SNICKETY

I made a mistake today by accidentally making a decision for someone else. I didn’t have the right to make the call, but I felt I had to, did, and zigged a zag.

They were very gracious about it, but also firm with me about what I should and should not have done. I hope I reacted well, and didn’t leap into defending myself with excuses. It is, after all, the right thing to do to own your part of the problem rather than try talking your way out of it.

Meanwhile, a colleague asked me if I thought people get OCD more acutely as they get older. It was fine, except he prefaced it with, “Matt, you know about this kind of thing...” - a phrase that seems more and more like a backhanded compliment as I think about it. Do I have OCD? Laughable, given the state of my flat. Does he think I’m old? Or was it just a snickety way of insulting the precisely-wired writers on the other side of the desk? I have my theories.

Snickety. Not sure that’s a word. I need it to be though, even if it isn’t. Could a computer tell what a made-up word might mean, I wonder? Somehow I guess snickety might be obvious. Flumby, ploffsome, or swipslinging not so much.

I don’t wish to be snickety though. That’s the other problem with being challenged - it feels natural to blame other people, to be snickety. I couldn’t do that today, despite longing to climb over the guilty not-currently-in-the-roomers. Call it prescience or wisdom or whatever you like, but I knew deep-down that all the not-currently-in-the-roomers were only in rooms in which I wasn’t. I thought about that greatly.

MISSING THE BUS

One of the problems with catching the Interdimensional Omnibus is that sometimes it falls through the wormhole while you’re waiting for it.

I missed the first bus this morning; the driver pulled away as I was sprinting towards it. He gave me a wave and, I promise you, a cheeky wink. I was obviously overwhelmed with gratitude.

So I waited for the next one. They’re supposed to be every thirty minutes, these portal-hopping ships of wonder. Don’t you believe it. The Twenty-Five-Past has tumbled through the space-time-continuum and not turned up, meaning I’ve had to wait for an hour. It’s as though someone took a look at me praising the merits of the Interdimensional Omnibus, and decided that the universe needed to test my patience.

Well universe, I’m doing a Job, and refusing to get rattled. I’ve used the time to write two short articles, cancel and rebook a doctor’s appointment, text a few people and tell lateness-anxiety to push off. So there.

And with that, the bus has arrived...

DILEMMA

I stopped still on the pavement, closed my eyes, and placed the tips of my fingers on my forehead. I knew what it looked like. Nonetheless I stood there, the night breeze gently switching over my face. I had to imagine myself somewhere else for a moment. I closed off the tap, I glanced at myself in the mirror. I shut the door behind me. Was the light still on? Or had it just been earlier in the evening? Had I switched it on at all?

The memory trick wasn’t working. I opened my eyes. Nobody around, thankfully - just the lamplight and the rustling leaves.

This is the worst situation to decide what to do. It’s the oven-off-or-miss-the-train question all over again, isn’t it? Risk it? Leave it? Will it be alright? What are the consequences of the worst-case scenario? What’s the wise choice? And in a season of my life where I’m not sure I’m properly chemically balanced, it forced me to stand still like a robot in the middle of the street, unable to remember whether or not I’d left the lights on in the gents at church.

When I couldn’t remember if I’d left the oven on that morning, I ran back to check, and then missed my train. I picked being late and forfeiting a ticket, over a weekend of worrying about whether I’d accidentally burned down four people’s flats. It seemed logical. Though of course, had I risked it, everything would have been fine except for me trying not to think about it for 48 hours.

This time, I had to calculate logically whether it was worth walking all the way back when I was very nearly home. And my legs were aching and my eyes were heavy. Would there be enough to pull me in either direction?

Well, chemically unbalanced or not, my little Sherlock-act in the middle of the walk home, forced me into a decision.

TATEBAYASHI

I wore my shirt with Japanese writing on it today, forgetting two things I should really have remembered.

Firstly, I work with a Japanese person. Secondly, I have no idea what the script on my shirt actually says; I just bought it years ago because I thought it looked cool.

