JACK

He felt the blade slice deep into his forehead, followed almost immediately by a relentless sawing as the top of his head was cut right off.

With it gone, he felt a tumble of memories pouring out of him with it; the cutting of the umbilical, being bundled into the eternal darkness of the back of that lorry, waking up in a pile of his brothers in a strange storeroom filled with artificial light and plastic music.

He’d been mauled, manhandled and thrown about and eventually wrapped up in a bag and brought to this terrifying place. He’d sat there listening to the mocking laughter of someone who sounded terribly young and heard some talk of knives and cutting, but he hadn’t become truly frightened until he’d heard the clatter of the stainless steel onto the surface next to him, and then the first cut came followed almost instantly by the appalling pain.

After what had seemed like forever, the sawing had stopped and with it the grinding forward and backward movement that had made each moment’s agony seem, if possible, even worse than the one before it. He couldn’t open any eyes or even a mouth. He wasn’t sure how much difference they’d have made to him now anyway, but he didn’t seem to have either, and yet the pain was so totally hideous and he couldn’t even scream.

As the latest hurtful vibrations ceased, the pain seemed to subside to just an angry, relentless throbbing and he felt a slight soothing coolness where the top of his head used to be.

Why were they doing this to him?

What was the point of it?

He heard the clatter of the blades as another implement was collected and braced himself for yet another wave of torment to begin. He didn’t have to wait too long as another blunter, rounder implement came into contact with the soft matter now exposed where the top his head used to be. The last thing he remembered as the agony overwhelmed him again was the laughter of some children as he fell into a merciful darkness.

After a while he woke. His insides felt empty, hollow even. He felt lighter than he ever remembered feeling in his life before. His innards felt like they’d been scraped clean, and there was a slight sense of loss where his insides used to be, but instead of hurting there was a kind of numbness as if someone had taken away his entire nervous system but somehow managed to leave him behind in essence. “Perhaps” he thought, “where there’s no sense, there really is no feeling.”

And yet he did feel. He felt almost spiritual, and strangely euphoric. He kept wondering why he was still conscious, still here, and so he wasn’t really paying much attention to what was going on around him. He was just starting to come to terms with his new state of being when they stuck another knife into him.

The light poured in around the tip of the blade and suddenly he could see them, chiselling away at him with those manic grins on their strange little faces. This was new. He could actually see. He’d never been able to see before. He’d always got by using his wits and his senses, but this ocean of colour pouring into his mind was breathtaking. There was so much of it he felt like he wanted to shut it out. He wanted to blink, but found that he couldn’t because they were still poking that knife into his eye.

Eventually they stopped, and he watched them as they sat back and studied him with a look of strange satisfaction. There were three of them, he thought. A mother and two of her young, but he didn’t have too long to observe them because very soon the blade was back in the older one’s hand and she was hacking away at him again and even more light was soon pouring into his head as another eye opened up in the same agonising manner.

Another moment of relief came when they paused again. Although he wasn’t sure whether it helped, he now had stereoscopic vision. All that seemed to do was make that knife seem even more terrifying as it was waved about in front of his face.

And then they started to hack at him again!

He found that he couldn’t move his eyes though, so he couldn’t get a good look down, but they seemed to be cutting a huge opening right under his eyes, something wide and grinning and full of very sharp teeth…

He had a sinister thought, “They might come in useful.”

And then it all just finished. They all stood back to stare tauntingly at him and admire their butchery. They smiled at him and he had no choice but to smile right back at them whilst glaring with an unblinking gaze. What was that they were calling him? Jack something or other? Well, it was as good a name as any for him now, he supposed.

They seemed to have decided to leave him alone for now. The knives had all been put away and pain had started to subside, so he was on his own and able to take in his surroundings. Sight was a new experience for him, and he started to realise quite how useful it might be. Over here he could see the drawer that they’d put those awful, hateful knives into. In the corner, he spotted a doorway leading to somewhere dark and forbidding, and over there he could see what probably used to be his insides in a pan, quietly bubbling away.

Pretty soon he had a fairly good idea of where everything was.

Eventually they all came back, now dressed in strange ceremonial outfits, which managed to make them appear even more sinister than they had earlier. He watched as they slowly served up and began to eat his innards. He kept watching, broodingly as they devoured the better part of him, and he was still silently watching when the older one lit a small fire and, unbelievably, as if he really hadn’t suffered enough already that day, carried the tiny flame over to him and put it right inside his head. What were they trying to do now, roast him from the inside out as a final indignity?

Oh! How he hated them, how he wished he could pay them back for what they’d done to him.

They carried him outside what he presumed to be their home and placed him on a ledge with a view of the street and they headed off out, just leaving him there, alone. The cool and dark of the evening started to relax him and helped to clear his mind to think and to plot. After a little while he really started to appreciate the warmth glowing inside him and began to absorb its life-giving heat.

Unfortunately though, the smoke was really starting to bother his eyes.

He blinked.

Then he realised that he had blinked.

He blinked again, more deliberately this time.

Then his wide mouth with its jagged rows of sharp little teeth broke into the broadest of smiles.

He was very sure that they’d all be coming home soon.

Jack could wait for them.

THE DOCTOR AND MARTHA’S REVENGE (other emotional responses are available)

I used to draw a lot when I was younger, but nowadays, I don’t draw half as much as I used to do. I think it might have something to do with the fact that when artwork becomes your job it can stop being quite so much fun as it used to be. I still dabble, of course, but seldom with the same enthusiasm as I used to (other pastimes are available).

Occasionally I’ll be asked to draw something for someone as a favour and so it is with the image included here (other favours are available). This is a “leaving card” created for someone I never met called (I think) “Yvonne” (other possibilities are more than likely).

The story goes that “Yvonne” used to run courses, although I don’t know what the courses were for, but she was a popular woman around wherever it was the courses were being run and when it became obvious that she was going to depart for pastures new, some kind of “nice gesture” might be the order of the day (other nice gestures are also acceptable).

Now, the way I understood it, part of her courses used to involve some kind of reference to  “male” and “female” roles in society and, as part of the discussions, people would write suggestions and ideas onto “post-it” notes (other self-adhesive notepapers are available) and these would then be attached to either the “male” or the “female” life size figures that she would set up at the front of the lecture hall or classroom (other venues are available) at the beginning of the day, depending upon which of them you felt your particular note or suggestion was the most appropriate to be attached to.

I don’t know… it obviously made sense in that particular context.

Interestingly the life-size figures that “Yvonne” had chosen to acquire for this purpose were of David Tennant as “Doctor Who” and Freema Agyeman as “Martha Jones” from the 2007 series of the television series (other Doctors and/or travelling companions are available).

After a couple of hours of intense debate the figures would tend to be covered from head to toe in all sorts of ideas and such, scribbled on those sticky yellow notes (other colours are available) for later discussion and referral purposes.

Now, I never personally attended one of these courses (cleverer people were available), and I know not whether there was any trepidation for the first person asked to slap a note onto either of the figures, although I’m pretty sure that there are one or two people out there in the big wide world who would be more than happy to get that up close and personal with Mr Tennant and Miss Agyeman even though I suspect being approached by someone willing to attach a sticky notelet to your nose or wherever (other body parts are available) might slightly disturb even the most personable of people in the public gaze (lives spent in obscurity are also possible).

This illustration was supposed to show what it might be like if the Doctor and Martha took it upon himself to give young “Yvonne” a taste of her own medicine, not of course that they would ever have condoned such a mean-spirited thing (other revenge scenarios are available) and I do hope it was received in the friendly spirit that it was created in (although other reactions were a distinct possibility).

Meanwhile, of course in the life of a professional artist, other scribblers are always available.

