WHY I’M KIPPING ON THE SOFA

You could say it was only a matter of time before one, or perhaps both of us, caught covid.

Then again, if an infinite number of monkeys with an infinite number of typewriters and an infinite amount of time can come up with the complete works of Shakespeare, then surely everything, improbable or not, is only a matter of time.

That hasn’t made me feel much better. Sammy woke up on Sunday, aching and with a temperature. A lateral flow test confirmed it. Covid, double-line, positivo for the first time in two years.

And that is why I’m spending night number three on the sofa. What’s worse is that I too have now developed a cough, although my LFTs have so far showed up negative. These last few days have seen me do a lot of washing up, a lot of meal prep, and a remarkable amount of kettle-boiling, lemon-slicing and honey-stirring - often with a stuffy mask on. She says I’m earning husband-points; I argue it’s literally the job description.

Anyway, the sofa’s not too bad. I can snore to my heart’s content, roll over and dribble, even talk in my sleep to Porter, my imaginary butler (a story for another time) while she recuperates next door, coughing in the next room while I cough away in this one.

Slice a lemon, pour hot water over it, stir in half-a-teaspoon of honey, swallow a paracetamol - instant homemade Lemsip. Can’t beat it.

I think we’ve done really well to have avoided it this far. I guess technically I’m still dodging it, though I have a strong feeling I’ll be positive in the next day or two. This cough can’t be a coincidence, after all.

However, we’ve been super-cautious, and it’s kept people around us safe. I think that’s a thing to be thankful for. Even now, although our Jubilee Weekend plans are scuppered, we’re still doing everything we can to isolate.

I’ve often wondered just how long those monkeys would actually take. Is the theory that they evolve, develop skills as sentient playwrights and craft a world of Shakespeare? Or do they just randomly hit things until the typewriter pings and then a few trillion centuries later one of them accidentally types, ‘To boo or not to boo; that is the question’? I can’t get my mind round philosophy sometimes.

Just as well today. We’ve got to concentrate on kicking out covid from our house. And that pesky virus definitely gets a boo from me, Monkey-Hamlet.

TWO FINGERS

I’ve been given the middle finger twice this week. Two drivers, both behind me, both flipping the bird as they’ve sailed on by.

Now. I’ve got loads of questions. Here’s the answer to the most obvious one: no, I was driving at the speed limit, and I think, quite normally. Let’s get that one out of the way.

Weird. The first car: small, white, lights glinting with neon. I spotted him slaloming behind me up a hill, slightly erratically. Two young men in the front, the driver probably showing off for the passenger’s amusement. I pulled into a side road to let him overtake, the passenger stuck up a finger as they raced up the hill.

Second. A red Volkswagen Golf, initially right behind me, almost nosing the boot. I decided to stick rigidly to the 30 mph speed limit to see what would happen.

He dropped back. I slowed down at traffic lights and then punched away as soon as they turned green. He followed. I went right at the next roundabout, he went left. As he turned, a very tanned arm extended from his driver’s side window and a finger told me exactly what he thought of me.

I can’t wait for the next time. What does it all mean? I mean I kind of know what the finger means, unless it’s changed since the 80s. I just can’t work out why I’m being told to swivel for no reason, by little boys who weren’t born in a year that began with a 1.

Sammy suggested my car might be similar to a local drug dealer perhaps, or that I’m being mistaken for someone else. I can’t see dealers in cars like mine though. If they’re driving 2008 Toyota Aurises, they’re not exactly hitting the big time. And anyway I’d at least expect the police to have pulled me over to check I’m not Pablo Escobar.

It might just be that the world is trying to be harsher than it used to be. Everyone in a colossal rush, boys annoyed with people who stick to the speed limit, rudeness modelled on TV and YouTube for most of their lives. Though I don’t know what they hope to achieve by the katapygon. If my driving is bad, being flipped off doesn’t help me get better at it. It just baffles me.

Plus, it’s odd isn’t it, how the more you see a gesture, the more amusing it gets. Perhaps, like Mr Bean in that film, I should see it as a kind of wave, a happy little greeting from fellow drivers who are having great days and want me to have the same. That way, I’m unaffected by the nastiness, they go on to have exactly the same kind of day they would have had anyway and everything else remains the same. Though unlike Mr Bean, I’m not silly enough to do it back.