Well you know where this is going. Shuko took a look at the characters written in red across my person, and happily informed me that I was basically a billboard, advertising a town called Tatebayashi, and one of the characters was upside-down so it was misspelled anyway. We looked it up.

“So basically,” I said, peering over her shoulder at Google Maps, “It’s north of Tokyo but not in the North north, it’s in the middle of virtually nowhere, and it’s pretty average by all accounts. Hmm...”

“It’s Milton Keynes!” she said, collapsing into a fit of laughter. To the sudden burst of hilarity from my colleagues, I realised I had been promoting the Japanese version of Milton Keynes.

“Only it’s more like Milton Koynes isn’t it Matt?” asked Tim, pointing out hilariously that one of the characters was upside down.

I’ve really got to make sure I know what’s written on me. Milton Koynes indeed.

IMPLOSION ALONE

It’s late again. At somewhere beyond 3am yesterday morning, I lay in the scratchy darkness and asked myself whether I’m really alright. Now here I am again, gathering dust in the small hours.

I don’t know. I mean about being alright. Somehow I’ve got strength to pretend to be when I need to, but I’m actually scared that I’ll run out of that. And then what? It feels a bit like gravity might slow me down and all the suspended parts of me will collapse in on themselves in public. Maybe I should let it. I’m the last person to know.

A friend of mine passed away this week. She was smart and funny, kind and brave. I hadn’t spoken to her in a long time - which made matters worse. When I found out, sudden, suspected heart attack... I spasmed into shock - a cold, unthinking nothingness. The words swam but I didn’t cry. I didn’t do anything. I couldn’t. I was in a vacuum of grief, a black hole of nothing.

That vacuum doesn’t last. After a day or so, I realised that I just needed the simplest thing: a hug. A father’s hug, like an enormous bear blanket, wrapping and folding around me, holding me tight, catching these boiling tears, showing me that love is strength and silence when it needs to be. But nobody was there. I had to face the implosion alone.

Scratchy darkness. 3am. I hope I get to sleep tonight; it would be great if I could.

VINO SBAGLIATO

I'm not sure why I'm so interested by the news at the moment, but there's a story today about some diners in a restaurant who were accidentally given a very expensive bottle of wine.

The bottle they'd actually ordered was worth £260, which, you have to admit, seems like cheap old plonk by comparison.

Here's the thing: I just don't know that I'd be able to tell the difference. I've never drunk super-expensive wine, and to me, a glass of vino that costs £40 seems opulent - who knows what I'm supposed to make then, of a glass of wine that would cost £750!

I mean can you really tell? And what are you supposed to say? Mmm... you can really taste the... bouquet of... I'm getting... Oh yes it's reminiscent of... what?

Wine is what it's reminiscent of. Presumably smooth, velvety, softly-scented wine that's £6 per millilitre.

It's as though Einstein got twice as clever. Would anyone have really noticed?

Anyway, as you can see, it was nice of Hawksmoor not to flip out at the waiter. That person is probably mortified enough already. And actually, it's probably done them all a favour - it's free publicity after all, isn't it?

I'm (obviously) no connoisseur. I like a red that's smooth and flavoursome, but beyond that, I'm really not cultured enough to care. In a world where not enough people have access to drinking water, it seems unthinkable that some people will pay so much money for a few raindrops that have travelled through a certain set of grapes in a particular summer.

Also! Don't they (famously) say that once you've tasted good wine you can never go back? In which case, all that those lucky dinner-guests have got is a taste for the high life that might as well be insatiable.

You know what? I think I'll stick to the cheap stuff, thank you.

ENGINE TROUBLE

I’m halfway to work, parked in a shady side street, hoping that when I start the engine in a few minutes, my car will be back to normal.

More car trouble, yes. More trouble in general actually, not to mention sad news all round.

But. It is sunny. The air is warm like May days should be. This was always the kind of day when you looked forward to playing rounders on ‘the field’ or school trips or picnics. The grass is still green, scattered with the bright yellows and whites of buttercups, dandelions and daisies.

