instead however, she’s using the fact that her face and name is known in order to establish herself on television. She’s using the fame generated by her racist bullying as a foothold to get into the media and, by doing so, assuming that the public are so dumb and fickle that we’ll have forgotten about what a horrible person she is.
It scares me that she may be proved right. It scares me that we’ll let Danielle Lloyd become famous.
If she’s going to appear on television, there should be a constant reminder of the reason she’s there. For example, when someone appears on a talk show, the host will generally introduce them by telling the audience their name and the nature of their profession: ‘Please welcome, the actor, Bill Roach’, they might say, or: ‘Today on the show, we’ve got Uri Geller, the Spoon-bender’. Therefore, whenever Lloyd appears on anything she should be announced as: ‘The Bully, Danielle Lloyd’. Or, when she appears on one of those ‘I love the 90s’ type programmes where they show old clips followed by a close up of someone vaguely famous talking you through what you’ve just seen, the caption for hers should read: ‘Danielle Lloyd’, then underneath: ‘Nasty Piece of Work’.
That way, whenever we see that vacant, self-satisfied smile of hers on our screens, we might feel a little bit disgusted at ourselves that we’ve allowed it to get there.
22 December 2009
Christmas Spirit
I imagined that Christmas would be awful. I’d been in Australia for eleven months by then and hadn’t once been queasy with homesickness. But this was to be my first Christmas away from home and I fully expected to develop some major symptoms.
I was surprised that Christmas is celebrated down under in much the same way as it is here. Australians are so proud of their own identity that I expected them to adapt Christmas and personalise it to their own culture – kangaroos in Santa hats, girls barbecuing in fur clad bikinis, a surfing Father Christmas – that sort of thing. But there was nothing of the kind. Fake snow was sprayed into the corners of windows, decorations were draped across the city streets and winter carols played in every shop. It was a strange sensation to see all this in the height of summer. Father Christmas isn’t quite as jolly when his beard is drenched with sweat and he’s on the verge of collapse because he’s wearing a thick red woollen suit in 35 degree heat. It was so far removed from any Christmas that I’d experienced before that there was nothing to remind me of what I was missing in England. Therefore, I didn’t feel homesick at all. The problem was that I didn’t feel very Christmassy either.
Without any familiar signs to prompt my brain into releasing the chemical responsible for festive cheer, each December day felt the same as a November or October one. There was no sense of build up or anticipation until, finally, on Christmas Eve, something happened.
It was the supermarket that did it. My flatmate and I were there to buy our dinner for the following day and the place was packed with frantic housewives. They all looked dishevelled and exhausted and there was a crazed look in their eyes as they jostled in the aisles, panic buying things they’d forgotten. ‘Oh. So it is Christmas,’ I thought, and was instantly possessed by the Christmas Spirit.
In the end I had a wonderful Christmas Day and, more importantly, it taught me what the season means to me personally. It isn’t about getting presents or eating extravagantly. It’s not about snow or trees or the Queen’s speech and the afternoon blockbuster. It isn’t even about getting drunk or hearing Slade playing from every available speaker. It’s about wrapping tinsel around your sunhat and getting the bus to the beach with a bag full of turkey sandwiches and party poppers. It’s about driving through the suburbs and seeing kids in the street playing with their presents in the sunshine. It’s about falling asleep on a dune and waking up to the laughter of two Korean girls because the inner lining of your swimming trunks has corroded. It’s about spending $3 and two hours writing fake Christmas cards to yourself from ‘Paul and Barry Chuckle’ and ‘all the lads in Radiohead’ and ‘That weather girl off Channel 9’ just to win a futile competition with your flatmate about how many cards each of you would receive. It’s about playing ‘Battleships’ with a pen and paper then bickering for over an hour because one of you cheated. It’s about stepping out of your normal reality for a couple of days, putting aside troubles and concerns and allowing yourself to be silly and carefree.
In short: no worries.
I was surprised that Christmas is celebrated down under in much the same way as it is here. Australians are so proud of their own identity that I expected them to adapt Christmas and personalise it to their own culture – kangaroos in Santa hats, girls barbecuing in fur clad bikinis, a surfing Father Christmas – that sort of thing. But there was nothing of the kind. Fake snow was sprayed into the corners of windows, decorations were draped across the city streets and winter carols played in every shop. It was a strange sensation to see all this in the height of summer. Father Christmas isn’t quite as jolly when his beard is drenched with sweat and he’s on the verge of collapse because he’s wearing a thick red woollen suit in 35 degree heat. It was so far removed from any Christmas that I’d experienced before that there was nothing to remind me of what I was missing in England. Therefore, I didn’t feel homesick at all. The problem was that I didn’t feel very Christmassy either.
Without any familiar signs to prompt my brain into releasing the chemical responsible for festive cheer, each December day felt the same as a November or October one. There was no sense of build up or anticipation until, finally, on Christmas Eve, something happened.
It was the supermarket that did it. My flatmate and I were there to buy our dinner for the following day and the place was packed with frantic housewives. They all looked dishevelled and exhausted and there was a crazed look in their eyes as they jostled in the aisles, panic buying things they’d forgotten. ‘Oh. So it is Christmas,’ I thought, and was instantly possessed by the Christmas Spirit.
