Footprints in the Salts of Time

It is five in the morning, it is absolutely bloody freezing, there’s this horrible white pile on the floor and I just know that I am in serious trouble. No one will believe the truth that the tin of Andrews took on a malevolent life of its own; it simply flew out of my shaking hands and deposited its entire contents onto the floor. They might impute that I was somehow to blame in not concentrating fully on the matter at hand. I never see the justice of this – who wants to devote 100% of their attention to dull mundane things when they can be thinking of higher culture, art, metaphysical philosophy or, in this particular case, the lovely Cote de Pablo?

When the gleaming white pile first appeared on the floor, when it manifested itself as it were (note the lack of human agency in all this – I’m working on the case for my defence), my first thought was that there must be some kind of tool to deal with situations of this sort. Actually, that’s not quite true. My very first thought was “Isn’t that interesting?” On stepping out of the heap of liver salts, I left behind two clearly defined footprints with a rather elegant symmetrical kind of blast pattern around them. At the edges there were what resembled vapour trails or, perhaps, those very fine, wispy clouds you get just before a typhoon. The thing was a bit Rothko-ish and vaguely reminiscent of the cover of a copy of Robinson Crusoe I once had. I was quite tempted to take a few photographs, but time was pressing and it was simply too cold.

Back to practicalities and domestic implements (neither my strong suit). The hoover was the obvious weapon of choice but was entirely out of the question as it would have woken up my wife. Besides, it might have been dangerous; liver salts are quite volatile and who knows what horrors might be unleashed if they became moist in the confined inner compartment of a vacuum cleaner. It doesn’t bear thinking about really.

A dustpan and brush then sprang to mind. I’ve rarely if ever actually handled one, but it seemed the thing to use on such occasions. However, being somewhat less than familiar with the contents of the tool cupboard, I opted for large broom and set to work.

The problem then was whether to concentrate the pile in order to somehow gather it up or to try to dissipate it evenly across the floor. The latter approach seemed the more appropriate to the white-pile exigency. It avoided the need for a gathering operation – the stuff would simply gather itself in the daily kitchen comings and goings – and I’d be back in bed in no time. There also seemed a poetic justice in this. After all, given that the stuff’s being on the floor wasn’t really my fault , it was only right that it should assist in the process of clearing itself up.

It transpires that spreading liver salts evenly across a kitchen floor is not a very sensible thing to do. It is somehow both sticky and crunchy. An interesting tactile effect from an aesthetic point of view; but bound to get me into even more trouble. My next ploy was to reconstruct the stuff into a more concentrated heap and hide it near the skirting boards so that I could discretely hoover it up later. The snag was that the skirting boards are painted a dark brown and the reconstituted heap was a still gleaming white. I tried camouflaging it with a thin layer of coffee powder, but started to feel a mite guilty. There was a nasty element of deception in all this and it was – albeit unjustly – my mess.

It is now six in the morning and it is still bloody freezing. I have spent the last half hour transferring the salts into an ashtray, pinch by pinch. Time is pressing, hypothermia surely setting in and the pile doesn’t seem a whole lot smaller. Perhaps if I used the broom to spread the remaining stuff evenly round the corners of the room it wouldn’t be noticed?

Rupert’s Brand New Bicycle

This little story is dedicated to anyone who is attempting to make the excruciatingly painful transition from Delphi or Visual Basic to C#

Rupert had an old rattly bicycle that he really loved.  It may not have been as clean or as fast his friends’ bikes, but it went quite fast enough for Rupert.  He could even do some clever tricks on it and he rode it every day.  Quite often he overtook Mickey, but then Mikey’s bicycle wasn’t that new either, even though it had lots and lots of gears and a really grown-up horn.

The main problem was that people used to laugh at Rupert’s bike.  “Look at that slow, shabby old thing,” they would jeer. “It's so rusty and rattly! Why don’t you get one of those smart new bicycles that Mr. Gates sells in his shop?”

One day, Rupert had enough of the jeers and decided to have a look at the new shiny bicycle in the window of Mr. Gates’s shop.  They were very smart, he thought, and he asked the friendly salesman if he could try one out.  Seeing that Rupert was a highly respectable bear, the salesman agreed.  “Just go straight down the road and see how fast it is.”  

The shiny bicycle wasn't rattly and wasn't rusty and did go fast.  It went really fast, although Rupert secretly wondered if it was all that much faster than his old bike.  “Isn’t it lovely?” his friends shouted.   “You can do lots of tricks on it, too.”

When Rupert got home, he opened his money box and thoughtfully counted out all his copper pennies. Mr. Gates’s bicycles were very expensive, but he had just enough money. He slowly walked back to the shop and bought the bicycle.  He rode it straight home, feeling very proud of himself.  Later his friends came round and showed him some of the tricks they could do.  They showed him a wheelie which was very much like the wheelies that he used to do on his old bicycle, but ever so much more complicated.