It’s the oil light this time. It came flickering on as I rumbled down the hill. Then the engine started to judder. I’ve been here before - this story ends, and if walking to Sainsbury’s, buying engine oil and pouring it into the engine doesn’t work, might still end, with a clicking, a shaking, and then a violent, crunching squeal that’s the death of a combustion engine.

I’m letting it rest for a while before turning the key.

It might well be that I’m supposed to be relying more on the bus. That could be a thing. Certainly, I didn’t have any repulsion  to it. On the other hand, there are some journeys in my life that the bus won’t solve.

Still, I’m calm. I’m not worried or panicky, just prosaic. And I have a worst-case disaster plan should the engine still be in trouble in a few moments. Oh and work? Ha. Least of my worries.

SHORT-FORM WRITING

I've been blitz-writing a set of short 200-word articles for a project this week.

I'm amazed how constricting yourself to the short-form really focuses you. Every word matters - there's no room for waffle. That's why I initially preferred Twitter to flippybook - you had to find ingenious ways to express a thing in 140 characters. It was impossible to get bogged down in your own opinion; it forced you to be concise in a way that flimflambook didn't.

The latest data though shows that even since Twitter expanded the limit to 280 characters, only 12% of tweets are actually longer than 140 characters anyway! The short-form is hard-wired into the way we use the application.*

Using less space to do more work fascinates me. I hope it works in other media! With a bit of self-discipline, streamlining of communication and a little persona modelling, I reckon I can get my presentations down to a punchy minimum.

What amazed me was that after a while, all my articles were hitting the word count almost exactly. 204, 208, 190, 196 - leaving the final tweaking as a pleasant word-game.

Gosh, I do like writing.

200 words in this one, by the way. Pretty good.

*https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/30/twitters-doubling-of-character-count-from-140-to-280-had-little-impact-on-length-of-tweets/

A LOAF OF CRUSTS

Erm... have I been eating bread wrong? 

It’s just that there’s a story out today about a lady who found a whole loaf of crusts. All crusts and no slices, sealed up in a Kingsmill wrapper!

"It's not funny first thing in the morning, when you have half an hour to get the kids to school and there's no time to get another loaf," she said.

What?

You do know, don’t you, that crusts are... still bread? They’re not like the skin on an Edam or a ream of banana peel! You can still eat them!

As I read the article I started to wonder though, whether it was me that was in the minority...

“The mum-of-two posted photos of the find on [flumpbook] and friends shared ways to use the crusts and old sayings about the benefits of eating them.”

Do most people...  throw the crusts away because they ‘don’t want curly hair or a hairy chest’? That’s just mad. Isn’t it? It’s still bread! Are the kitchen wastebins of England full of loaf-ends? There’s nothing wrong with the crust!

Kingsmill (who come across as baffled as to how this could have happened, even though it seems fairly obvious) have already apologised and sent her a replacement. A replacement!

Well. I might be a weirdo it seems, for saying it but I don’t care - I eat the crusts. Every time. I’m a happy crust-crunching customer (you can’t say that with a mouthful of toast, I discovered). They’re excellent for buttering, and they stay firm because they’re a little thicker.

“Maybe I'd like curly hair but I don't want a hairy chest," she added.

"I don't mind eating them. I love baguettes with butter on them, or an end of sourdough or tiger bread, but these ends are not as tasty.”

"You can't make sandwiches with them and the kids won't eat them."

Well, yes you can. Sure it’s not quite as easy, and no they’re not as congruous, but if you had to if, for example you found that all you had in the breadbin was a loaf of crusts, I still argue that the creation of a sandwich is largely possible without sending off for a new one, or reinventing the laws of physics.

CAMPING LANDSCAPES

Instagram keeps showing me clips of people opening the zips to their tents from the inside, to reveal a grand panorama of shimmering lakes or snow-capped mountains.

"Where would you go?" asks the caption, "if you had your adventure?"

Admittedly, this kind of intimidation is a bit better than the usual crowd of impossibly good-looking influencers and their stunning, bronzed holiday snaps.

"Why aren't you here yet?" those people seems to wink from their jobless utopias in the Far East. It annoys me that they already know the answer.