I wasn’t actually offended either time. I’m curious about why, and I was puzzled that it happened so quickly in succession. But I wasn’t upset.

Finally, whatever happened to the two-fingers? That uniquely British insult, the V sign, the forks, the ‘Harvey salute’ - seems to have been replaced these days with the ubiquitous one-fingered birdie. Or maybe French archers have just gotten over the fact that we’ve still got all of our bow fingers intact, shrugging it off as ‘c’est la vie’.

Well. If it happens again, maybe I’ll figure it out. And maybe I’ll just smile back and hope that the finger-putter-upper has a better day than they wished on me.

WEST OF EALING

Well that’s it then. We’re in ‘West London’ now apparently. I saw an advert for my local lido, tweeting that it was just ‘25 minutes away, on the Elizabeth Line’.

Crossrail. The Elizabeth Line. It’s new. It goes right through central London and we’re on the end of it. That makes us Londoners. Come and have a lovely swim.

I don’t begrudge the Londoners coming over here, doing the backstroke and having a fancy sandwich. That’s great! Come and spend money in our town. But do we really have to be part of London in return?

For one thing, we’ve spent half a century trying to actually be a city of our own! Inverness, we lost out to. Then St Asaph. Chelmsford, Preston. Now Colchester and Bangor. And Stanley on the Falkland Islands, which to be fair is a sort of capital, but is still home to mostly penguins and a pile of whalebones.

Anyway, the point is that it’s much harder for us to get the Queen’s approval if we’re just a sort of West Ealing, subsumed into the metropolis, like Croydon or Dartford. I mean, sure, her great grandmother pulled the blinds down when she went through on the train, and sure we have a little history of monarchs statues actually with their back to the town, but how in the world are we going to change attitudes if we’re no more than borough on a string?

I wonder how Maidenhead and Slough feel about it all. They must be on the Elizabeth Line too. It’s like a tractor beam gathering all those little towns and green fields and pulling them in with its gigantic, bulging mass.

Well anyway. Readers of My West London News can get here faster than a taxi can take you from Trafalgar Square to Crystal Palace. Trees flash by, houses with washing lines, sidings and red brick tunnels, perhaps allotments with lean-tos and scarecrows. Back in the Big Smoke before your hair’s had time to dry.

I guess on the other hand, it’s a lot easier to get to the Natural History Museum. Though it’s also a lot busier. Oh, and I don’t know - why am I getting grumpy about this, of all things?

And before you chime in, it’s definitely not ‘maybe it’s because I’m a Londoner’, because I am absolutely not.

DOOLALLY

Well you know the old saying. What goes up to the Isle of Man, must come back from the Isle of Man. And for that reason I’m in Sainsbury’s car park again, waiting for my parents’ coach to arrive.

It’s late afternoon this time, rather than early morning, so considerably more people around.

The coach is late. My Mum texted to say they were running late because a woman had gone ‘doolally’. ‘Not me’ she added in brackets. I still don’t know what this means.

Long shadows for a hot evening. Cars squeak by, catching the sun with metal and glass. I’m opposite the petrol station watching them fill up. A guy in a white t-shirt, dark shorts and long white socks grabs a hose. He’s wearing sliders. That look is cool nowadays apparently.

Deolali was a town in India, where the British army set up a staging post for soldiers who were on their way home. Doolally tap was slang for a sort of excited fever men would get at the thought of returning. It might have been very fitting then if a lady on the coach had indeed gone doolally - overwhelmed with the idea of being homeward bound. I can identify.

When did cars get so shiny? I’m sure they weren’t always these glistening sleek machines. Didn’t they used to be dull boxes of white and brown and blue? Some of these are blinding as they pass by. And big too! There goes a BMW thingy, a Rav and a Kia Sportage - all in a mad rush to get somewhere on this warm afternoon. A massive European winnebago just pulled in as well - the i-821 elegance. Does a camper really need its own satellite dish?

They’re going to be a while I think. Time for me to mooch around Sainsbury’s.