 

The next day, Rupert decided to ride his brand new shiny bicycle to Mikey’s house.  He drove straight down the hill and tried to turn right.  The handle bars wouldn’t turn and he hit his head on the wall.  He tried and tried again and each time the handle bars wouldn’t turn and he got a nasty bump on the head.  He was a very unhappy little bear.

Feeling rather worried, Rupert went back to the shop and spoke to the friendly salesman. “Why would you want to turn the handle bars?” asked the puzzled salesman, scratching his head. “You can do lots of tricks on it and isn’t it shiny and modern?”

Rupert went to see his friends to see if they could tell him how to turn the handle bars. They looked puzzled but they didn’t scratch their heads. Rupert could see why. All of them had very nasty lumps on their heads. Finally one of his friends suggested that he went to see Crafty Bob.

Crafty Bob said “It is easy. When you get to a corner, you just jump off. Then you pick up the bicycle and turn it round.” Rupert wasn’t very happy with this idea.  He never had to get off his old bike when he went round bends.  “There is another way,” said Crafty Bob. “When you get to the corner, you do a somersault over the front of the bike, grab the handles as you fly over them, twist a bit to the right and somersault back on.”  Rupert thought this sounded an even worse idea and looked at the really bad bruise on Crafty Bob’s head.

Rupert was really fed up so his Daddy suggested looking on the Internet. “What a good idea!” thought Rupert, and looked and looked and looked.  He read all day, and the next day and the next day. He found out some very interesting things about his bicycle and how you could do extra special wheelies on it, but there was nothing about turning the handlebars. Most of the things he read just said how shiny and fast and modern it was.

Rupert was just about to give up when he noticed that there was something about a secret magic screw. The writer said the secret screw was hidden underneath the saddle and that if you twisted it three times to the left, four times to the right and gave it a careful tap, it might make the handle bars turn.

“Everything about this new shiny bicycle is so difficult,” Rupert thought sadly. He was far too tired to look for the secret magic screw but decided to have a go in the morning. He just hoped he wouldn’t crash into the wall again. He was in danger of becoming a bear with a very sore head. 

When the sun rose the next morning,  Rupert woke up feeling much more cheerful.  He ran down the stairs two at a time and had a look at his bicycle.  At first he didn’t see the secret magic screw so he borrowed his Granny’s magnifying glass and had another look. “There it is!” he said excitedly.  Then he thought very hard about the thing he had read last night and carefully turned the screw three times to the left, four times to the right. Nothing seemed to happen but then he remembered that he had to give the screw a gentle tap. Holding his breath he tapped and suddenly there was a loud click and he could finally turn the handle bars.

Rupert was so excited that he decided to go and show Mickey.  He jumped on his shiny bicycle and peddled down the hill as fast as his little legs could go.  “Gosh,” he thought “Maybe it is a bit faster than my old bicycle.”  Then he came to the corner and turned the handle bars.  He went round almost as smoothly as he used to on his old bicycle. 

“Hoorah!” Rupert yelled as he passed Mr. Gates's shop.  “Hooray!” he shouted at his friends as he sailed by them. "Yippee!" he cried as he whistled past Crafty Bob.  Then something very bad happened.  When he looked back at the road he saw Mr. Badger’s big green removal van coming towards him. The driver hadn't seen Rupert and it was coming too fast to get out of the way.  He tried to ring the shiny bell on his brand new bicycle but nothing happened.  He tried and tried again but he couldn’t get it to make a sound.  “Oh no!” he screamed as he crashed into the van. 

Poor Rupert was bruised all over and sadly went back up the hill to see the friendly salesman in Mr. Gates’s shop. “Why would you want to ring the bell?” asked the puzzled salesman, scratching his head again. “You can do lots of tricks on it and it is so shiny and modern. Have you tried doing wheelies?” Rupert felt very cross indeed and looked thoughtfully at the great big bicycle pump on the wall. He was starting to get an idea.

Mischief and Oily Emissions

Don't let's hang about
Let's have some mischief

- Ian Dury & The Blockheads

Another magnificent Tory coup de théâtre! Michael Heseltine doing his Tarzan bit in ’76 and now after a gap of a mere 32 years, David Davis’s master stroke. In fact, Davis couldn’t have done better if he had taken Heseltine’s tactic a step further and dashed Gordon Brown’s brains out with the Mace. Certainly it would have been kinder. But I suppose the otherwise dull as ditchwater Davies lacks Heseltine’s natural flamboyance.