Anyway, camping landscapes are better, yes, because the location is usually breathtaking all by itself as it fills the camera. It seeks no attention, nor needs to be looked at, but if you were there you wouldn't be able to take your eyes off it - that's beauty, if you ask me.

Once again though, it does make my heart ache a bit. Imagine! Round goes the zip, and there in the flapping archway of the half-open canvas is the bright, clean, fresh world: forests of pines sweeping up to rocky outcrops, mountain lakes under the cool blue sky. I'd like that.

I think recently, I feel as though maybe I've settled a bit too much for the indoors. I don't enjoy that thought, but what frightens me most is settling for it, and never realising. Life's so much more than this, isn't it? I don't ever want to lose that longing for adventure, even if I never do climb a mountain and camp out at the top.

You know I don't like social media very much; it can be pushy and manipulative, and it's changed the world for the worse I think. All of this then, leaves me wondering whether Instagram, with its tantalising 'you could be here' show-offs, is actually an inspirational help from the top of the mountain, or just a massive conceited hindrance. Is it pushing me? Or encouraging me to jump?

But then, I guess that kind of sums up the problem, doesn't it.

YELLOW WOOD

"You should do it!" said the Intrepids, eyes sparkling. The imaginary road stretched out in front of me through the yellow wood to where it bent in the undergrowth.

I'm super-tired, and probably unable to make decisions. What I need, I think, is an assistant - a logical calculator to assess the parameters of a choice and give me statistical readouts on what the best course of action might be - a robot, but better still, a sort of growing, learning, robot, able to factor in human emotions like an artificial intelligence should. But not an artificial intelligence - a sort of dispassionate... friend... with no agendas... a Spock! I need Science Officer, Commander, Ambassador, Spock!

Sigh. No. No I don't. I need to sleep better and get better at decision making. The problem is that it seems my life is converging on some very real, difficult routes through the wood, and to be honest, Robert Frost isn't really helping here.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference

(from Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken)

Ambiguous old genius isn't he, winking at me with his vague, do-what-you-want ending as he wanders off smugly down the path. He may as well have said, "Follow your heart!" - a whimsical exhortation that's usually terrible advice; my heart is no good judge of anything.

So. No Spock, no Frosty, no idea which path holds the greater adventure, and only one Lantern to light. Oh and I'm super-tired.

Perhaps in a way, it doesn't matter. Perhaps I'll never know what regrets lay down the other road through the yellow wood, and what triumphs I'd have missed as 'way leads on to way'.

Better though, to do at least something. And perhaps the best adventures begin with a good rest.

NIGHT-OWLS AND EARLY-BIRDS

Well I’m being a night-owl again. A while ago, in a roomful of people (I forget which room) we were going round asking each other whether we thought of ourselves as ‘morning’ or ‘evening’ people (I forget which people too, now that I think about it).

I was busy remembering being a child. These terms don’t mean anything at all to little people do they? You get up early, watch cartoons, you go to bed before the news: it’s a great system. So at what point, growing up, do we figure out whether we’re supposed to be night-owls or early-birds?

The circle went round. There was talk of coffee, of grumpiness, of commuting, of early-morning meetings and late night energy crashes - all the things you’d expect from a random group of grown-ups discussing the matter.

“What about you, Matt?” said someone when the time was right. I blinked out of my reverie and instinctively said what I knew to be true based on the general pattern my life has taken so far.

“Well I’m a musician,” I said. “I seem to come alive after 9pm, like it’s wired into my system.”

Certainly, tonight, it’s true, though I am quite tired. I get deeper quicker, think faster, grow more creative when the sun is down. Right now it’s about 11pm and there’s no-one really awake to talk to, so I’m buzzing. And yes, I do need to be up in the morning. And yes, tomorrow is a very busy day. But look at me.

Here’s my sneaky suspicion, based on my childhood thinking: I reckon you can choose. You can decide whether you’re going to push yourself to get up early and be brilliant before the sun, or whether you’re going to be the kind of person who loves the cool night breezes and comes alive with the quiet darkness. It’s preference, not wiring.