The world seems busier, hotter, dustier than it did the other morning. That fresh pink sky is hazy blue and cloudless; the sun is burning shadows across the hot tarmac, and the air that was so vibrant and alive is now still and sultry as though building into a thunderstorm.

It’s not unpleasant, this staging post, this Deolali. I guess I’m just longing for home, for the freshness of a new morning and the hope of life that comes with the journey home - and in more ways than one.

POLLEN DIARIES: PART 23

“Three out of four!” I said, sniffling.

“What?”

“Three out of four on the met office app. I guess that would mean…”

“High,” said Sammy, matter-of-factly. She was right again, and the met office forecast app had proven it.

Indeed. The pollen count is ‘high’. Three out of four. One below ‘very high’.

‘The grass and nettle pollen is on the increase, with a higher risk in good weather. Spores include Leptosphaeria after rainfall.’

I’m not too bad today. At least not with the sneezing. I’ve been taking loratadine this week, which has had the surprise effect of making me weak-chested and woozy. It’s kind of awful, but I guess it’s better than wanting to slice my own head off.

I can’t help wondering whether I get it unusually bad. Lots of other people suffer, I know. Are they just better at coping? Or are they experiencing something less irritating? I don’t like that it’s hard to tell.

“Hay fever’s rough,” I’ll sniff.

“Tell me about it,” they’ll say.

But then they carry on with normal life and I never hear them grumble, or stomp around the house like a bear with a wasp in its ear. Certainly none of them talk about decapitation! They keep working, doing family, washing up, being nice to their spouses, taking their kids to school. I just want to scream, ‘THIS IS REALLY AWFUL!’ into the pollen-soaked atmosphere.

It’s a challenge either way. And I can manage myself better, even if this happens to be a much worse condition than it is for others - which, by the way, it almost certainly isn’t. I’ve just got to stop being so grouchy about it.

POLITICS

I don’t like talking politics and current affairs. It feels divisive, and I always only want to be inclusive. I’ve also seen several friends now, who’ve fallen headfirst into their political tribe, and are now happily throwing rocks at the others to the tune of retweeted likes.

They’re nice people. It’s heartbreaking to see them so furiously hating other humans: jibing and jabbing and effing and jeffing with venom, with spite, and with consonant-spitting vernacular.

They would argue of course that this is necessary. The world is in such a terrible state: the powers that be, the wealthy 1% are busily crushing the heads of poor people, driving them mercilessly into the ground, and it is righteous perhaps even required by our faith to punch up violently in response. To be on the right side of history, you must stand up for those who can’t, right?

Well.

I read Corrie Ten Boom’s book a while ago. I was struck by her sister Betsie’s attitude towards the Nazis.

“And then, incredibly, Betsie began to pray for the Germans up there in the planes, caught in the fist of the giant evil loose in Germany.”

“Whatever in our life is hardest to bear, love can transform into beauty.”

“I glanced at the matron seated at the desk ahead of us. I saw a gray uniform and a visored hat; Betsie saw a wounded human being. And I wondered, not for the first time, what sort of a person she was, this sister of mine … what kind of road she followed while I trudged beside her on the all-too-solid earth.”

• The Hiding Place, Corrie Ten Boom

I think this is why I feel sad at my friends slipping into hatred. Corrie and Betsie came to see the evil of their time as an entity that had fallen on the world, and the prison guards, the informants and Nazi workers as simply people who had been entangled in it. Everywhere they were taken, every cruel face, stern voice and terrible thing that they saw, they chose to pray for their oppressors, and they had compassion for them.

I am not saying that people shouldn’t be held accountable for their actions. I believe they should. I think I am saying that it’s much more Jesus-like to look deeper, to pray for our enemies and see them, well, for want of a better word, saved. And by that I mean saved from the evil that has ensnared them and so clearly twisted their hearts.

I guess that’s why I don’t like talking about politics. I really do want to be inclusive and not divisive. If that means standing in no man’s land with rocks hurtling at me from pro-lifers, pro-choicers, liberals, conservatives, progressives, blues, reds, Brexiteers, Europhiles, socialists, evangelicals, deconstructionalists, cessationists, republicans, democrats, croc-wearers, sandals-with-socks-enthusiasts, unionists, loyalists and just people who like marmite, then so be it. I’m going to love you anyway.