BLINKY, THE WONDER CAR

“Blinky, the wonder car” has been in hospital. Blinky woke up one morning earlier this week feeling a little “throaty” and in the evening, when it became obvious that it wasn’t just the damp of the dawn, but something more troublesome, a quick jaunt to the garage seemed a sensible option to consider, despite the fact that little pound signs seem to light up in the mechanics’ eyes whenever I walk through the door these days, as if I’ve sorted their next holiday funding issues at a stroke.

Still, the chugging and grinding didn’t sound too healthy, and there was always the possibility that something catastrophic was an imminent prospect, so off I toddled and, as I pulled up, there was an immediate knowing look from one of the mechanics.

“You got an exhaust problem, then?”

So I guess that was what I – or rather Blinky – had. There was a moment of relief that it wasn’t likely to be something mechanically much worse, tempered by the obvious problem that this was still a job that needed to be done and the credit card was already whimpering and trying to shuffle around and hide itself in a dark corner of my wallet where I wouldn’t be able to find it.

I went into the office to talk to the owner of the garage in order to book Blinky’s appointment for transplant surgery and a well-groomed chap was already in there talking to him, just finishing off a little chat before departing. The mechanic, the owner and myself watched him go.

“That’s the accountant,” said the owner.

“I’ll bet his car runs well,” I replied.

This at least made them both laugh, which was nice. I do sometimes struggle to make small talk with mechanics, plumbers, electricians and the like. I think it’s because I think they think I must be some sort of idiot for not being able to do these things myself and then I seem to get intimidated by their competence at something so practical, which can however utterly bamboozle me. Maybe they were just humouring me, or maybe they just weren’t really paying attention as they were being distracted by those lovely, glowing pound signs.

Blinky and I have been together now for over seven years, which I think might just be the longest relationship I’ve ever had with any car. Blinky got the name because for some reason it seldom seems to have every single one of its bulbs working for any length of time, so I always seem to be replacing one or other of them. I suppose that “Winky” might be slightly more appropriate, but “Winky the wonder car” just sounds slightly wrong to me. “The wonder car” bit comes from “I wonder quite how it keeps going,” in case you hadn’t guessed.

It really was also the natural name to give it, following on from my previous two cars, which had been dubbed “Clunky” and “Clunky 2” by someone in the office where I used to work. These were the two red Volvos that I had during the time I worked there. I’ve never been in a position to own a new car, so they were the last in a long line of cheapish vehicles I’ve owned that possibly cost more to repair over the years than they ever were to buy.

The first car I ever had was an electric-blue Ford Escort of 1974 vintage that my dad bought for me after I passed my test and which went like a rocket, could be opened using a half-pence piece, and didn’t seem to have proper brakes on the right hand side which ultimately led in some small part to its untimely demise a scant seven months later. Slightly before that happened, my dad said one day that he really wouldn’t mind if I wanted to sell it and buy an MG or something, which I always put down to a tiny bit of wishful thinking on his part.

After that I had a rather excellent relationship with a trusty old dark blue MkIII Cortina for nearly five years that had to be let go when my post-educational unemployment meant I couldn’t afford to have it repaired. There’s one just like it that features regularly in “The Sweeney” which always raises a fond thought. My sister persuaded me into buying a ridiculously jacked-up beige Capri with a brown vinyl roof shortly after that, which got its door caved in by a hit-and-run pranger when it was parked outside a friend’s house the very same week I got it, and after buying new doors from the scrapyard, was returned to my sister for “repair” and I never saw it again.

When I finally got a job, I bought another Cortina, this time in a ridiculous shade of what I like to call “orange” but which a lot of people referred to as “salmon pink”. That served me well for a couple of years, but engine troubles had it taken away for repair and it too was never seen again.

Then came the “car share” years driving a Diamond White Fiesta that belonged to a certain someone who took the car away with her when she departed. That is a long and unpleasant story which I know has you just bubbling with anticipation to hear about, but which I’m not entirely sure I’m quite ready to share just yet.

Still, from that emotional crisis were born the Scirocco years. Four and a half years of pure joy and extortionate parts bills ended with rather brilliant timing by a Dutch lorry driver who caved in another door when he pulled across two lanes on an “A” road one evening when I was driving home from work about a week before I was due to move out of my flat. His steering wheel being on the “wrong” side meant he didn’t check his mirrors and didn’t see me in the lane alongside him. Tragically whilst the damage only seemed slight – some scrapes and a massive dent in the passenger door – the insurance folk deemed it to be a “write off”  - doors apparently costing more than the car was worth, they said - after they’d taken it away for repair and it too was never seen again.

Soon after that my sister persuaded me to buy one of her then current boyfriend’s used cars, so I acquired a huge, gas-guzzling, metallic-blue Rover 2600 fastback on which the driver’s door immediately broke and jammed permanently shut about a day after I got it and which catastrophically and permanently died three months after that. I was very happy to see that one taken away and never seen again, you can be sure of that.

I had part shares in a golden diesel Fiesta for a little while after that, a situation that came to an end in even more unfortunate circumstances. My car sharing experiences were always destined to involve Fiestas, it would seem. Then there were the two Clunkies and we’re back up to date with Blinky.

Eleven cars, across nearly thirty years, each of which had a tale to tell.

Of course there are those who would dislike Blinky on sight, just because it’s a four-wheel drive machine, albeit not a huge one. I live at the top of a semi-rural hill that can get wickedly icy in the middle of winter so, whilst I might feel the odd pang of guilt on the odd summer’s day, for quite a few days of an average winter it becomes a rather vital thing to have and I remain unrepentant at having it, and it is the only car we have. I sometimes worry when I have to leave it parked in the city because I’ve heard about people attacking 4x4s just for being what they are. I find myself wondering, “How on Earth do they know where I live?” when I leave it parked and go shopping, but I suppose the consequences of most forms of extremism are seldom completely thought through.

But despite everything, so far, Blinky prevails. Another bill for the quite bizarre amount of £197.19 sits in the receipts box and adds to the overdraft. I think I’d’ve rounded it up or knocked off the 19p, but then there is that accountant to think about. I guess it’s still cheaper than replacing Blinky though, and I like to think that keeping the old thing on the road is generally more environmentally friendly than just scrapping it, when you consider the carbon footprint of building Blinky in the first place and equally what it might be to build another Blinky, and anyway, it's Blinky. How could you scrap Blinky? We've been through such a lot, I'm not sure if I could.

So, here's to you, Blinky! This is a kind of post-operative "get well" message to you. I don’t know how much longer we’ll be together, but for now, Blinky, I'm happy enough in your company, and I hope you're happy in mine, and that’s just the way I'd like to keep it.

WHY DO WE DO THIS?

I was asked recently with regard to such rampant mutual bloggery, why do we do this? The problem is that when I try to answer that question, I’m never really quite sure.

I joined the world of what I like to call FizzBok despite having distrusted it for a long time only because there was a link somewhere to an article I wanted to read but you had to “sign up” in order to do so… I fully intended to delete my account from it almost immediately afterwards, but then my friend Alan “found” me and a whole situation about his life in the intervening years and his current situation with regards to his work and so forth unfolded. I guess, without that brief email, I might never have been recontacted and so never would have attended the “redundancy/reunion” party I later went to without it. Nor would I have had the inspiration for one of my pieces of writing so my opinion is now… more ambivalent, I suppose.

Ultimately, there is also a belief of a real dislike of social networking as a force in the modern world, not least in the way it tends to be so insidious and invasive and replace a lot of “real-world interface” as I’m guessing it might be called, or just “talking to people” and I really do have to respect that.

I tend to justify my presence in its clutches in a number of ways, all of which are probably just feeble excuses because I feel so feeble at having succumbed to its allure. For example, in my head, my FizzBok page exists as a small, hopeful beacon, which just sits there, blinking. If anyone has lost touch with me over the years and they (astoundingly) regret that fact, they can track me down by the simple fact that the account is there and they could contact me through it if they really wanted to.

Also, I like to think I manage the account on my own terms. I’m probably laughably wrong about this, but it means that it doesn’t happen to be one of the many things that keep me awake at nights.