Oh definitely it can becomewiring! As I said to the circle, I felt ‘wired’ to being a night-owl, but I think it was wiring I did myself. I mean really. I’m a musician but I’m not exactly playing late night gigs every weekend. I’ve convinced myself somewhere along the line that this is what musicians do.

If I really wanted to, I believe I could reverse it, discipline myself into being a level above Neanderthal in the mornings, and go to sleep at sensible times. There are a lot of things that look like they’re hard-wired but I think might be completely reconfigurable. The truth is that I just don’t really seem to want to do that. So here I am, doing late-night writing.

One thing I can definitely do though, is be better at interactions in the mornings. My default is to remain very quiet until I’ve fully woken up, which is a bit like holding back a dopey bear post-hibernation. I restrain myself from letting loose the roar, and I tell you what, I’m absolutely not letting coffee wake me up either! So silent I remain often. And that seems to work. But I can do better.

And maybe, just maybe I can learn to switch off everything at night. I think a lot of good comes from sleeping well in a darkened room. Ah well. I think a lot of things; that’s mostly my problem in a nutshell.

BUTTERCUP SEASON

It’s buttercup season again. At this time of the year, the park glows yellow with a sea of flowering buttercups, carpeting the fresh spring grass. I went out today and sat right in the middle of the golden ocean.

It’s nice to see the contrasts. Blue sky, white clouds, green grass, yellow flowers - almost just the way a child might draw it, with simple colours crayoned across the paper. Perhaps, I found myself wondering, this is the simplest view of the world.

I’d like to simplify things a lot. If I feel a certain way, I don’t want to over-complicate it, analyse it, turn it inside-out. I’d much rather do the simplest, most obvious thing and be called ‘naive’ if I have to. After all, it’s always seemed to me that growing up has been largely overrated. If you don’t have the watercolours or the acrylics... get the crayons out.

Similarly if I have something to say, I really don’t want to couch it in fluffy language if I can export it more simply. Sure, true things can be harder to say, but only because we’ve trained ourselves to second-guess each other. I constantly feel as though the world should be simpler here.

I took a photograph of some buttercups close up. I was trying to get the camera to focus on the foreground and blend the grass, trees and sky out of the focal length. It occurred to me that every buttercup I found with my camera was different - intricate, elegant, irreproducibly radiant. There’s nothing like nature to show how you how the complex can be made to look so simple. 

The deeper you look, the more you see, of course. And yet in some ways, both views, whether watercolour or wax crayons, whether intricate, individual flowers and petals, or a sea of yellow under a blue sky - are exquisitely beautiful. Because I think we all are.

THE PERFECT SANDWICH

I don’t want to exaggerate, but I just made and ate the best sandwich in all of history.

Oh! The squareness of the bread! The elegant perfection of its grain, its hue, its cut - as though it had been forged by elves in the bakeries of Elrond, and then sliced with Excalibur.

This, I thought to myself, this was the end of the Earl of Sandwich’s journey: the goal, the destination, the raison d’etre, the thing! As he sat there with playing cards in one hand and a primitive sarnie in the other, he must have dreamed that there would come a day when his great idea would finally be perfected.

I sank my teeth into a corner. This might well be the day! A thousand flavours rolled across my tongue, cascading onto my tastebuds like the ocean. Who knew that a sandwich could transport a man from a funny little kitchen to the wild exotic coasts of imagination? I chewed. Before long, a smile split across my face as chunks of perfect sandwich rolled inside, each more delightful than the last. 

All too soon it was gone, the perfect sandwich, leaving just warmth and memory behind. I don’t think I’ll be able to make it again - the universal collision of events and filling and butter and bread might never be quite right. I looked forlornly at the plate and knife, still scattered with crumbs. The kitchen seemed to be glowing with happiness that it had all been involved.

It was magnificent. And yes, I ate the evidence, which means you’ll just have to take my word for it. And you know what? I’m not even sorry. It was the perfect sandwich. And I scoffed it.