CANADIAN CANOE

I went to the gym this morning. That’s not unusual - I go a couple of times (hmm) once (okay) perhaps… once a week, these days.

Well. I have volunteered to row a handmade boat for fundraising for our church, and it has occurred to me that I might need to do some training before we hit the Thames.

The gym then. It’s been emptier recently. In the prepandemic era, it could get busy. The guys with triangular torsos would clunk heavy weights around and shout; the classes would be thundering on the mats as they did rope and kettle bell exercises, and above it all, the non-stop pounding of knock-off 80 bpm dance classics.

They’ve always got lyrics like ‘You and me we’re gonna fly, through the sky, so high, forever…’ or ‘You make me want to take my clothes off and dance through the night,’ one of which is impossible, the other might be the behaviour of someone in need of a hot chocolate and a sit down.

I like to think that behind the door where the PTs go, they’re all back there listening to Mozart and Chopin.

Anyway. I did a row. I did my classic 2 kilometres and tried for under 12 minutes because I’m cool. Good start.

The handmade boat is a Canadian canoe. I know, the vocab around canoes is confusing, but I always call an open-topped, long, 2-person paddler a ‘Canadian’ and the little 1-person thing you sit in a ‘kayak’. Am I right? Who knows. It’s one of them open-topped ones anyway innit. I’ve seen it. It’s absolutely beautiful. If it sank with me in it, I’d be more upset that it sank than I would be about the impending fact that I’d need to swim for it.

I figured out where all the triangular men were. They were in the changing room. I grabbed my bag from my locker, switching past torsos in towels, trying not to make eye contact. Orange high-vis trousers hung over the pegs and the floor was piled with heavy-duty timberland boots. Hard to tell whether their shift was over or just beginning.

Meanwhile the perpetual music pumped on. Who records this stuff? Thump thump thump thump I wanna climb into your world thump thump thump spend my time with you thump thump thump tell you that I rowed thump thump thump a Canadian canoe… 

I made that up. Next time I’m going to try 3km in 15 minutes, I think. I might also remember to charge up my wireless headphones.

BETWEEN PRESTON AND THE LAKES

You know, Nathan and his cycling friends are incredible. They set off from Land’s End on Wednesday and I’ve been tracking their progress on Strava ever since.

Today he’s between Preston and The Lake District. Remarkable! 60-80 miles of cycling every day and he’s already gone further than I think I’d be happy about even driving! I watched him through Cornwall. Then Devon went by in a flash. On Friday, he cycled over the Severn Bridge and through the weekend he’s done South to North along the Welsh borders, plus Manchester and the North West and now he’s pelting towards Lancaster, and then Windermere.

I hope it doesn’t rain in Cumbria. The lakes and the fells are beautiful, but on a bike, in the rain… well, let’s just say I’ve been sitting soaked on the Hawkshead Ferry and I know what it’s like to be drenched deeper than the bone in the Lake District. Plus, some of those hill-roads are likely to be a tough cycle.

One of the things Nathan’s journey to John O’ Groats reminds me of is that our country is wonderfully small and connected. I’ve been to the north, I’ve been to the south west. I’ve never travelled between them.

In just a few days, Nathan has cycled through several different years of holidays, of memories, of travelling with friends, all in this beautiful little island of ours. I’ve watched the little blue dot and the red line it leaves behind on Strava, I’ve google street-viewed places where they must have stopped for lunch and I’ve seen parts of the country that just remind me of good old times. I really like that.

Anyway. He’s doing great. And there’s a long way to go: I reckon they’re about halfway now, and Scotland will no doubt provide some terrain. Hats off to them, I still say!

AN EARLY START

Monday eh. I am tired.

I think that’s because I got up early on Saturday morning to take the Intrepids to the coach stop. They were on their way to the Isle of Man, and for some reason the coach needed to leave from Sainsbury’s at 5am.

“We tried to book a taxi,” said my Mum, “But they wanted fifteen pounds! It’s only two minutes down the road!”

I was happy to do it. I quite like that time of day.

The birds were in fine voice as I quietly clicked the front door shut. Sammy was asleep; I had thrown on clothes and crept out of the house under the pink sky and gilt-edged vapour trails.