So, because of those personal “terms and conditions” I set for myself, I don’t have any family on my list of acquaintances. This is despite my mother having been the one who wanted me to join in the first place because I still have this slight belief that what I’m doing with my friendships and what I’m doing with my family are two distinct worlds. Maybe you should be able to have “friends” and “family” accounts. Maybe you can and I just haven’t worked out how to do it yet. In any case, my family should have my phone numbers and my email address if they need to contact me anyway, why should they need to know anything else that I might get up to (or, more usually not)?

Generally I try to mostly avoid mindless pointless generalities, although I have been guilty of them. I just can’t see why people think that a lot of the general banality of life “I’m having a cup of tea” etc. is something anyone else in the world should really care about. No “high scores” from any games are broadcast by me, nor any “likes” clicked on or “coins” handed out. I can’t even seem to plan more than one day ahead, so the “invitations” tend to find me dithering until the very last moment possible before they mysteriously vanish.

I do post the links for the blog because, well it’s there as an option and I think it would be pointless writing them and then not letting anyone know they were there, but that, for now at least, seems to be the bulk of my interaction with it.

As to the blogs, why on Earth do I feel the need to do them (I hear you ask)?

I imagine that it’s more complicated. I discovered the one my former manager writes when I just happened upon a link to it as I was renewing acquaintances around about the time of the company dissolution I mentioned earlier. I thought I’d investigate the host site that he was using as it seemed to be one of the more accessible ones and I thought that if he was using it then it was probably okay and unlikely to empty the few pennies in my bank account into some distant pocket of a criminal mastermind in Africa. Having signed up, I genuinely thought I would be using it purely as a conduit to keep the enthusiasm going between meetings of that writers’ group that I keep mentioning, because at that time, it seemed to be becoming more of a possibility that it would actually exist and grow.

Then there is the writing itself. I’ve been writing plays and other bits (on and off) in a more determined way for about seven years now. It was always something I dabbled in, but a trip to the Edinburgh Fringe and a couple of positive conversations I had there made me want to write “properly” again. I genuinely still don’t know whether I’m actually any good at writing, and I never really do anything with the writing I do, and so it tends to end up sitting unloved in a bag or a box or a drawer.  I do however really enjoy the process of it, even if the pointlessness of the exercise of doing it for its own sake does sometimes completely defeat me and leave me unable to stitch even a mildly coherent sentence together for months on end.

I’m told that anything creative doesn’t have to have a purpose, the mere act of doing it makes it worthwhile in itself, and, of course, that’s absolutely right. Blogging does however manage to add a small nugget of purpose to the process (inside my head at any rate), and, even though barely a dozen people do end up actually reading the stuff, it’s giving me a new focus and getting me to the keyboard more regularly and making me think. I know I could probably bore for Britain and ultimately will most probably frighten that dozen away, but at the very least I’m enjoying the process and fun of the actual writing itself, and that’s a good thing, I guess.

Also, since I do work from home at the moment, I’ve been sitting in this small room now for nearly three years and not really engaging with the big wide world. Writing this blog has helped me to start to interact with that world again, because in my life, I rarely physically see many actual people and (as you might have read) my crippling self-doubts and lack of self-confidence tends to stop me from making those calls and meeting up once more with those folk I care about.

Time moves on and there comes a point in (non-) relationships when it’s really very difficult to just ring up out of the blue and pick up with someone’s obviously much-transformed life. Clangers can be dropped. Unknown incidents in the intervening years can make a “harmless” thought seem like something tactless and rude. People’s lives do change and I thought mine didn’t really. The scariness of the changes in people’s lives can physically frighten me because of the mental hoops it can make me jump through. It’s nobody else’s fault, it’s just the way I’m put together.

So, there you are then. Some of the reasons for my continued presence in this strange world I like to call “Blogfordshire”. I don’t know how long I will remain here, and I’m pretty sure it’s of massive disinterest to much of the world whether I actually do, but for the time being, you’re stuck with me and my witterings. I suppose if you’re interested enough to be reading this, then there must be some small purpose to it after all. Thank you for your time.

Until the next time, then…

WEARISOME WITTERINGS FROM A WEARY WITTERER

There are some mornings when I can’t think a coherent thought or string a decent sentence together and this morning is just one of those mornings. So why on earth am I still randomly babbling out these meanderings if I’ve got nothing to say?

You know, it’s just one of those days when I haven’t slept well and for some unfathomable reason that made me unwisely head for the keyboard in the middle of the night and think I should write something, but it all kind of fell apart, but then I decided to plonk it out there anyway and then I got up to face the working day thinking that I shouldn’t have, I really shouldn’t have, and now I should attempt to write something a bit brighter and yet, when I sit down and actually try and think there’s that “whole lack of a coherent thought” thing happening, coupled with the whole “unable to string a decent sentence together” thing and I find myself bashing the keyboard almost out of a kind of habit or more basically a need to just put words down.

It doesn’t help that the rain is blatting down and the skies are slate grey and it’s looking like being a thoroughly miserable, almost wintry morning weather-wise, with the slight caveat that at least it’s not as flippin’ cold as it was yesterday and I’m not going to be shivering as I do my “creative thing” today and the gears of my brain aren’t as likely to seize up in the way that I seriously began to wonder if they might do at one point yesterday. Polar explorers have told tales of how the cold can literally feel like it’s freezing their brains, but I never truly believed that such a thing could happen in my own home whilst I’ve got the central heating switched on.

It also doesn’t help that the old motor-car started making an alarming noise as I rattled off into town in the dawn’s early light. The poor, venerable machine. It’s my own fault for telling someone only yesterday how well the old jalopy is holding up. Some people believe in the power of words, I’m told. They think that if you say something bad, then something bad will most likely happen. Others believe that you shouldn’t tempt fate or in just plain and simple bad luck, but, for whatever reason, on this sleepy morning, a potential glitch has emerged that will have to be addressed.

But not yet.

Not now.

There’s work to be done.

And it could be worse…

So very much worse.

These minor troubles are no better or worse than anything most of the rest of us will have to cope with today, and they are absolutely insignificant compared to what a lot of people will have to endure on a day that might very well be the worst of their lives, or indeed for those in some countries where every single day they live is worse than anything I will probably have to experience in my entire life.

I just remind myself every once in a while how lucky I really am. How privileged I am to have been born in one of the richer nations of the world and how easy I have it when I come to think about it. A cleverer man than I’ll ever be once said: “Our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal.” Sometimes I just wake up and forget it, that’s all, and have to remind myself.

I occasionally have to remind myself that others sometimes forget it too. I was sent a message recently about the current financial climate and “looking after our own first” and it bothered me deeply. Surely there is an obligation to those less fortunate than ourselves, not because it’s a moral choice or because it’s politically expedient, but because it’s quite simply the right thing to do and we are in a position to help? Fundamentally, I believe that people do believe it, and the response to telethons and charity appeals would seem to generally support that opinion. People who send me these messages are the very same people who send me emails telling me to put things in perspective, that “if I have more than a dollar a day to live on I’m better off than half the people in the world”, or that “if I have a full fridge, clothes on my back, a roof over my head and a place to sleep, I’m wealthier than 75% of the world’s population”, or if “the world was a village of 100 people I’d be in the 1% that owns a computer” …you know the sort of thing, they tend to fly around the wibbly, wobbly web every so often and we all get them. I’m just surprised I suppose when someone who sends me that kind of message then sends me something that is the complete opposite of that point of view and doesn’t seem able to see the disparity. Maybe I’m just easily disappointed. Who knows?

Then, of course, another radio documentary about income tells me that a lot of us in the UK are always miserable because we all think everyone else earns more than us and that in reality we don’t realise that only 10% of the working population earn more than 50K a year and only 20% earn more than 40K, yet most of us believe that compared to everyone else we’re somehow worse off, not doing so well, convinced we’re living in absolute poverty because our TV set isn’t state-of-the-art or our mobile phone isn’t the latest model or we haven’t got the new video game, but very few in this country really ever have to walk five miles to fetch a bucket of fresh water, and most of us can take our basic education and general healthcare pretty much for granted, and very few of us indeed starve to death unless the circumstances are particularly unusual.