In the end I had a wonderful Christmas Day and, more importantly, it taught me what the season means to me personally. It isn’t about getting presents or eating extravagantly. It’s not about snow or trees or the Queen’s speech and the afternoon blockbuster. It isn’t even about getting drunk or hearing Slade playing from every available speaker. It’s about wrapping tinsel around your sunhat and getting the bus to the beach with a bag full of turkey sandwiches and party poppers. It’s about driving through the suburbs and seeing kids in the street playing with their presents in the sunshine. It’s about falling asleep on a dune and waking up to the laughter of two Korean girls because the inner lining of your swimming trunks has corroded. It’s about spending $3 and two hours writing fake Christmas cards to yourself from ‘Paul and Barry Chuckle’ and ‘all the lads in Radiohead’ and ‘That weather girl off Channel 9’ just to win a futile competition with your flatmate about how many cards each of you would receive. It’s about playing ‘Battleships’ with a pen and paper then bickering for over an hour because one of you cheated. It’s about stepping out of your normal reality for a couple of days, putting aside troubles and concerns and allowing yourself to be silly and carefree.
In short: no worries.
09 December 2009
Jason
When I worked with Jason there were just five people in the studio so I got to know him pretty well. He was quiet and a little awkward but no more so than anyone else working in IT. We tried to include him in the usual office banter which he enjoyed despite never really fitting in completely. He was there as a student placement for his degree so I suppose he hadn’t seen enough of the working world to become as cynical and brutal as the rest of us. He didn’t seem to have any sort of monitoring system controlling how much personal information he revealed to us – didn’t know that a group of men working in a creative and pressurised environment will instantly snatch up any potentially embarrassing information like a seagull outside a beachfront chip shop. Then they’ll fly around your head with it, waving it in your face as you flail and stumble.
One such incident took place in the pub, after work. We were all talking about our hobbies and Jason said that he liked photography. The first thought that occurred to a table full of designers high on Barnsley Bitter and bravado was, naturally, porn.
‘What sort of photography?’ said the production manager, coyly.
‘Women, mainly.’
Christ Jason, shut up now – don’t say any more.
‘Naked women?’
‘Yes. I really like the female form.’
It was as if someone had tossed a hand-grenade onto the middle of the table. Poor Jason didn’t have the instinct to take cover or defend himself, I saw that clearly then. He was too naïve and innocent for this, it was like attacking a rabbit with a howitzer and I knew whose side I needed to be on. I parried the verbal barrage on his behalf, fired back with shots aimed well below the belt, provided distractions, diversions and feints to the bar but it didn’t do much good, the photography conversation had given them too much ammunition.
The great thing about Jason however, was that he didn’t seem to mind any of this in the slightest. He went far past the point where anyone else would have become aggressive or, at the very least, gone to have a little cry in the toilets. Through it all he carried on smiling and enjoying the banter until, eventually, someone else spilt a pint and the emphasis shifted away from him.
I worked with Jason for about a year before I left the company to go travelling. Out of everyone I knew, he was by far the most enthusiastic about my trip. I told him all about my preparations, what a hassle everything was and he asked where exactly I was going and what I intended doing. He supplied me with lots of helpful and interesting websites - he even encouraged me to set up a travel blog so that I could gloat about what I great time I was having.
We promised to keep in touch but of course, we didn’t. No matter how close you are to somebody when you’re working with them, as soon as your circumstances change you lose that common bond, that shared experience. Inevitably, you make new friends and the people you used to work with aren’t as important to you as they once were. Over the course of my career, I’ve worked with many wonderful people and I’ve lost touch with every single one of them.
When I returned a year later, I ended up working for the same company but many of the faces I knew had gone. One of those was Jason’s.
According to the bosses, not long after I’d left, he’d started behaving strangely. Apparently, he’d been rude to clients, sat reading magazines all day, walked out of the office at random times on extended lunch breaks and made a badly judged and clumsy pass at the receptionist.
This all seemed very much at odds with the quiet, polite and innocent lad that I knew.
Eventually he stopped turning up for work at all and someone from the University came to speak to the bosses. It turns out Jason had a history of mental problems and was under pretty close psychiatric care. The changes in his personality were because he’d suddenly stopped taking his medication and suffered a breakdown. Nobody at the office had the first idea about any of this.
A few months later I bumped into him in a shop. He introduced me to the friend he was with who didn’t say anything and moved away to a polite distance as we stood talking. Jason certainly wasn’t surly or unpleasant or miserable – but he wasn’t really the lad I had known before either. He seemed upbeat and chirpy – but chirpy in the way that born again Christians or the very lonely are chirpy; as if they’re trying to convince themselves as well as you that everything’s great. It was good to see him but I could tell something wasn’t right. It was the sort of conversation that, when it ends, you walk away from with relief and think: ‘what on earth was that all about?’
That was nearly four years ago now. The next time I heard about Jason was when I saw his name in a local paper. He went missing on the 27th December last year. Three days later the Police found his car parked near the Humber Bridge.
Thinking back to our conversations in the studio, I remember how enthusiastic he was about my trip. I hope he decided to travel too. I hope that he’s been selfish and inconsiderate and opted to avoid all the hassle of preparation by just taking off suddenly. I hope that he’s on a beach or in a foreign bar talking about photographing nude women and smiling at other people’s banter. I hope that the worst thing that’s troubling him is a guilty conscience about all the family and friends he abruptly abandoned.
www.missingpeople.org.uk
One such incident took place in the pub, after work. We were all talking about our hobbies and Jason said that he liked photography. The first thought that occurred to a table full of designers high on Barnsley Bitter and bravado was, naturally, porn.