The air is so fresh. There’s no sound (other than the birds) and it feels as though the world has yet to see what hope and happiness lies ahead. I climbed into the car, immediately turned the radio down and started the engine.

I feel as though it would do me some good to be up early more often. The pandemic stole my commute and made me lazy, and now that I’m a fully remote worker, I have less pressure than ever to make an early start.

The roads were empty. I sped towards red traffic lights and watched as they quickly switched to green, as though somehow in honour of me. The fifteen minute journey was done in ten, and before the clock ticked over to the eleventh minute I had arrived at the Intrepids’.

“The Isle of Man eh,” said someone later. “Have they gone for the TT races?”

I said I hoped not.

Anyway, we were just in time for the 5am coach. I watched it pull away. Weird. I kind of wished I were going with them. I’m not sure what’s on the Isle of Man but it seemed like an adventure - a journey somewhere new, a trip that might yield some stories.

I sat in Sainsbury’s car park for a while. The sun was about to burst above the dark trees and the sky was turning from soft pink to summer blue. A white plane glinted, some birds fluttered into the morning sky, and far away, Venus twinkled as though studded like a tiny diamond in a velvet cushion.

By all accounts it was looking like a very promising summer day. I drove home, back to my sleeping wife, feeling quite happy with my early morning adventure.

Perhaps I should do it more often. Perhaps I should get up once in a while to see the sun come up and hear the birds sing it through the sky?

The only downside is the delayed tiredness, the swirl of exhaustion that rippled through my weekend and crashed over me this morning.

Ah well. It was kind of worth it. I got to see my parents and I felt fresher and more alive than I have in a while. Maybe I should have asked where my fifteen pounds was? Of course not. I’d happily do that all again for nothing, even with the onset tiredness.

POLLEN DIARIES: PART 22

Oh yeah. I remember. This is the part of the year when I want to slice my own nose off to stop it sneezing.

Don’t get me wrong. I like grass. I really do. Without it we’d just have dusty soil and mud, and the park would be a rolling landscape of sand and earth interspersed with lonely trees. Grass is wonderful. You can sink your toes in it in the summer, you can roll about it and watch it ripple in the breeze, you can hide in it, you can play football on it, you can enjoy it for what it is.

But every year at the end of May and the beginning of June, for some biological, physiological, herbological reason the grass seed seems to wage war on my life until I’m an erupting mess of fury and mucus.

My nose is on fire today. My eyes are streaming. I can’t see my laptop screen and I feel as though I’ve spent the day crying. I get it universe! I’m allergic to grass seed. You don’t have to prove a point!

The worst of it is that I sort of forgot it was coming. I mean I should have known; I just wasn’t paying attention to how late in May it was. And yes, sometimes this stage hasn’t happened until June, but often, with some warmer weather the ‘darling buds of May’ get shaken about and it’s hay fever city central. And here it is again with depressing predictability.

I’ve taken a Clarityn. It’s about the best I can do for now, but I’m still snivelly and sneezy.

Is there anything in the Bible about this? You know, ‘even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of herbaceous borders…’ or Jesus healing the allergic man by the side of the road, saying, ‘get up and sneeze no more’… anything? No?

I suppose I should be thankful it is only a few weeks of the year. It’s like having an itchy jumper you can’t take off, or little imps shoving invisible pokers into your nostrils.

I will fear no evil. Right. Even when it hides in the long grass and irritates me enough to be grumpy. Here we go then. Hay fever season. Joy.

LAND’S END

A friend of mine is currently cycling from Land’s End to John o’ Groats. Hats off to him, I say! That’s a journey of about 900 miles, which turns out to be about 897 miles more than I reckon I could manage.

I’ve been to Land’s End. It’s nice; the great wide Atlantic stretches out from the rocky coastline, blue and bold, where its waves crash in plumes of white spray. There’s something wondrous about standing on the very edge of something, knowing that from here, you can go no further.

I guess it’s similar at the other end too - the wild North Sea at John O’ Groats rolling onto Scottish shores where this island ends and the ocean begins. I’d like to go someday - though I can’t imagine I’d cycle there!