Sometimes we really don’t know how lucky we are. I see film of children in Africa beaming with joy at simply having the opportunity to go to school and realizing what a difference it will make to their lives, and I see some of our schoolchildren seething with resentment at the prospect and I wonder some wet and miserable mornings where we lost our sense of perspective.

Damn it! I got political. I promised myself I wasn’t going to get political. All that ever does is make people back away. It never changes anything. Nobody ever altered their point of view by reading something like this. It’s more likely to entrench them in their point of view if anything. Time to just shut up, I guess.

Just ignore me. I told you I hadn’t slept well.

Anyway, the coffee’s hot, the heating’s on and there’s food in the house and a living to be made, and so I’m ready to face whatever minor irritants the day chooses to throw at me.

“Cheer up, you idiot!” (He said to himself) “Life’s really not that bad”.

Although, it seems that for someone with nothing to say this morning, I ain’t half going on about it.

25 YEARS ON

It’s twenty-five years ago today since I got the telephone call that told me my Dad had died. I remember quite vividly that it was a Thursday. I was in my final year at art school and, as they had to do in those pre-post-it, pre-mobile-phone days, if the administration office got a personal message for a student, they tended to write it on a piece of paper and tape it up outside the office door and hope that you would notice it.

So after about half an hour or so someone - I can’t for the life of me remember who it was now - found me in the corridor or the canteen or somewhere and told me there was a message for me. Something about “phoning home immediately…”

“Not again!” I remember muttering before stomping rather angrily off towards the office to get an explanation.

This probably wasn’t the most obvious reaction, you might have thought, but there had been a curious coincidence that I never really got to the bottom of. Exactly two weeks earlier, a similar message had been posted on a Thursday morning at roughly the same time. My father had not been a well man all his life, having grown up in relative poverty in the Welsh valleys in the 1930s, and he’d been rather more seriously ill for quite some time and indeed he’d had to retire due to this ill health about seven years earlier at the grand old age of 54. That’s an age that’s starting to feel horribly imminent to me these days. So, that call had rather shaken me, and I’d dutifully rung home only to be told by my Dad that he was fine and no, they hadn’t rung me, there must have just been some kind of a mix up. We had a short chat until the pips went and, being an art student, I ran out of small change and we said our goodbyes.

I was a tad annoyed at this series of events, not least because I’d been rather worried and in a bit of a panic and just because someone had got their wires crossed. The administrator I spoke to apologised and I went off to get on with slapping paint and ink around for a couple more weeks and forgot all about it.

So, when it happened again, I felt I was rather justified in going into the office and rather testily asking what was going on. I started to explain that this had happened before and they were very patient and kind and told me they really thought I should call home.

So I did... and my sister answered and, well… he’d gone.

My sister told me later that my Mum thought it might be best if they lied to me, and told me that he was still alive so that I wouldn’t be too upset to drive back. Sanity prevailed however, and I was told the truth, and whilst my journey back up from South Wales wasn’t the happiest I’ve ever made, at least I wasn’t hammering the pedals of my rusty old Mk3 Cortina through the floor on the off chance that I might get back in time.

That journey remains more vivid in my memory than the events at home during the subsequent week. I remember crying occasionally, shouting angrily at the world in general (but - for once - not at any other motorists) and having the sun setting rather beautifully off to my left hand side as I headed further North. I hadn’t been dawdling. After making the phone call home, and the subsequent support from my friends who’d looked after me and calmed me down, I’d had to go back to my room on another site and pack a bag before setting off for home. It was late October and the sun started setting relatively early, but it seemed very strange, like I’d never really noticed it setting before, and so did the trees in the streets around the family home which had never seemed quite so vivid and alive to me as they did that week.

It was an odd week altogether if I’m honest. I remember having the odd supportive drink with an old friend, and the visit to register the death being lightened by one of the wedding announcements that were posted on the wall being a “Mr. Plant” marrying a “Miss Pott”. The only really strong memory I have, because I don’t really remember the actual funeral at all, is of one of my father’s old friends visiting the house and seeming to find it very inappropriate when my sister and I were mulling, in the amused way that youngsters do, over the fact that the Funeral Directors hadn’t requested any clothing and we had this image of our dear old Dad, a Methodist Lay Preacher no less and God-fearing son of the chapel for all of his life, being stark naked in the church during his own funeral. Apparently they dressed them in some kind of towelling robe I was later told, which I still think is a rather dull answer to a rather interesting question.

So a week later, I returned to college. My lecturers were very supportive. One asked me how old my father had been and seemed generally troubled when it turned out they had been the same age, but things got back to normal pretty soon after that, and my final year as a student passed by much as you’d expect, and after that I returned home and life unfolded as it does.

Every Wednesday morning during term time whilst I was a student, though, right until the day he died, my Dad had sat himself down and written me a letter, keeping me up to date with news from home, and the last one had been waiting for me in the mailroom pigeonhole when I returned to college. I still have it somewhere. I really must dig it out and have another read. It won’t say much of interest, just the usual bits and pieces of the humdrum of life, but as a piece of my Dad’s last full day of life, I guess it’s kind of priceless.

In the years before he died, my father gathered together all his photos and cuttings and what-not into some albums and scrapbooks because I guess he kind of knew we were never likely to get the chance to have any proper little chats or go to the pub so I could buy him a pint and talk about the old days as I got older. I look through them from time to time and the photo attached to the top of this page, taken when he was just 21 and the same age I happened to be when all this happened, is the one that came to mind when I was on holiday in Egypt earlier this year. It was just very pleasant to be able to stand in more-or-less the same spot as he had done himself some 65 years earlier and share a memory of a place.

NORIDEL ZEUS: A POSTSCRIPT

 Whilst the tale of Noridel Junior’s sad and lonely demise needed to be told to counter some wicked talk that the exotic emporium had drearily been given over to accountancy, that is not the end of the Zeus family saga…

Noridel Junior had actually set his cap at Mr. Rapscallion’s eldest spinster daughter, a girl hampered in life not in the very least by the unfortunate name of Ariadne Pudenda, giving her the initials APR – another accountancy “joke”.

Such a union, as we have seen, was not to be.

However, because of the strange series of events that lead to Noridel Junior’s tragic end, the shop itself fell into the hands of Noridel Junior’s long-forgotten half-brother Septimus, who was the ultimate result of a dalliance that occurred with his father during a brief incident in the curious life of Suzie Le Nord*.

After a suitably respectable length of time had passed, Ariadne eventually fell madly in love with Septimus Zeus as he had, by this time, chosen to call himself on his return to recognised society. His background as the much-travelled illegitimate son of an elderly former war hero and a one-legged former prostitute from the colonies had left him with an abundance of good looks and more than his fair share of roguish charm which seemed so very exciting, mysterious and exotic to her, especially after stuffy old Noridel Junior, and Ariadne was swept quite off her feet.

Their fleeting union did produce a son, conceived one chilly, starry night on the very same floor of that old shop where Noridel Junior had breathed his last. They named the boy Noridel after his Grandfather, (and quite specifically not his half-uncle) and so the slightly tragic line of lonely men running that little shop was ultimately destined to continue.

It wasn’t too long before the itchiness in his boots and the wanderlust in his soul took Septimus and his fatal and irresistible boyish smile far beyond the horizon, never to be seen again.

Ariadne, of course, was heartbroken and devastated, not least because her father had thrown her out on her ear and disowned her. However, she did have the little shop, and she worked with a dogged determination to make a success of it despite the wagging tongues of the local gossips who felt she should crawl away in shame and ignominy after her so-called “fall from grace”.