Just when the hapless Brown thought things were going to settle down, just when he thought he might at last be granted the space to fulfil his dream and reconstruct himself as a statesman (it's cruel to snigger), he now faces the prospect of David Davis on the News every night talking about the erosion of civil liberties under Labour. And then there is the little matter of the looming Tanker strike.

One wonders if Gordon is going to have to take an immense gulp, swallow his pride and call on the Machiavellian mendacities of Peter Mandelson. Certainly it would be a mistake to rely on the kittenish hisses of dear little Jacqui Smith, who last night actually claimed that Davis’s move was a sign of Conservative "disarray". Talk about the pot calling the kettle Brown! Can there be any truth in the rumour that Tony & Cherie Blair go around humming ‘Things Can Only Get Better’?

West Country Gothic

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

As the weather was fine, Poi decided to walk home from work last night. I said that I’d meet her, but she said that it was quite safe at 9.30 as there people were always about and that she would be accompanied by a friend. Ours is a peaceful town, especially during the week, and the walk would take less than 10 minutes. I was not especially worried.

Having just finished work myself, I was sitting in the kitchen when she burst into the house, looking white, breathless and absolutely terrified. “I am being haunted”, she gasped as she locked and bolted the front door but was too scared to say more. Thinking she might have been stalked by some lout, I interrogated her and she told me that she had been passing NatWest, glanced in and saw a malevolent old man looking out at her. The bank was deserted and he was sitting perfectly still in the gloom. He face was grey and unhealthy looking and his legs were crossed. She took all this in at a glance before fleeing as fast as her legs could carry her.

Poi wouldn’t be convinced that her vision must have been a trick of the shadows so, deciding that the only way to allay her fears was to find out exactly what had triggered them, I said that I’d go and investigate. Poi said that there was no way that she would be left on her own and accompanied me, insisting that we took the car in case we had to make a quick getaway. I don’t believe in ghosts myself, but suspected that were they to exist, an elderly Nissan would be little defence against the forces of Hell. However, my wife is Thai and, thus, exceedingly well versed in matters supernatural. She should know best.

We got to the bank, and in a split second my scepticism was confounded as there facing me was the sinister old man exactly as Poi had described. Not only that, but he had a companion. Sitting to his left was an evil looking old woman, her gaze fixed on mine, a quizzical half-smile on her lips and a gnarled stick grasped in her aged hand. There was indeed something distinctly unnatural about the pair: they looked almost too wizened to be alive.

At this point, taking the car seemed not such a bad idea after all. I now understood what it meant to feel one’s flesh creep. With foot poised over the accelerator, I steeled myself and took a second glace at the strangely motionless pair. Despite the crepuscular lighting, it was then that I noticed a sign next to the couple saying “Please don’t touch”. They were in fact papier-mâché sculptures of an elderly vicar and his wife made by the artist Peter Rush. They may have been intended as humorous but in the gloom bore a distinct resemblance to Grant Wood’s American Gothic. Feeling none too proud of myself, I returned home with my somewhat chastened wife.

On Nearing 50 - An Emergency Checklist

I’ve been so busy recently that I completely forgot an impending date. In February I shall turn 50. That’s old, hideously old. I’ve been reviewing my lifestyle (if that’s the right word for it) and have decided that I’m far too immature to reach such an august and respectable age. In fact, I am not at all respectable. Things have got to change fast. Here is my hurriedly written list:

• Desist from playing hopscotch with pretty secretaries outside the offices of clients. Pretending to be a trapeze artist on the walls of clients’ car parks is also to be eschewed.
• Throw away all my clothes and buy several tweed suits and sensible brogues. I might also need ‘long johns’ and trusses (I am not entirely sure what these are so I’ll check with some genuinely old people like my friends David & Mike)
• Wear a tie at all times and replace sarong with night shirt or pyjamas.
• Cultivate a grave demeanour, exude gravitas and stick to ½ a pint of bitter at pub. Getting half cut, falling on the floor and laughing hysterically are definitely off the agenda.
• No more gadgets and especially no more robots (sadly this includes voice activated battle daleks). Instead spend money on pollyfilla, raw plugs and chamois leathers.
  
• Start talking about sensible things. Subjects to include the M25 corridor, power tools and grouting tiles. Also the price of various lengths of woods (2x4 or something) and the relative merits of different makes of workbench. (NB Find out what one actually does with a workbench).
  
• Refrain from conversational topics like cannibalism, cargo cults and sexual deviancy especially on first meeting people. Bear in mind that not everyone finds medieval torture techniques that amusing.
  
• Stop going to Amsterdam. Walking tours of the Lake District now on the cards.
• Take up a mature hobby like fishing or car washing.

On the whole I don't think I'll bother becoming 50. Instead I shall study taxidermy and flee to the jungles of Sarawak.