Excitingly (for me) I do get to track Nathan live on Strava. It’s pretty cool watching his progress. He’s gone through Penzance, and right now he’s cycling through a place called Hayle, which is where I once slept on somebody’s floor in a suit. It’s a long story: someone got married, I got locked out, long story…

Anyway, Nathan is inching his way across those Cornish hills, hopefully enjoying the first day of his epic trip. My guess is that Cornwall’s a bit of a psychological barrier to get out of, and it will take what seems like a long and arduous effort to reach the Tamar. Thankfully, Devon is famously flat, like a pancake.*

The other thing about this journey is that it’s all very inland. I like the sea, but on this quest I don’t think Nathan will see much of the sea until he arrives at the other end. If it were me, I think I’d prefer to do, say, the South West Coast Path, or maybe a route along from Bournemouth to Eastbourne or something.

I mean I’d still collapse about a mile along Bournemouth seafront of course, but the intention would be there. And I’d have the sea on my right the whole way! Beautiful.

Anyway, hats off to Nathan. And I really like being the ‘guy in the chair’ with a map on a screen, seeing him beep up the country. There is something really cool about a road trip, and some might say, even cooler about taking one without actually having to be there.

*Don’t write in. It’s a joke.

THE DAY WE SAW THE QUEEN

I totally forgot to write about how we saw the Queen on Saturday.

“What, in person?” ask most people at this point. So yes, to clarify, in person. Through a window, over the top of the Trinidad and Tobago Defence Force Steel Orchestra, and quite some metres away, but yes, with our own eyes, in person, the actual Queen.

It’s funny to think of her as history’s second most famous face. She’s certainly the most reproduced, appearing as she does on billions of coins and stamps. Everything at Windsor Castle is sort of about her, owned by her, to do with her, and surrounding her… and yet she’s really a little old lady, somebody’s grandma, somebody’s great grandma, far away on a velvet chair, listening to the sunshine rhythms of a steel band.

We were there to visit the castle. It’s well worth a trip. Glittering room after glittering room, four poster beds and tapestries and paintings. Suits of armour, swords and shields on stone walls, vaulted ceilings embossed with knights and carved into exquisite dragons and heralds. Well, I can’t do it justice. You’d have to go to see it yourself. It’s a place Sammy and I like a lot.

We were in the Churchill Room. It’s a room with weapons and bullets and things - and it just so happens to look out over the wide green courtyard at the heart of the castle. On the other side of that court are the Queen’s private apartments, and the arched gate that opens out to the front, to the Long Walk and the grand entrance. A policeman stood there under that arch, silhouetted in the sunlight.

We’d previously seen the staff pulling down blinds over the large windows, so when we got to the Churchill Room, we did wonder whether something was afoot. Then a Scottish tour guide whispered that the Queen herself was going to be entertained by the steel band before lunching with some people from the Royal Windsor Horse Show.

Anyway. With that prospect, we decided to hang around the window. Quite quickly a small crowd gathered, and we all peered. The steel band arrived. They set up their glinting pans and gathered for prayer. Land rovers drew up, protection officers chatted, and the smart pan players stood poised and ready.

Then, imperceptibly, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, the platinum sovereign ruler of the United Kingdom and fourteen other Commonwealth realms, history’s longest reigning monarch and supreme defender of the faith, bright white hair, walking stick, dark blue cardigan - shuffled out of her castle apartment, smiled and took a seat in front of the band.

Now, I get it. Not everyone’s a fan. Some people believe she sits at the pinnacle of a class system that grinds working people into the dust; others think it’s arcane to have an unelected family living in tax-funded castles and palaces, and would prefer a more modern republican Britain without them. That’s why, later at the FA cup final, hundreds of Liverpool fans booed their way through the National Anthem.

What’s great about Britain is that we’re free to express those opinions. In other parts of the world, public dissension is rewarded with execution. Here, we let the dissenters on breakfast TV for a lively debate.

And I think that freedom of expression is in part to our thousand year evolution towards a constitutional monarchy. And in our system, the Queen is a figurehead for the nation, binding us together, comforting and celebrating and defining who we are as a people of dignity, duty and compassion.

And there she was, enjoying the sunshine over Windsor Castle and the distinctive ring of steel pans as played by the Trinidad and Tobago Defence Force Steel Orchestra.