‘What sort of photography?’ said the production manager, coyly.
‘Women, mainly.’
Christ Jason, shut up now – don’t say any more.
‘Naked women?’
‘Yes. I really like the female form.’
It was as if someone had tossed a hand-grenade onto the middle of the table. Poor Jason didn’t have the instinct to take cover or defend himself, I saw that clearly then. He was too naïve and innocent for this, it was like attacking a rabbit with a howitzer and I knew whose side I needed to be on. I parried the verbal barrage on his behalf, fired back with shots aimed well below the belt, provided distractions, diversions and feints to the bar but it didn’t do much good, the photography conversation had given them too much ammunition.
The great thing about Jason however, was that he didn’t seem to mind any of this in the slightest. He went far past the point where anyone else would have become aggressive or, at the very least, gone to have a little cry in the toilets. Through it all he carried on smiling and enjoying the banter until, eventually, someone else spilt a pint and the emphasis shifted away from him.
I worked with Jason for about a year before I left the company to go travelling. Out of everyone I knew, he was by far the most enthusiastic about my trip. I told him all about my preparations, what a hassle everything was and he asked where exactly I was going and what I intended doing. He supplied me with lots of helpful and interesting websites - he even encouraged me to set up a travel blog so that I could gloat about what I great time I was having.
We promised to keep in touch but of course, we didn’t. No matter how close you are to somebody when you’re working with them, as soon as your circumstances change you lose that common bond, that shared experience. Inevitably, you make new friends and the people you used to work with aren’t as important to you as they once were. Over the course of my career, I’ve worked with many wonderful people and I’ve lost touch with every single one of them.
When I returned a year later, I ended up working for the same company but many of the faces I knew had gone. One of those was Jason’s.
According to the bosses, not long after I’d left, he’d started behaving strangely. Apparently, he’d been rude to clients, sat reading magazines all day, walked out of the office at random times on extended lunch breaks and made a badly judged and clumsy pass at the receptionist.
This all seemed very much at odds with the quiet, polite and innocent lad that I knew.
Eventually he stopped turning up for work at all and someone from the University came to speak to the bosses. It turns out Jason had a history of mental problems and was under pretty close psychiatric care. The changes in his personality were because he’d suddenly stopped taking his medication and suffered a breakdown. Nobody at the office had the first idea about any of this.
A few months later I bumped into him in a shop. He introduced me to the friend he was with who didn’t say anything and moved away to a polite distance as we stood talking. Jason certainly wasn’t surly or unpleasant or miserable – but he wasn’t really the lad I had known before either. He seemed upbeat and chirpy – but chirpy in the way that born again Christians or the very lonely are chirpy; as if they’re trying to convince themselves as well as you that everything’s great. It was good to see him but I could tell something wasn’t right. It was the sort of conversation that, when it ends, you walk away from with relief and think: ‘what on earth was that all about?’
That was nearly four years ago now. The next time I heard about Jason was when I saw his name in a local paper. He went missing on the 27th December last year. Three days later the Police found his car parked near the Humber Bridge.
Thinking back to our conversations in the studio, I remember how enthusiastic he was about my trip. I hope he decided to travel too. I hope that he’s been selfish and inconsiderate and opted to avoid all the hassle of preparation by just taking off suddenly. I hope that he’s on a beach or in a foreign bar talking about photographing nude women and smiling at other people’s banter. I hope that the worst thing that’s troubling him is a guilty conscience about all the family and friends he abruptly abandoned.
www.missingpeople.org.uk
29 November 2009
Writing Clichés #2
WIDE EYED AND LEGLESS
That bloody alarm clock! That bloody snooze button!
I leapt out of bed and skidded across the bedroom on the July issue of Marie Claire. The mirror wasn’t my friend that morning. The massive zit that had been amassing for several days very helpfully chose today to erupt out of my forehead and my hair was a complete fright. All I could do was tie it back and cover it with a hat. Which hat? I shouldn’t be allowed to make important fashion choices when I’m still technically asleep.
Like an idiot, I grabbed the beret that had been lurking in a dark corner of my wardrobe, unworn since the day I bought it. I’ve no idea why it was even there – it had no place among my other clothes which tend to be quite dull and practical. I remember picking it up from a lovely stall on Camden market and imagining how Cosmopolitan and French it’d make me look. That had been a good enough reason when I was all giggly on Chardonnay but in the cold light of day I realised that all I looked was, at best: kooky, and at worst: completely deranged.
Who on earth wears a beret to the office on the day they’ve got an important marketing meeting at 9.30? I obviously wasn’t thinking clearly. I should have just gone back to bed and phoned in sick.
Clothes-wise, I put on the nearest things to hand which happened to be a pink blouse and a trouser suit that luckily wasn’t too creased. Only later when I was sprinting down the street to the tube station did I recall that the jacket had a tzatziki stain on it from Friday’s lunchtime bagel.
I was way too late for my usual train so I missed any encounter I might have had with my mystery man. Most mornings, it’s only the thought of seeing him that gets me out of bed at all. Two or three times a week we end up in the same carriage – that is, I make sure we end up in the same carriage if I’m quick enough to spot him through the window as the train slows down. He gets on somewhere further up the line and gets off somewhere further along, I’ve no idea where. One day, I’m going to book the morning off and follow him just to see where he works.