To save money she even did the accounts herself, and when word of this got around, she started to do the books for other traders in the area at a much more reasonable rate than her father ever did, which gave him no end of trouble, and eventually gave her a kind of grudging respectability.

And, of course, she did have her son, who, as he grew up, began to help her with the business, almost as if he himself was part of the fabric of the old place, which, in a way, of course, he was.

And he absolutely loved it.

He loved it so very much, in fact that when that inevitable sad night came, when his mother passed away, not enough years later he always felt, he swore an oath to Saint Expedite that he would do his very best to ensure the continuing legacy of that little shop of dreams.

Which is exactly what he did.

((*Never to be mistaken for one "Sudzie Lenor" who performed a burlesque act at about the same time involving the decorous positioning of soap bubbles to preserve her modesty))

YOUNG NORIDEL AND THE FICKLE FINGER OF FATE

Young Noridel Jnr. came back from the funeral with a grim expression fixed on his face. Not one person had chosen to return back with him to his father’s shop, but he didn’t mind. Let the fools spend their hard earned wages on beer if they liked. Let them drink a farewell toast to the old devil. He had other things to do.

For appearances sake, he waited until the door jangled closed behind him before letting his face break into a beaming smile. He tore off his black top hat and flung it to the ground, and danced a little jig of happiness for possibly the first time in his sad and miserable little life.

“At last!” he thought, “At last it’s mine!” He dashed over to the old oak counter and swept aside all the accumulated rubbish that his father had considered so vital to sell on to the work-shy masses that used to frequent this little store. It all clattered and scattered onto the battered old floorboards and bounced around in a thousand directions. He didn’t mind. Next week he would be rid of it all, and his new life could begin, free from the awful tyrannical presence of the old curmudgeon.

For a moment he had a strange guilty feeling that the old boy might still be out there in his back room, and just for a split second he wondered if he was going to emerge and admonish him, but all that happened was that a huge cloud of dust almost immediately filled the air and, shortly afterwards, his lungs, and for one last time a familiar coughing was heard in the old emporium.

The way young Noridel saw it, he and his father had never seen eye-to-eye when it came to matters of business. Old Noridel would never look to the future, preferring to restock with all his old tat instead of thinking of him, his only son and heir, and what was best for him. He hadn’t given him an ounce of support when he’d chosen to go off and learn his accountancy skills at the offices of Mister Bartholomew Rapscallion at the other end of the high street. Oh no! He hadn’t even come to the door and wave him goodbye on his very first day, preferring instead to loiter in his little office with his cup of Lapsang Souchong tea and that morning’s Times newspaper.

Well, now the old so-and-so was six feet under and things were going to change around here. All this old rubbish was going to be cleared out come Saturday morning and thrown onto the rubbish heap where it belonged. First thing Monday morning, the joiners and the decorators, Messrs. Killjoy and Bland were coming round and starting work, turning this dark empty rabbit warren into a spick and span, tidy and clutter-free office for his new venture in accountancy.

“Let’s let a little light into the old place!” he thought, and he dashed across towards the door to open the dark, dusty old shutters, unfortunately completely neglecting to remember quite what he’d done with his hat.

His foot crashed straight through the crown and, fatally, his other foot became entangled with the brim, and, with an appalling and almost comic inevitability, he careered forward and crashed headlong into the solid oak doorpost of the shop that his father had run for so many long and happy years.

As his life ebbed away on that cold and lonely floor, young Noridel thought he could hear his father’s rasping laughter filling the whole room, just as it used to do whenever one of his wretched customers came in to share the latest gossip. His father had always tried to involve him with them somehow, in that way which he had hated so very, very much.

“Come and listen to this, Norrie!” he’d say, and, later on, whenever he’d failed to find much to amuse him in their pathetic little tales of their pathetic little lives, his father always used to ask “Would it kill you to show some interest?”

“Hah!” he’d retort, using the best of his accountant’s wit learnt from Mr. Rapscallion in his lighter moments, “I’d rather be earning some interest!” Then he would laugh his mirthless laugh to himself before adding “Show some interest? I’d rather die!”

And with that thought in what remained of his mind, that’s just what he did.

It was Mr. Killjoy who found him the following Monday morning, and he and old Mr. Bland never did quite work out what it was that he was smiling about.

MORE MEMORIES OF MISTER ZEUS...

Well, it’s nice to know I can inspire someone. My emails this morning included this tale, sent to me by my good friend Rick, which deserves to be shared by the wider world (about 12 of us at the last count…).

If there are any more Memories of the Magnificent Mister Zeus out there, please do feel free to share them.

THE MYSTERIOUS EMPORIUM OF MISTER NORIDEL ZEUS (continued…?)

I seem to vaguely recall, within my distant and sepia toned memory, being led by the hand of my Grandfather over fifty years ago on a chilly winter’s morning along a tired looking row of mouldering shops. I remember this because there was one curiously named shop that stood out, that of Noridel Zeus, with its beautiful signage and deep, darkened windows, a shop of childish mysteries. On this particular outing, my Grandfather was carrying a large Gladstone bag, of creaking leather, a little tatty around the edges and smelling slight of mould. Grandfather, as I recall, was a collector of all sorts of paraphernalia, curios he had amassed during a lifetime of travelling to exotic corners of the World; places with dark and magical sounding names that haunted my juvenile imagination. He wouldn’t discuss what was in the bag, for he was a man of whom seldom said more than a few words on anything, and then only when he considered it necessary.

I recall with delight when on this particular day he paused outside of Mr Zeus’ establishment and put his hand on the door knob; he turned it and we stepped inside to the discordant jingling of a bell flapping unsteadily from the doorframe. The shop smelled of many things, a musty odour of stale dust, mixed with the soft warm smell of settled wood, tinges of dampness, and the distant hot oil smell that reminded me of steam trains. Once inside, I noticed in awe that two of the walls were made up entirely of small wooden drawers, beautifully French polished, and inscribed in elegant, but slightly faded copperplate script; each with its own tiny brass handle. The names made little sense to me, but conjured up my imagination into elaborate visions. I think I remember there being among the labels draws of undersized grub screws, whirligig sprockets, domes of silence, clinker shafts, filament spindles, laughing bladders, and blue snake bulbs. Some of these I’m still none the wiser about. There was also a wall of shelves, none of which were entirely straight, with a gentle untouched veil of dust across the surfaces that I could see; they were like a ladder rising towards the ceiling. Sparsely spaced on these shelves were peculiar looking wooden boxes, with what seemed to be small glass cases on the top of each one. The boxes were beautifully painted and each seemed to purport either small brass cranking handles or tiny metal keys pocking out from the side. The glass like cages were filled with what I thought were toys, intricately carved wooden puppets, with sharp teeth, and pointed noses, fierce looking animals and scary dark birds. Figures stood motionless, as if they had been frozen, one was poised with an axe over a chicken’s neck, another looked as if the nail he was hammering would go straight through his eye, and there was along tube like case with a succession of animals that had been frozen in time, prevented from each eating the one they were chasing; I was stood paralysed with fascinated horror, unable to tear my eyes from such macabre toys.

My Grandfather had put his bag on the highly polished blackened counter and when he rang the counter top bell, my trance was broken. I looked round and a strange man had appeared, where had he come from I could not imagine, I just knew that he wasn’t there before. I couldn’t see where he could have sprung from he was simply there as if he had been all along. He was remarkably thin, and smaller than my Grandfather, and gave me the impression he was leaning slightly to one side. He was like a human stick insect, spiky, with huge thick round glasses that had several small round lenses sticking out from them on the end of long brass rod. He was bald and his head was shiny, but he had a remarkable looking hat on with a golden tassel; I later discovered was called a fez. I couldn’t see his legs, but he had on a balloon like white shirt that was far too big for such a skinny man, and the most amazing embroidered silver waistcoat I had ever seen, the swirling patterns seemed to be moving out of the corner of my eye, and I stood transfixed, once again.

