HEATWAVE AND HAY FEVER

We’ve had a heatwave. Hottest May days ever, apparently. Now that we’re sliding out of it, and there‘s a cool breeze through the window, it finally feels like my brain can function again, which hopefully you, me, and my manager can all agree is a good thing.

What isn’t a good thing is that the heat seems to have kickstarted the grass seed, activating the annual torment of hay fever.

I’m so tired of complaining about hay fever. Every year I go on and on about how awful it is, how I’m suffering, and how much I’m sneezing and sniffling so pathetically. This year it seems to me that moaning about it is just as bad, and I don’t want to make things worse with an attitude. It is so boring.

So, I’m challenged by allergies today. Difficult, but compared to some things people have to go through, very bearable. I have access to fexofenadine via high street pills, and we have tissues and towels and water and air purifiers. And in a few weeks I will be alright.

The heatwave nights were difficult too. I sleep deeply so it’s rare for me to wake up in the middle of the night these days. Yet on both the last two nights, I’ve been woken up purely by the heat. It’s been almost as though my body has a thermostat, clicking in when it can no longer route enough power to the sleep centre. It hasn’t helped with the grumpy attitude, any more than the open windows have. I think if it were up to me, I’d have designed the grass to spawn in winter.

Anyway. I’m pushing through.

A LATE SPRING DAY

We just went for a walk in the park.

Why is it that when you say hello to a dog, the owner apologises? Bit harsh on the dog, I think. Maybe not everybody likes it.

It’s a beautiful late spring day. There’s just enough breeze to hold back the scorch of the sun, and it ripples its way through the trees, flicking the leaves so that they look silver. The air’s warm like a comfortable blanket, and the clouds hang lazily, too slow to move from the view of green and gold below. I know the feeling.

I’ve been low recently. Chemical maybe, circumstantial perhaps, but low either way - depressed, as one person was inclined to say, hopeless and inadequate as I’m inclined to admit. I can’t exactly tell you why or how my brain has led me to conclude it, or what triggered it, just that there is so much going on in my head and my heart, it seems likely that the part of me that looks on the bright side has just… run out of fuel.

So days like today are good. Getting into Brain of Britain is good. Sunshine, green grass and blue sky are all good. Dogs that come to say hello to you are wonderful - and I always get the impression that if they could talk… they would make be the best therapists. Don’t apologise for them.

Speaking of which, I will almost certainly get some therapy. I’m far from ashamed of it; I think it should be for everyone! It’s not an admission of weakness, it’s a revelation of humanity and wanting to be a better person. I’m all for that.

How come I never noticed the beauty of a May day when I was young? Did exams wreck the whole thing? Did I just sail through those summery days unaware of the unique beauty outside the window, too concerned about French and Algebra and Thermodynamics?

Well. There it is. And long may we walk in it.

BRAINS PART 7: ACCEPTED

I’ve not really been able to write about Brain of Britain much, due to not being sure whether I should. After last year’s news that the production team had left, I let the whole thing go. And then a few months ago I got the chance to apply again.

I did an online audition (let’s call it a quiz and a chat with some Radio 4 listeners on zoom) and didn’t hear back. They said I might not. That’s fair enough - there must be plenty of people more suited to a high level radio quiz than me. I was, if anything, just relieved. Okay, slightly rejected, but not enough that it bothered me. Even this week I found myself wondering whether I would reapply again next year, and quietly concluding that I probably would not.

Well. Yesterday I got an email to say I have been accepted for 2026. More than likely (if the dates work out) I will be one of the 48 candidates.

How do I feel? Well my reaction was a sinking feeling - not because I’m disappointed or anything, but mostly because all that pressure I’d been relieved of came flooding straight back. Don’t misunderstand me - excitement too. After all this has been a long journey, and it was something I very much wanted to do. It’s just now a bit real.

I’d really like this to be fun. I hope it will be. I’ll meet some people, learn some things. Looks like I’ll need to go to London for my heat but I’m not certain of the date yet. Will I get an answer wrong that all my friends listening will know? Probably. Should I even tell them I’m on? Probably, though it won’t be broadcast until Autumn I think, so maybe they’ll have forgotten by then. Is it a good thing for me to do, to challenge myself and do something a bit different? Course it is.

THE RULES ON THE BUS

When I was a child, there were three things that I wasn’t allowed to do on the bus. I remembered them today, as the S3 pulled along the Woodstock Road.

The first was never to talk to the driver when the bus was in motion. It was printed on the partition, just above where it told you the capacity of the vehicle - upstairs, downstairs, and total standing, laid out in a way that made me add up the numbers.

It didn’t say why, but of course I must have been told that I ‘shouldn’t do anything to distract the driver’.

No fear! I was too shy to talk to relatives, let alone the grumpy stranger in the driving seat! No, the only things I have ever said to any bus driver in the last forty years have been: the name of a particular bus stop, “Return please”, and “Cheers!” which is of course, obligatory.

The second thing I was never allowed to do was to ring the bell if someone else had already pushed the button. Funny. I still remember the orange font of the ‘Bus stopping’ sign. This morning as my stop approached, I realised it had already lit up. Someone in front of me then curled their fingers around the pole and pushed the Stop button regardless, causing the bell to ding ding, and me to remember with a gasp, the stern instruction not to do this.