I imagine him being in publishing, possibly because he’s always reading when I see him. Not the Metro or a newspaper, it’s always a novel, usually written by some French author with loose morals. He has these cute little wire rimmed glasses and slightly overlong hair that’s elegantly dishevelled and makes him appear all arty and serious. I wonder if he’d been wearing his distinctive scarf that morning? I was probably thinking of him when I bought that damn beret.
We’ve never spoken or anything but the time is getting closer, I’m sure of it. Whenever he’s there, I sit as close to him as I dare and wait for him to look up so that I can catch his eye. Surely he must have noticed me by now.
But maybe it’s for the best if we never speak. What if he’s not half as alluring as I imagine him to be? What if he’s a tabloid journalist or a telemarketing guy? What if, when he opens his mouth, there isn’t a refined and gently accented Scottish or Irish burr but a broad Liverpudlian twang?
God, it would ruin my commute!
That day I was on the later train, the one that’s always packed. I had to squeeze in behind some exchange students and my face was in the sweaty armpit of a fat man all the way to the office. I tried my best to put on at least some make-up but what with holding onto the hanging strap and balancing my briefcase between my knees, I ended up with panda eyes and decidedly wonky lipstick. It would have to do.
No time for my usual Chai Latte pick-me-up from the Italian café outside the station or a friendly flirt with the security guard at reception that morning, I went directly up to my office and tried to make myself look as though I’d been there ages. I was just booting up my computer when my boss, poked his head round the door.
‘All set for the meeting Rosalyn?’ he said.
‘Oh yes, Mr Hague. Just spell-checking the final agendas.’
Then he saw my beret and physically flinched.
‘Er, that’s an interesting hat,’ he said.
I brazened it out. ‘Why, thank you Mr Hague,’ I replied, without looking up. He was too polite and old-fashioned to start giving sartorial advice to a woman twenty-five years his junior. I’d managed to get away with it.
There was barely enough time to print out the agendas before the meeting. As I headed upstairs in the lift with Mr Hague I noticed a glaring typo on the second line – typical!
The executive from the marketing agency and the photographer were already there when we arrived. I didn’t notice them at first because I was too busy juggling with an armful of files. I nearly dropped them when I saw who was positioned at the table opposite me.
‘Miss Bedford, I think you know Mr Henrion from the agency?’
‘Hi,’ I gasped at the exec.
‘And this is Jack Miller, our new photographer.’
He stood up and I shook his hand. Was that a glimmer of recognition that flashed across those piercing blue eyes?
‘Hello Miss Bedford,’ he said. It wasn’t Scottish or Irish but thankfully, it wasn’t broad Liverpudlian either. Definitely northern though, Manchester maybe? He’d worn that distinctive scarf today after all.
‘Nice beret,’ he added, with a smile.
That bloody alarm clock! That bloody snooze button!
I leapt out of bed and skidded across the bedroom on the July issue of Marie Claire. The mirror wasn’t my friend that morning. The massive zit that had been amassing for several days very helpfully chose today to erupt out of my forehead and my hair was a complete fright. All I could do was tie it back and cover it with a hat. Which hat? I shouldn’t be allowed to make important fashion choices when I’m still technically asleep.
Like an idiot, I grabbed the beret that had been lurking in a dark corner of my wardrobe, unworn since the day I bought it. I’ve no idea why it was even there – it had no place among my other clothes which tend to be quite dull and practical. I remember picking it up from a lovely stall on Camden market and imagining how Cosmopolitan and French it’d make me look. That had been a good enough reason when I was all giggly on Chardonnay but in the cold light of day I realised that all I looked was, at best: kooky, and at worst: completely deranged.
Who on earth wears a beret to the office on the day they’ve got an important marketing meeting at 9.30? I obviously wasn’t thinking clearly. I should have just gone back to bed and phoned in sick.
Clothes-wise, I put on the nearest things to hand which happened to be a pink blouse and a trouser suit that luckily wasn’t too creased. Only later when I was sprinting down the street to the tube station did I recall that the jacket had a tzatziki stain on it from Friday’s lunchtime bagel.
I was way too late for my usual train so I missed any encounter I might have had with my mystery man. Most mornings, it’s only the thought of seeing him that gets me out of bed at all. Two or three times a week we end up in the same carriage – that is, I make sure we end up in the same carriage if I’m quick enough to spot him through the window as the train slows down. He gets on somewhere further up the line and gets off somewhere further along, I’ve no idea where. One day, I’m going to book the morning off and follow him just to see where he works.
I imagine him being in publishing, possibly because he’s always reading when I see him. Not the Metro or a newspaper, it’s always a novel, usually written by some French author with loose morals. He has these cute little wire rimmed glasses and slightly overlong hair that’s elegantly dishevelled and makes him appear all arty and serious. I wonder if he’d been wearing his distinctive scarf that morning? I was probably thinking of him when I bought that damn beret.
We’ve never spoken or anything but the time is getting closer, I’m sure of it. Whenever he’s there, I sit as close to him as I dare and wait for him to look up so that I can catch his eye. Surely he must have noticed me by now.
But maybe it’s for the best if we never speak. What if he’s not half as alluring as I imagine him to be? What if he’s a tabloid journalist or a telemarketing guy? What if, when he opens his mouth, there isn’t a refined and gently accented Scottish or Irish burr but a broad Liverpudlian twang?
God, it would ruin my commute!