My Grandfather opened the bag and showed him what was inside; Mr. Zeus never uttered a single word, but scratched his chin where upon I suddenly noticed his stubbly beard. He turned and opened several drawers in rapid succession, rummaging through the hidden contents before passing onto the next. I was convinced I saw sparks emanating from his finger tips. He removed a small leather pad and the most intricate and ornate silver fountain pen I’d ever seen and scribbled on it for several minutes, until he showed it to my Grandfather, who simply nodded, closed up the bag and taking my hand, steered us out of the shop; out into the biting cold once again. And that’s all I can remember. To this day I have no recollection of what was in that bag, what Mr Zeus was commissioned to do, and we never went in there again. Yet to this day the magic of such a small childhood adventure haunts me still, and I still dream about who the mysterious Noridel Zeus was.

(From the Journals of Mister Rick Lawlor, 22/10/2010)

THE MYSTERIOUS EMPORIUM OF MISTER NORIDEL ZEUS

For pretty much every working day for the best part of ten years I used to drive more-or-less the same route to work, and every day I used to pass this rather dilapidated old shop with a rather obscure and unusual name above the door. It was always a name to conjure with, an exotic mystery to ponder on as I headed off once more into the traffic of another morning’s commute.

That name was “Noridel Zeus”.

The shop seemed to have been abandoned for years, and as the years rolled by in that rapid way they have a habit of doing when you’re working from paycheque to paycheque, more and more pieces of the exterior would rot and fall away, but that little building still managed to defiantly stand there, a proudly crumbling symbol of a lost age. It appeared to me to be a mysterious, enticing place that seemed as if it could reach back in time and in which you felt you might almost touch a more gentle, refined or civilised age. In my mind’s eye, it would take me back to a time when I was very, very small and I would be taken shopping by my mother to the greengrocer’s, the butcher’s, the baker’s, the fishmonger’s and the dairy, instead of piling around an enormous soul-destroying supermarket like I tend to nowadays.

One morning I even decided to pack my camera and stop on the way to work to take its picture. I knew that one day it was likely to vanish upon the whim of some developer or other and no-one would ever believe me when I spoke of this little shop and the strange sounding name of its possible erstwhile proprietor, and if I didn’t actually stop and do it, one day I knew I would probably wish I had.

To me it conjures up images of the Dickens’ “Old Curiosity Shop” and a weird world of hidden magic. A lost world of illogical order amongst dusty chaos and cabinets full of tiny drawers containing all the wonders from the four corners of the Empire and making them available for purchase to anyone with a shiny penny in even this shabby corner of a northern town in the greatest, most powerful nation on God’s Earth.

Within its walls there might have been coloured bottles containing an exotic rainbow of liquids or perhaps strange, unfamiliar objects made of unusual hardwoods from hitherto unseen and unknown trees, or fashioned from the skins of mysterious, extraordinary creatures and the feathers of unimaginable birds. The creaking shelves might be packed with canisters and jars containing all kinds of powders, potions and unctions and marked with hand-written adhesive labels that spoke of mystery and magic and wonder from faraway exotic lands. Perhaps the Far East, or the Africas, or the Antipodes. There might be dusty bookshelves crammed with leather-bound volumes or obscure catalogues and periodicals that told astounding tales of imagination and mystery.

Standing at the very centre of all this wonderment, there would be one Mr. Noridel Zeus with his ledgers and his order books and his brilliantly organised mind, still sharp as a tack despite his advancing years, knowing the whereabouts of each and every item and mentally tallying his supplies of stock and reminding himself of what replacements he needed to order from the travelling salesmen who would call in from time to time, all of whom still respectfully and reverentially called him “Mr. Zeus”.

So who was Noridel Zeus? In my mind he is sometimes a dilapidated wreck of a man, a soldier perhaps, returned from his duties abroad serving Her Majesty and the Empire - in India perchance - in the latter half of the 19th Century. Occasionally he might be smoking exotic substances from an ancient ornamental hookah bought in Khartoum from a Chinese trader and carried home with him in his military-issue travelling chest. He has a preposterously verdant white moustache, and a mad cascade of snow-white hair is kept under control by means of a native hat bought, maybe, from that very same Mandarin bazaar, or perhaps he wears a hand embroidered smoking cap with a golden tassel that is picked out by the occasional beam of smoky sunlight that dares to venture into the darker corners of this, his own little kingdom.

Perhaps in another dark corner of this Emporium of delights, perched upon a ladder sorting out the high shelves, he would have an assistant, an impressive yet slightly timid woman who completely worshipped him, never forgetting the charming, strutting peacock of the boy that he once was years before, or a loyal daughter who had sacrificed her own happiness and devoted herself to pleasing her ailing father. She had loved once; another young soldier who had been lost at Roarke’s Drift or some other distant and long-forgotten campaign. She would occasionally think of him. Once in a while she might open the silver locket she always kept around her neck that contained an image of him; so young, so handsome and so very much in her heart, and in her own quiet and dignified way, secretly weep at her loss.

Upon entering the shop a bell attached to the top of the door might jangle and you would then venture tentatively through that doorway and would be greeted by a haze of blue smoke and a glorious cacophony of coughing which could be heard from somewhere in the private, secret space of the back room as this venerable and proud former military man set aside his pipe and rose from his battered, button-upholstered leather armchair that he kept in there, covered with an old, oil-stained Antimacassar. For much of the rest of his time he would merely sit back in that little room and wonder at and remember the exotic sights of his youthful days, but for now there was a customer to be served and, moments later, he would appear in that very doorway and dutifully stagger his way into the shop itself to greet this latest of his many customers with the faded memory of a smile.

And quite what wonders would he sell you? The world for a shilling? A penny’s worth of bulls-eyes, aniseed balls or barley sugar? A handful of gumballs or gobstoppers? A quarter of butterscotch or humbugs, cinder toffee or liquorice strings? A universe of delights in just the trays of sweets alone. Whatever it was you chose to purchase, the transaction would end with the reassuring clunk of a brass and mahogany till and a rattle of copper coins in their distinct little trays and before you knew it, with a final exchange of polite farewells, you would be outside again, stepping back into the grey and tedious old real world with nothing but a brown paper bag holding some exciting trinket or nick-nack to show for your journey into the strange and mysterious world of Mr. Noridel Zeus.

I worry that it might in reality be something rather mundane, like an accountancy firm or an estate agents or solicitors, or something far, far worse, like a drab or dreary anagram trying to add some allure to something far less exciting; “I rule dozens”; “Zen is louder”; “Suzie Le Nord”. There’s enough of the moribund and the torpid to go around as it is, without that sort of thinking adding to it. I’d rather the world had a touch of magic in it, and just a soupcon of the exotic (although the curious tale of Suzie Le Nord does remain a tale worthy of telling…).

The name Noridel Zeus also reminds of another story. Once upon a long ago, a teacher friend told me about a pupil of his called “Nordel”. Apparently, when he was born, his parents had seen the name written on a label on a cot in the maternity ward and liked the sound of it, little realising that it was hospital shorthand for “Normal delivery”.

Wouldn’t it be a shame if our Mr. Noridel Zeus was just the unwitting victim of something so bland? Isn’t it better to think of him as a retired “Gentleman Explorer” or “Victorian Adventurer” having had a few hard times or bad financial advice and now fallen into the reduced circumstances of being a humble retailer with only his dreams and memories to remind him how utterly alive he once was, and whose eccentric parents had long ago named him after the Gods of one of their more colourful acquaintances they once met during their travels in faraway lands?

Noridel Zeus, wherever and whoever you may be, I salute you. Just thank you for having added a touch of the romantic to our lives as you (perhaps) once walked amongst us, and please, please don’t turn out to have been something dull.

THE MORNING RITUAL

I stagger down the stairs in the dark, snap on the lights in the kitchen and fill the kettle to make myself a cup of tea. In a few minutes, the alarm will wake the beloved. I track down a cleanish mug and a tea bag, and start rummaging through the little boxes that have now, sadly, become part of my morning ritual.