I know there’s a different kind of person out there, who, when told not to do something by a parent, would absolutely go out of their way to do it. Perhaps that’s most children? I don’t know because I’m the other kind of person. I don’t think I have ever pressed the stop button on the bus when the ‘Bus stopping’ sign has been on. And I still wouldn’t.

The third forbidden thing to do on the bus was something that there is no way at all of doing anymore. But in the 1980s, it was so terrible and so severe that I probably imagined them locking me up if I even tried it. Worse than pressing the stop button twice, worse than jabbering at the driver behind the yellow (actually I think it was white) line, and worse than committing an actual bona fide crime on the bus, was peering down the periscope.

I know what you’re thinking, young people, and no I’m not mixing up public transport with a submarine.

Before the days of CCTV, the driver actually had a periscope viewer that ran up the inside of the bus, hit a mirror on the top deck and showed him a reflected view of all the shenanigans that might be taking place up there. And if you were sitting in the front seats (and of course you were if you happened to a curious and excitable small boy) you could easily peek down the tube and see the driver.

I can’t begin to describe the fear of doing that. Probably as intended, that fear always overwhelmed the temptation to do it, and I suppose, even now it would feel as bad as unscrewing the camera or sticking two fingers up at the driver through the lens.

I genuinely think there’s no force short of an angelic visitation that could have induced me to do that. And to be honest, I reckon the angels have better things to do.

So those were the three things I could never do on a bus. I descended the steps as the S3 slowed towards the bus stop. Flecks of rain spattered across the windscreen. I grabbed the pole to steady myself, then the bus came to a halt, and the doors swooshed open, in much the same way that they always have. I skipped cheerily onto the pavement with a quick, perfunctory ‘Cheers!’ to the driver. Course I did.

OXFORD OAT MILK DRAMA

It’s another Oxford Day. I found out this morning that for the last few months I’ve been using the receptionist’s oat milk.

My colleagues think it’s fair game because she hadn’t labelled it, and - this is more to the point I think - it’s been in a fridge in the communal kitchen. I still felt bad though. She stopped me mid pour, black tea steaming around the carton.

She was really alright about it. I was immediately British and told her how embarrassed I was, as she told me not to worry as it only cost 72p. Bright red and apologetic, I swiped my tea away and completely forgot to ask her where on earth she bought oat milk for 72p.

Loads of people in the office today. You know, I think I like it when there are just a handful. The noise can get unworkable with four or five cross-conversations going on and once again I had to be rescued by my white noise playlist.

Actually, I burst into tears a couple of times. Exhaustion I think. Plus, as you know, I seem to have been living on the stinging edge of tears for a long time now - doesn’t take a lot to break me. I ought to analyse why, one of these days, when I’m brave enough.

I thought about joking about the oat milk with the receptionist on my way out. I don’t know. It felt like if I had, she’d have laughed, waited for me to leave,  then rolled her eyes and called me something unpleasant. I didn’t like that thought, so I didn’t mention it.

MANLY APPLAUSE

I’m in the park tonight watching a football match. No idea what’s going on: the red team are getting heated, and the blue team are doing a lot of shouting. Thinking about it, that might sum up every football match. Nevertheless, I’m enjoying the rhythms from the sidelines.

I think I’d like to be part of a team. I mean a sports team. There’s a lot of community and camaraderie going on. The blue keeper just did a diving save and got a manly round of applause and a pat on the back. The only problem is that I’d have to be good at sports.

Maybe I could join a quiz team! Perhaps you get the same camaraderie for knowing things. Honestly though, I don’t think I have the time. Plus that sounds like committing to be in a pub on a semi-regular basis and I’m not sure about it. I think my motivation has always been learning rather than proving.

Reds scored. There was some effing and jeffing after that, as you might expect. I worked out from an early age that swearing is part of it all, and I didn’t much like it. Plus if you’re not very good at football but you do happen to be forced into playing every now and then (hello school), the effing and jeffing tends to be pointed at you. And I really don’t like that. I’d rather watch the looping projectile motion the ball takes as it’s punted upfield, gravity pulling it inevitably and beautifully towards the earth. There’s lovely physics at work in football, I always say.

And that’s probably why I don’t have a clue about what’s going on in the match. Nice to see the manly applause though.

RAGGEDY CURTAIN

I’ve found a place to sit and think. There’s a nice view, and it’s far enough from the houses to be kind of secluded among the trees.

I used to do this kind of thing all the time. I wonder why I stopped. Probably though, each of us could ask the same thing about a great many things, if we sat and thought about it for a while. Irony.

There are birds singing. Robins, blackbirds, I think maybe even the squeaky wheel of the great tit somewhere. It’s nice. A propeller plane above the leaf canopy, then the thunder of a jet engine crossing the sky.

I feel teary. It is tiredness of course, but I know enough to know that it’s like a raggedy curtain revealing backstage to the audience - not the curtain’s fault. And the teariness is there behind the scenes whatever kind of curtain goes up.

I should get back home, I suppose. Sammy doesn’t like it when I’m not there, and she’s due home herself any minute. Plus, I get the feeling it might rain. There is something in the air.

The wood pigeon now. A dark grey squirrel pauses halfway down a tree trunk, freeze-framed. Then comes the bushy tail. The sky turns greeny grey as a wind picks up in the trees around me. Yeah. Time to get home, isn’t it?