That day I was on the later train, the one that’s always packed. I had to squeeze in behind some exchange students and my face was in the sweaty armpit of a fat man all the way to the office. I tried my best to put on at least some make-up but what with holding onto the hanging strap and balancing my briefcase between my knees, I ended up with panda eyes and decidedly wonky lipstick. It would have to do.
No time for my usual Chai Latte pick-me-up from the Italian café outside the station or a friendly flirt with the security guard at reception that morning, I went directly up to my office and tried to make myself look as though I’d been there ages. I was just booting up my computer when my boss, poked his head round the door.
‘All set for the meeting Rosalyn?’ he said.
‘Oh yes, Mr Hague. Just spell-checking the final agendas.’
Then he saw my beret and physically flinched.
‘Er, that’s an interesting hat,’ he said.
I brazened it out. ‘Why, thank you Mr Hague,’ I replied, without looking up. He was too polite and old-fashioned to start giving sartorial advice to a woman twenty-five years his junior. I’d managed to get away with it.
There was barely enough time to print out the agendas before the meeting. As I headed upstairs in the lift with Mr Hague I noticed a glaring typo on the second line – typical!
The executive from the marketing agency and the photographer were already there when we arrived. I didn’t notice them at first because I was too busy juggling with an armful of files. I nearly dropped them when I saw who was positioned at the table opposite me.
‘Miss Bedford, I think you know Mr Henrion from the agency?’
‘Hi,’ I gasped at the exec.
‘And this is Jack Miller, our new photographer.’
He stood up and I shook his hand. Was that a glimmer of recognition that flashed across those piercing blue eyes?
‘Hello Miss Bedford,’ he said. It wasn’t Scottish or Irish but thankfully, it wasn’t broad Liverpudlian either. Definitely northern though, Manchester maybe? He’d worn that distinctive scarf today after all.
‘Nice beret,’ he added, with a smile.
20 November 2009
Neural Waste
A coastal town, out of season. A narrow street lined with tall Edwardian townhouses. I was at work in the attic of one of them using a drawing board and T-square instead of a Mac. The studio had wooden beams and high ceilings that followed the slant of the roof.
There was a girl there wearing a dark coloured cardigan, white blouse and black trousers. She was small and pretty with long, straight black hair. I’ve never seen her before but I know that we knew each other very well and I trusted and respected her unconditionally – like an older sister rather than a girlfriend.
She took me into the storage room at the back and pointed up to the skylight set into the roof. The wind was blowing clouds across the sky. As I watched, the clouds broke apart and began forming into distinctive shapes. They became cars and trains but not realistic ones, these were blocky and oversimplified, the kind of cars and trains a child might draw.
The wind changed direction and the clouds now came towards us, forming into the shapes of fighter planes – Lancaster bombers, Tornadoes and Spitfires. They floated silently lower and lower until they were close enough overhead for me to see how detailed they were. Every rivet and strut and panel was perfectly formed but the planes themselves were all gunmetal grey and solid as if they’d been carved or injection moulded.
They glided past, following the line of the street. Soon they were level with the window and my friend pulled me back as a Harrier Jump Jet clipped the side of the building with it’s wingtip, demolishing most of the wall in front of me.
Scared and confused we ran from the house and along the street. The fresh, sea air had a calming effect and before long we were walking steadily, so content in each other’s company that we didn’t feel the awkward pressure of having to make conversation.
There was a field on a hill leading up from the cliff. Lots of people were gathered there, many of whom I recognised - close and distant friends; work colleagues; casual acquaintances. They were standing together in loose groups of five or six and looked as though they were waiting for something to begin. I smiled and waved at a few who spotted me but I didn’t stop to talk to anyone.
I saw a lad I remember from University. His name was Phil but I don’t recall his surname. He was on my course but we didn’t know each other very well. He was one of those people that I neither liked or disliked, we just had nothing whatsoever in common so simply never became friends. I haven’t seen him or even thought about his existence for over twelve years which is why it’s strange that suddenly, it seemed very important to me to say hello.
He was striding across the field along with four very attractive women. They were heading for small, squat building that looked like it could be a cricket pavilion. As I ran over to them, they were almost at the door and inside it didn’t look like a pavilion or clubhouse at all. The interior was like the foyer of a block of very new flats – lots of strip lighting and bare white walls. Phil had opened the heavy fire-door by the time I got to him. I gently tapped his shoulder and he turned around to face me.
‘Phil! How are you? Remember me?’ I said, and told him my name in case he’d forgotten.
He obviously had because he looked at me as though I were a complete stranger. Was it him after all? Yes, I was positive.
‘Come on Phil, Nottingham? Graphic Design? 1997?’ I repeated my name but again, got no response. The four women were confused and looking at him for instruction.
I just presumed he’d forgotten. I explained over and over again who I was and how I knew him but he never said a word. Eventually my friend grabbed my arm and pulled me backwards a few steps.
‘He’s blanking you, you idiot.’ She told me. ‘He knows who you are and he’s deliberately ignoring you. Just leave him be, walk away.’
‘No, surely not.’ I said. But then I heard the women giggle and knew it was true. I glanced round and saw him whispering to them, a smirk on his face.
‘Right, well fuck him then,’ I thought and turned around to tell him exactly that but he’d already gone inside the building. The fire-door slammed shut behind him.
I shook my head in total outrage and my friend quietly led me away.