A couple of years ago, like most people my age, I had to spend some time “under the knife” for some minor reason which isn’t worth going into here. It was one of those “go in for the day” affairs where you’re told to be there for 7.00 AM and “you can expect to be in the hospital for up to six hours”.

Now, as MAWH Towers lurks on the brink of the next county, and the regular bus and train services aren’t up to much out here at that time of the morning, I rang up and asked whether I would be okay to turn up a bit later getting the rather steely response that they wouldn’t advise it. Okay then, it’s a pretty minor operation - under local anaesthetic and all that – did they think I’d be okay to drive myself in…? That would be fine.

Great. Problem solved.

Come the much unanticipated day, I got myself and the beloved up at 5.00, drove up to the big city and parked up in the all day car park with its many signs and labels warning of the penalties of failing to follow its stringent instructions over parking times.

“No problem,” thunk innocent old me “at most I’m going to be seven hours!”

There wasn’t any real problem as we’d borrowed a day parking pass from a colleague of the beloved because it was her day off.

Anyway, I checked in on time, and I got parked in a bed and the nurses pulled the curtains around me and I read my book for a while. After I finished by book, which should have had enough pages to keep me occupied and distracted through plenty of the expected six hours I was due to spend in their clutches, I started to think they’d maybe forgotten about me, especially when I poked my head through the gap in the curtains and noticed that everyone else who had arrived with me had already been operated on and some were already on their way home. I did start to get twitchy, and tetchy. I stomped indignantly over to the desk and was quite probably rather rude to one of the nurses - despite all the “zero tolerance” notices plastered up all over the place – about whether this surgery - that I was actually quite intimidated by, by the way – was likely to be happening any time soon…?

Eventually, I was prepped and under the knife at about 3.00 PM, drifting into semi-slumber pondering on the fact that I could have quite happily strolled in at lunchtime… and an hour or so later, I was sitting up waiting to go home, mulling over the fact that it was getting towards the time for me to pick the beloved up from work, and what precisely the time limits were of a parking “day pass…”

“You can get dressed now, sir…”

Excellent… and only four hours late. I got up. There was blood everywhere. More alarmingly, it seemed to be my blood! Surely this couldn’t be right? I staggered over to the desk, a scarlet trail behind me looking for all the world like something from a pre-credits sequence in “House M.D.”.

Anyway, that got all sorted out. Thin blood. Family trait. The PTB (“Powers That Be”) decided that I was to be kept in overnight for observation (although that was probably an unpleasant prospect for them, having to look at my potato-like countenance for longer than necessary) and they kept taking my blood pressure which was hanging around at the high end of the stratosphere, having a nice time up there and refusing to come back down and be reprimanded. I tried to point out that I was generally a bit of a worrier anyway, that I was worried about the beloved and whether she managed to get home all right… I was worried my car getting clamped… the operation… that I was supposed to be back at work after my day off… basically I was worried. Now, I generally don’t sleep well at the best of times, and predictably, I didn’t sleep for most of that night, and every time I kind of  got to the point of dozing off they decided that they needed to take my blood pressure… which was still stubbornly choosing to lurk around at cloud level.

You see? I was still worrying…

And now I was worrying that if my blood pressure didn’t come down, they’d never let me go.

Reluctantly, at about ten o’clock the following morning they decided to let me leave, lugging a huge bag of surgical supplies with me in case my wound did its Vesuvius impression again. As long as I promised to go and see my G.P. at the earliest opportunity and get my blood pressure checked.

Six months and plenty of appointments later, Dougie Howser and I had managed to find a cocktail of pills that kept my high-spirited lifeblood in the general vicinity of something that might be considered “normal”, or as close as it was ever likely to get being part of me at any rate.

So now, every morning, it’s Amlodipine, 5mg; Ramipril 10mg; Bendroflumethiazide, 2.5mg and Bisoprolol Fumarate, 10mg - although not necessarily in that order. (That last one always makes me think of Ian Fleming, by the way, and his little pills of “gunpowder” he used to mention having to take in his later interviews. Must be the “fumar” part reminding me of all those signs on aircraft.) Then, every evening, it’s Simvastatin, 40mg. My God, it’s depressing. Couldn’t they just call them “Yellow Pill No.15” or “White Pill No. 27 (small)”?

Hmm… “Capsule number six, please.” Sounds like my last visit to the Building Society…

People ask me – yes, I have those kinds of conversations now – what they’ve got me on and I can never remember what they’re called. It’s probably just as well. It might all descend into a macabre variant of collecting those bubble gum cards when I was at school. “Got… Got… Not got… Wanna swap?”

I know that compared to a heck of a lot of people, I have it comparative easy when it comes to these things, and a mere concoction of only 5 chemicals sloshing around my system all the time is relatively nothing, but it still irks me. Yes, that’s the word. I’m irked.

When I was a young lad my father had to retire due to his health and I used to see my Dad taking all his pills every day, and now I see it with my Mum and I also used to see it with my Gran and I promised myself, absolutely swore, that I’d never turn into one of those people dependent on taking all those wretched little pills every single day… and yet, hear I am, stuck with a morning ritual I despise. Dr. Dougie tells me none of them are compulsory, and if I miss the odd day it shouldn’t do any real harm, but there’s got to be a good reason for me having had them prescribed to me, hasn’t there? It’s not just part of some massive game someone’s decided to play with my bloodstream playing its part as an unwitting participant? Surely not…? So, I suppose,  if I wanted to, I could abandon this routine, wing it, find another way.

But then… If I do stop taking them, there’s always that nagging worry, isn’t there...? If I stop, will I just… stop?

EGYPTIAN TALES (2) The Step Pyramid

EGYPTIAN TALES (2) The Step Pyramid

Believe it or not, when I was a spudlet, I took Architecture for “O” Level and one of the buildings we had to learn about was The Step Pyramid, the Pyramid of Djoser designed by the ancient architect Imhotep - a name sadly hijacked for a Hollywood villain when we should be honouring his memory every time we go upstairs - back in a time when my own ancestors were still trying to work out whether a cave was a better option for sleeping in safely in than a hole in the ground was.

It is considered to be the first true example of what we recognise as a Pyramid today and a massive leap forward in the history of structural engineering, being a stepping stone on the way towards the possibility of the achievement of building of the more famous cluster of Pyramids on the Giza plateau.

I’ll admit that on my own visit there, I’d managed to remain slightly underwhelmed by the more famous “classic” three Pyramids at Giza. I’m still quite shocked at myself for this. How is it possible to be underwhelmed by one of the seven wonders of the ancient world and the only one we still get to see? It’s not that I don’t appreciate how wonderful they are, and the sheer magnificent fact that they are there at all, it’s just that somehow the experience left me feeling slightly let down. Maybe it was the huge car park sitting pretty much adjacent to one of them, or perhaps the vast amount of traders desperate to get my attention (and my hard-earned currency) or it could have just been the fact that I was feeling slightly miffed that I had been stuck for rather too long inside our minibus.

Having arrived slightly ahead of the crowds, it was a source of great irritation to me to be obliged to sit inside the thing watching all the other coaches arrive whilst we were given an archaeological lecture on the history of these wonderful structures, when all that I wanted to do was get out there and photograph the living daylights out of them before too many people and vehicles got themselves in the way. I should have had more patience. It’s not as if they were likely to be going anywhere soon, and the guide was being paid to give me all that hard learned knowledge.

I can be so ungracious at times.