There was a girl there wearing a dark coloured cardigan, white blouse and black trousers. She was small and pretty with long, straight black hair. I’ve never seen her before but I know that we knew each other very well and I trusted and respected her unconditionally – like an older sister rather than a girlfriend.
She took me into the storage room at the back and pointed up to the skylight set into the roof. The wind was blowing clouds across the sky. As I watched, the clouds broke apart and began forming into distinctive shapes. They became cars and trains but not realistic ones, these were blocky and oversimplified, the kind of cars and trains a child might draw.
The wind changed direction and the clouds now came towards us, forming into the shapes of fighter planes – Lancaster bombers, Tornadoes and Spitfires. They floated silently lower and lower until they were close enough overhead for me to see how detailed they were. Every rivet and strut and panel was perfectly formed but the planes themselves were all gunmetal grey and solid as if they’d been carved or injection moulded.
They glided past, following the line of the street. Soon they were level with the window and my friend pulled me back as a Harrier Jump Jet clipped the side of the building with it’s wingtip, demolishing most of the wall in front of me.
Scared and confused we ran from the house and along the street. The fresh, sea air had a calming effect and before long we were walking steadily, so content in each other’s company that we didn’t feel the awkward pressure of having to make conversation.
There was a field on a hill leading up from the cliff. Lots of people were gathered there, many of whom I recognised - close and distant friends; work colleagues; casual acquaintances. They were standing together in loose groups of five or six and looked as though they were waiting for something to begin. I smiled and waved at a few who spotted me but I didn’t stop to talk to anyone.
I saw a lad I remember from University. His name was Phil but I don’t recall his surname. He was on my course but we didn’t know each other very well. He was one of those people that I neither liked or disliked, we just had nothing whatsoever in common so simply never became friends. I haven’t seen him or even thought about his existence for over twelve years which is why it’s strange that suddenly, it seemed very important to me to say hello.
He was striding across the field along with four very attractive women. They were heading for small, squat building that looked like it could be a cricket pavilion. As I ran over to them, they were almost at the door and inside it didn’t look like a pavilion or clubhouse at all. The interior was like the foyer of a block of very new flats – lots of strip lighting and bare white walls. Phil had opened the heavy fire-door by the time I got to him. I gently tapped his shoulder and he turned around to face me.
‘Phil! How are you? Remember me?’ I said, and told him my name in case he’d forgotten.
He obviously had because he looked at me as though I were a complete stranger. Was it him after all? Yes, I was positive.
‘Come on Phil, Nottingham? Graphic Design? 1997?’ I repeated my name but again, got no response. The four women were confused and looking at him for instruction.
I just presumed he’d forgotten. I explained over and over again who I was and how I knew him but he never said a word. Eventually my friend grabbed my arm and pulled me backwards a few steps.
‘He’s blanking you, you idiot.’ She told me. ‘He knows who you are and he’s deliberately ignoring you. Just leave him be, walk away.’
‘No, surely not.’ I said. But then I heard the women giggle and knew it was true. I glanced round and saw him whispering to them, a smirk on his face.
‘Right, well fuck him then,’ I thought and turned around to tell him exactly that but he’d already gone inside the building. The fire-door slammed shut behind him.
I shook my head in total outrage and my friend quietly led me away.
13 November 2009
Writing Clichés
COLOR ME DEAD
Inglewood, West 33rd Street. I was parked outside a neat little redbrick building out in the ‘burbs at the request of a broad named Talula Monsoon. She’d wiggled into my office that afternoon and given me the sort of smile that can loosen a belt at ten paces. Just a simple job she said, a routine stakeout. I’ve been around the block enough times to know that nothing’s routine in my line of work, especially when my fee’s agreed with no questions asked. That amount of dough is enough to buy my curiosity and besides, Talula’s got the kind of figure that makes it hard for a guy like me to refuse.
It can get awful lonely at 3am in a dark suburban street. That’s why I always bring a friend. His name’s Mr Daniels but when you know him as well as I do, you just call him Jack. He’s a good buddy, very easy to get along with. He always travels light but he can pack a hell of a punch just when you need it. Boy, I needed it then. I reached across to the glove box to bring him out for a chat. I was a little jumpy, there was something in the air that night.
That something turned out to be a slug from a ’38. It missed me but caught Jack right in the neck. He was bleeding liquor down my suit before I even realised what had happened. Two more bullets slammed into the bodywork of my sedan before I took the hint and got the hell out of there.
I only just made it. The guy with the itchy trigger finger was now out in the street and he sure was mad about something. Not as mad as my mechanic was going to be, with two more shots my back window was gone and my trunk suddenly had air conditioning. He fired again, wide this time, then turned and ran for his car.
I headed for the hills with the guy right behind me. The roads out there are windy and unlit but I floored the sedan and hoped for the best. When I’d put some distance between us, I rounded a blind bend, skidded the car to a halt and killed the lights. It was time to have a little talk with my angry friend. In situations like this, I always find it best to do my talking with a Colt semi-automatic.
When he came around the corner, my gun was in my hand and I was ready for him. I put three, quick rounds into the space between the headlights and hoped I’d caught the engine block. At least one of them must have hit home as the car swerved to the right and into a ditch. Then, silence.
I waited a while, the smoke from my cigarette mingling with the smoke from my gun. Nothing moved.
Ten minutes later and the sound of those damn crickets was driving me crazy. I crushed my fourth cigarette under my heel and went over to see the damage I’d done.
The engine was ruined. So was the driver. Clunk click, every trip – I guess he forgot that. When the car hit the ditch he’d popped out of his seat like a champagne cork, straight through the windscreen and into the field.
He was very dead.
He was lucky, it would have cost him a fortune in chiropractor bills to fix that nasty crick in his neck.
I pulled out a torch and turned him over with my boot. I recognised the face immediately, especially the mouth, the guy had more teeth than a Ferrari gear box. I’d seen it enough times leering at me out of the gloom and more often than not, that view had directly preceded a lengthy sleep and a trip to Hopewood Infirmary.
Grinning Mike McGee, a hired goon running with Hoagy Winston’s mob. But Hoagy Winston ran his outfit on the Southside, what the hell was he doing in Inglewood?
I had no idea what Talula Monsoon had gotten me into but one thing’s for sure, I was suddenly in a whole heap of trouble...
Inglewood, West 33rd Street. I was parked outside a neat little redbrick building out in the ‘burbs at the request of a broad named Talula Monsoon. She’d wiggled into my office that afternoon and given me the sort of smile that can loosen a belt at ten paces. Just a simple job she said, a routine stakeout. I’ve been around the block enough times to know that nothing’s routine in my line of work, especially when my fee’s agreed with no questions asked. That amount of dough is enough to buy my curiosity and besides, Talula’s got the kind of figure that makes it hard for a guy like me to refuse.
It can get awful lonely at 3am in a dark suburban street. That’s why I always bring a friend. His name’s Mr Daniels but when you know him as well as I do, you just call him Jack. He’s a good buddy, very easy to get along with. He always travels light but he can pack a hell of a punch just when you need it. Boy, I needed it then. I reached across to the glove box to bring him out for a chat. I was a little jumpy, there was something in the air that night.
That something turned out to be a slug from a ’38. It missed me but caught Jack right in the neck. He was bleeding liquor down my suit before I even realised what had happened. Two more bullets slammed into the bodywork of my sedan before I took the hint and got the hell out of there.
I only just made it. The guy with the itchy trigger finger was now out in the street and he sure was mad about something. Not as mad as my mechanic was going to be, with two more shots my back window was gone and my trunk suddenly had air conditioning. He fired again, wide this time, then turned and ran for his car.
I headed for the hills with the guy right behind me. The roads out there are windy and unlit but I floored the sedan and hoped for the best. When I’d put some distance between us, I rounded a blind bend, skidded the car to a halt and killed the lights. It was time to have a little talk with my angry friend. In situations like this, I always find it best to do my talking with a Colt semi-automatic.
When he came around the corner, my gun was in my hand and I was ready for him. I put three, quick rounds into the space between the headlights and hoped I’d caught the engine block. At least one of them must have hit home as the car swerved to the right and into a ditch. Then, silence.
I waited a while, the smoke from my cigarette mingling with the smoke from my gun. Nothing moved.
Ten minutes later and the sound of those damn crickets was driving me crazy. I crushed my fourth cigarette under my heel and went over to see the damage I’d done.
The engine was ruined. So was the driver. Clunk click, every trip – I guess he forgot that. When the car hit the ditch he’d popped out of his seat like a champagne cork, straight through the windscreen and into the field.
He was very dead.
He was lucky, it would have cost him a fortune in chiropractor bills to fix that nasty crick in his neck.
I pulled out a torch and turned him over with my boot. I recognised the face immediately, especially the mouth, the guy had more teeth than a Ferrari gear box. I’d seen it enough times leering at me out of the gloom and more often than not, that view had directly preceded a lengthy sleep and a trip to Hopewood Infirmary.
Grinning Mike McGee, a hired goon running with Hoagy Winston’s mob. But Hoagy Winston ran his outfit on the Southside, what the hell was he doing in Inglewood?
I had no idea what Talula Monsoon had gotten me into but one thing’s for sure, I was suddenly in a whole heap of trouble...
09 August 2009
Manimals
When I first arrived in Sydney, I felt pretty detached from things. I was travelling alone, wasn’t used to the hostel lifestyle and was older and flabbier than most of the people I met there. Typically English, I also had an inherent distrust of ‘Johnny foreigner’ and struggled to adapt to my environment.
After a few nights, I tagged along on a hostel excursion to a nightclub and everything suddenly seemed to click into place. There were Britons, Australians, Germans, Canadians, Japanese - every nation you could think of in that club and their behaviour was very familiar. Drinking, dancing, pulling, predatory males and flirting females all revolving around each other and playing out the same scenes that I’d seen a thousand times before. I realised then that whatever nationality, we’re all essentially the same.
Nightclubs are great places to observe the basic instincts that drive human beings. Booze erodes the veneer of respectability and burrows down into the most basic part of our brain. The primal need to reproduce takes over and nightclubs serve as mating grounds. Sure, the mating rituals may be different, but they’re mating rituals just the same. Instead of growing colourful and elaborate plumage, we might wear a snazzy shirt. Instead of a sophisticated and technical mating dance, we’ll wiggle and strut to Beyonce. Instead of calling out into the darkness with a beautiful song we’ll smarm up to someone at the bar and hit them with our best chat-up line.