There are choices to be made when you’re on a schedule and have limited time. Is it worth seeing the Pharoah’s solar barge? Is it worth going inside one of the Pyramids? Would I rather spend the time walking over to the far corners of the structure beyond where the traders and other visitors don’t tend to bother to go and snap away with the old camera? I think you can probably guess the option I chose. Maybe next time for the other stuff. If there is a next time, of course…

In many ways the Pyramids at Giza remained more inspiring from a distance. The evening before my visit I’d been up to the roof garden café of our hotel and they’d been visible, rising up above the skyline of the traffic and the buildings of the city and I’d just sat there drinking my lemonade and couldn’t take my eyes off them, with my mind in a constant loop every time I tried to look away – “There are Pyramids at the end of the road… There are PYRAMIDS… at the END of the ROAD…”

Anyway, the hustle and bustle of Giza was well behind me as we trundled up towards Saqqara. Having a pleasant enough lunch had made me much calmer and I was happy to listen patiently to the history of the Step Pyramid without so much as a single (if you’ll pardon the pun) tut. Our little bus bounced and swayed its way up the rocky road, giving us the occasional glimpse of the top of it as it rose above the line of the dunes. The bus was eventually parked in another busy car park, this time more wisely positioned outside the compound of the Pyramid itself. Across the car park, beyond another sand dune stood the Pyramid itself, rising majestically above its current companion, a workman’s metal hut that happily the Pyramid will long outlast. That metal hut will rust to nothing, and the stones will endure.

To get into the complex itself you have to pass through a roofed colonnade, which on that day was very busy, the narrow passage with its battened floor having to deal with tourists both arriving and leaving at the same time. Whilst I know it’s easy to assume that everything you see in Egypt is from a more ancient time, the flooring is a modern addition to help preserve the monument and to make it safer for we latter-day explorers to navigate, so I was tickled pink to hear an elderly lady marvelling to her friend at how well preserved the “ancient” wooden floor was.

Another right turn into a vast open courtyard, and there it was. Right in front of me. All those years on from sketching away in my Architecture notebook and I was there, right next to it. I could hardly stop taking pictures of it. It’s just so beautiful, and so there and it had been there at Saqqara for over four thousand years. 62 metres tall, on six levels, considered to be the first human-made, large-scale monumental cut-stone structure in history and it’s still there, outlasting anything and everything built after it. Admittedly nowadays it’s looking a bit battered and it’s got a fair amount of scaffolding where it’s being restored, but just being next to it, standing next to something that has survived from the dawn of history, a big old chunky symbol of something we like to call civilisation, well, it just moved me in a way I find difficult to understand fully. I don’t get awestruck very often, but I believe that for the all-too-brief hour or so I was there, that’s precisely what I was.

It is just such a beautiful, mesmerising building. It is a bit wounded and the scaffolding around it is rather essential it seems but, during that one short hour, I was magically transported back and started thinking about my fifteen-year old self, scribbling away with my pencils in a long lost exercise book. I wish I could have travelled back and told myself that one day I’d actually be there, that one day all those facts and figures would actually have a purpose and a meaning and a context, that one day those dry old days of lessons and learning would strike me with such a resonance and a profound sense of history, and would quite simply astound me in ways my cynical, teenage younger self could never have imagined possible.

JUPITER RISING

There was a bright light in the sky last night, a beautiful, dazzling thing, sparkling in the darkness, just above the hills.

At about 9.00 PM you’d have found me all fatigued from my day and yawning, ready to give up on Tuesday and stagger up to bed for an early night, when I glanced through the window and spotted it, out there, just above the treetops, gleaming in the East, calling to me.

There’s something about these crisp Autumn nights when the skies are clear that is magical. You know there’ll be ice on the car when you get up in the morning, but the celestial display that you get to see more than makes up for any dark mutterings when you scrape the glass. Those bright little pinpricks of light from so far away in space and time that speak of a vast old universe beyond the clouds of which we are just the tiniest of parts.

I stared at it for a while and wondered what it was. I thought it might be Venus, because it usually is, but I didn’t know so I went upstairs to do a quick search on the ever useful – if occasionally misleading – internet and it turned out it was most probably Jupiter.

Ah, Jupiter! The great gas giant. The biggest object in the solar system after the sun, the planet which could swallow all the other planets whole  twice over and still have room for dessert. That delightful, unknowable cosmic bauble with its beautiful striped clouds and the great red spot that seems to be an ongoing storm that might well have been going on throughout all recorded human history and could possibly outlast humanity altogether, depending on which theory you choose. We might think it rains a lot down here, but to contemplate a storm continuing that long is almost beyond our imagination. “By Jove!” Victorian adventurers might have exclaimed at that thought, or maybe even “By Jupiter!” and rightly so, because it’s one impressive spectacle. I, for one, was quite excited that it might well be Jupiter that I was staring at. For the Romans, Jupiter was very important. Jupiter was the king of all their Gods, as well as being the God of the sky and the God of thunder. Big stuff for a big planet. The novelist Arthur C. Clarke seemed particularly inspired by Jupiter, and seemed to think it had special significance for all our futures. In “2001” it’s to Jupiter that we were heading thanks to our cosmic guides, and in the (suddenly feeling very appropriately named) sequel “2010”, the planet takes on a new significance in the affairs of humankind. In the end, he proclaimed “All these worlds are yours…” declaring his hope that we might one day get to visit some of them. Let’s hope, if we do, that we learn to look after them. They are a heck of a long way to go just to drop some litter in the car park and head off home again.

I hope it was Jupiter, but even if it wasn't, it doesn't really matter. It was still something beautiful to look at and think about. I wish I knew more about astronomy. Over the years I’ve bought the books and read through them, and I can even pick out one or two of the more recognisable constellations, but generally that’s about it. I’ll watch “The Sky at Night” if I happen to notice it’s on, and I’ll get terribly excited about the things that it might be possible to see in the coming month, and then promptly forget all about them. Maybe it has something to do with the almost permanent cloud cover we seem to get around here which is why those extra special clear nights seem to very precious when the stars come out and play. On my wall I have this rather lovely star chart which is truly a thing of beauty although I’ve never quite got around to actually fathoming what it is it’s actually telling me. The months are shown around the perimeter but I’m never quite sure what direction that means I’m supposed to look in. I suppose it must be north, towards the pole star, but there’s a great big hill in the way, but if I look south, the map doesn’t make much sense. One day, I keep promising myself I’ll sit down and work it out, but I’m starting to think I never will.

So last night, after a while I went upstairs and got out the silly little telescope that I picked up cheaply in a supermarket last year. I got it to train on the bird feeders in the garden and it’s fine for that, but the glory of Jupiter was beyond its feeble limitations. Then I got the binoculars we’ve got for bird watching and they were much better but I couldn’t keep my hands steady enough for a proper viewing. After that I thought it might be quite nice to have a photograph of Jupiter (or whatever it was) and went to get the camera. Sadly, all my efforts were very poor as the equipment I have isn’t really fit for that particular purpose, but it was worth a try. Eventually I decided to just sit there and look at it for a while and something like that really makes you appreciate the magnificence of the humble human eye. Of course, all I could see was that magnificent bright dot, but after a few seconds the whole of the night sky became clear and there were stars everywhere on a beautiful night in a usually pretty damp and miserable month at the back end of the year.

I sometimes think we tend to take the night sky for granted and sometimes we just forget to look up, but when we get the chance to, it’s a breathtaking thing to see, and humbling in a way when you start to contemplate our tiny place in the infinite. It tends to help to put a lot of things in proportion and sometimes it will make me despair at the troubles we cause on our lonely little planet as it spins along its celestial path as a bright blue dot in an endless dark. Why do waste our time on our petty idiocies? Above our heads, way up there is an infinity of beauty, spinning and weaving in an eternal dance that we ought to feel it is a privilege and a joy to be part of. We should be looking at the stars and instead we wallow in the gutter.

This morning I got up and right in front of the house in the still darkened sky was the constellation of Orion. Clear as crystal and as vivid and vibrant as could be.  If you get the chance, sometime soon, just take a moment and look at the stars. You might be surprised all over again at the beauty of it all. You never know, you might even find something of yourself up there. After all, we are all made of stardust.