I remember being in a Leeds nighclub a few years ago - it must have been about the time The Blue Planet was on television because the dancefloor reminded me of something. There was a scene in the programme that showed thousands of sardines being hounded by a group of sharks. The sardines had been pushed up to the surface to prevent their escape and had then packed themselves into a tight mass for protection. This was called a baitball and the predators swam into it at speed and picked off the weaker fish or the ones that were too slow. The Leeds baitball was a hen-party dressed in tight pink T-shirts and mini-skirts. They were all dancing close together for protection as groups of men prowled their perimeter, pushing them further and further into the middle of the dancefloor so they couldn’t run to the bar. Occasionally a man would bolt into the jiggling mass of women, looking for a bite, picking off the gullible or the ones that were too drunk.
Another primal instinct is violence. When booze has cut through our human airs and graces, the less advanced elements of society tend to fight a lot. That’s pure hunter gatherer, caveman behaviour – the need to protect or display your strength or show power – even the music in nighclubs is almost tribal in its rhythmic pounding.
I saw similar behaviour in two red-deer stags during rutting season. Each of them was surrounded by their own group of hinds and they faced off in a feeding area split in two by a fence. On the left side of the fence was Harry, the mouthy one. He was the younger of the two and kept his harem of hinds close by, preventing them from wandering freely. Being the main aggressor, he was bellowing all the time, putting on a show of strength, trying to prove his worth. Cameron, on the right, was three years older and much more dignified. Being more secure, he didn’t feel the need to watch over his hinds so strictly and they wandered around freely looking a lot less scared than Harry’s. Cameron didn’t bluster quite so much although occasionally he had to react to Harry’s goading and put the young pretender in his place. The two would eyeball each other, walking side by side, backwards and forwards along the fence. Then one would turn away casually before spinning round with his head lowered to launch himself at the opponent.
These sorts of fights happen in nightclubs all the time. I half expected one of the hinds to grab their stag by the antler and shout tearfully: ‘Leave it Cameron, it’s not worth it!’
However developed and important we think we are, you just need to add a catalyst of lager or vodka and you’ll see that, despite national boundaries, we’re all the same species. Not only that, we’re all animals too. We have the same urges and the same drives – the same behaviour much of the time. The only real difference is that our brains are bigger and we’ve built up a more complex and sophisticated system with which to display our base instincts. We’re not quite as special or important as we often think ourselves to be.
After a few nights, I tagged along on a hostel excursion to a nightclub and everything suddenly seemed to click into place. There were Britons, Australians, Germans, Canadians, Japanese - every nation you could think of in that club and their behaviour was very familiar. Drinking, dancing, pulling, predatory males and flirting females all revolving around each other and playing out the same scenes that I’d seen a thousand times before. I realised then that whatever nationality, we’re all essentially the same.
Nightclubs are great places to observe the basic instincts that drive human beings. Booze erodes the veneer of respectability and burrows down into the most basic part of our brain. The primal need to reproduce takes over and nightclubs serve as mating grounds. Sure, the mating rituals may be different, but they’re mating rituals just the same. Instead of growing colourful and elaborate plumage, we might wear a snazzy shirt. Instead of a sophisticated and technical mating dance, we’ll wiggle and strut to Beyonce. Instead of calling out into the darkness with a beautiful song we’ll smarm up to someone at the bar and hit them with our best chat-up line.
I remember being in a Leeds nighclub a few years ago - it must have been about the time The Blue Planet was on television because the dancefloor reminded me of something. There was a scene in the programme that showed thousands of sardines being hounded by a group of sharks. The sardines had been pushed up to the surface to prevent their escape and had then packed themselves into a tight mass for protection. This was called a baitball and the predators swam into it at speed and picked off the weaker fish or the ones that were too slow. The Leeds baitball was a hen-party dressed in tight pink T-shirts and mini-skirts. They were all dancing close together for protection as groups of men prowled their perimeter, pushing them further and further into the middle of the dancefloor so they couldn’t run to the bar. Occasionally a man would bolt into the jiggling mass of women, looking for a bite, picking off the gullible or the ones that were too drunk.
Another primal instinct is violence. When booze has cut through our human airs and graces, the less advanced elements of society tend to fight a lot. That’s pure hunter gatherer, caveman behaviour – the need to protect or display your strength or show power – even the music in nighclubs is almost tribal in its rhythmic pounding.
I saw similar behaviour in two red-deer stags during rutting season. Each of them was surrounded by their own group of hinds and they faced off in a feeding area split in two by a fence. On the left side of the fence was Harry, the mouthy one. He was the younger of the two and kept his harem of hinds close by, preventing them from wandering freely. Being the main aggressor, he was bellowing all the time, putting on a show of strength, trying to prove his worth. Cameron, on the right, was three years older and much more dignified. Being more secure, he didn’t feel the need to watch over his hinds so strictly and they wandered around freely looking a lot less scared than Harry’s. Cameron didn’t bluster quite so much although occasionally he had to react to Harry’s goading and put the young pretender in his place. The two would eyeball each other, walking side by side, backwards and forwards along the fence. Then one would turn away casually before spinning round with his head lowered to launch himself at the opponent.
These sorts of fights happen in nightclubs all the time. I half expected one of the hinds to grab their stag by the antler and shout tearfully: ‘Leave it Cameron, it’s not worth it!’
However developed and important we think we are, you just need to add a catalyst of lager or vodka and you’ll see that, despite national boundaries, we’re all the same species. Not only that, we’re all animals too. We have the same urges and the same drives – the same behaviour much of the time. The only real difference is that our brains are bigger and we’ve built up a more complex and sophisticated system with which to display our base instincts. We’re not quite as special or important as we often think ourselves to be.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)