After a while, we slipped away from the window in the Churchill Room and let others peer out across the courtyard. We moved quickly through the mahogany rooms of paintings and marble, through the glittering gold of the Grand Reception room and out through the cold stone, carpeted halls. Before long we were blinking in the sunlight.

As it turned out, we had been in pretty much the only place we could have been to have seen what we saw. There was nowhere outside where the angles would have been right or that was open to the public. Every other window was obscured from the view too, either by blind, pulled down moments before, or by aspect.

We had been in exactly the right place at exactly the right moment. And that, I think, is exactly how I feel about being British. 

FLY AT YOUR OWN ALTITUDE

So Virgin Atlantic, the international airline are running an ad campaign suggesting that you ‘fly at your own altitude’.

Now then. Despite their protestation that ‘you are born to fly’ I’m not entirely sure it’s a practical suggestion. What does it mean, do you think? Be your own boss? Don’t let anyone set the path for you, choose your way, be in the driving seat, be the… pilot? Wait, what?

Imagine if GWR trains suggested I was born to be a train driver, or that getting on the 8:02 Paddington service meant I could choose its speed. Yeah! 200mph an hour please! Live life on your terms, choose your own track! Don’t be dictated to by the simple laws of physics; you’re in the hot seat - you choose where to go!

I know what they’re up to over at VAHQ. They want us to think of ourselves as individuals who can go anywhere we choose to because of their thousands of available flights. They’re catering to our self-absorbed need to be comfortable and our desire to travel for work or for pleasure, despite the obvious fact that we all have to squeeze into those flying tubes like cattle with suitcases.

I can’t fly at my own altitude, Mr Branson. For one thing they won’t let me into the cockpit to try, and for another, I’m quite happy with someone else working out all the ‘details’ of how to get an aeroplane from airport A to airport B. Really quite happy.

And I’m not sure I’m ‘born to fly’ either. You must be confusing me with a pigeon, or perhaps Tom Cruise, whom I believe still has the need for speed and a private plane he can happily fly himself.

No. What I’m born to do is to be down here on the ground trying not to wreck the environment. I’m all for the great empowering of the self - I think we should have confidence to be who we’re made to be, but I don’t believe that confidence shows up by climbing into a sweaty bus with wings. Tom can set his own altitude. So can a pigeon. I’m happy with mine being approximately five feet above ground level for now thanks.

GOLDEN PARK EVENING

It’s a golden evening out here in the park . I’ve just been strolling in the warm sun, feeling very much in need of a Friday.  

Now I’m sitting on a bench, sun behind me, green trees blustering in front.

A man with a Saint Bernard stopped for a chat with another dog walker. The two dogs played while they talked.

“Yeah we’ve got a bigger one at home actually. He’s an old English mastiff; weighs 120 kilos and he’s basically a donkey.”

I was trying to imagine what kind of house he had that accommodated two enormous dogs. I can’t imagine what would happen if a dog that size leapt up for a cuddle, or jumped on the bed. Thunder up the staircase, howling like a megaphone, back-breaking to walk, and almost impossible to squeeze into your car. Like packing a gigantic sleeping bag that constantly wants to jump up and lick you.

At least there’d be brandy, I suppose.

Another guy goes by. He’s clutching a carrier bag and chatting loudly on the phone.

“Yeah but me knowing what I know now; it’d be far worse in seven years’ time, you know what I’m saying. Far worse. FAR far worse.”

Who knows what that’s about. There might not be anyone on the other end I guess, he might just be using his wireless headphones to talk to himself. Seems he has one of those voices that carries anyway; I can still hear him from five hundred metres away.

A couple with a border collie are next. He wears shorts, a light blue t-shirt and white trainers. She’s in dark leggings and a flowing white cardigan. The dog bounds over to me, a red tennis ball in its mouth.

That’s more like it. I could see myself throwing a ball around for a collie. The collie can see that too. She drops the ball and it rolls over to nudge into my trainers. I’ve played this game before. Not today though. Her owners call her across the park. I look at the dog then make a bemused face at them as though I don’t know what to do.

Eventually of course, the dog gets bored and bolts across the grass with impressive speed.

I’m kind of glad I don’t know anything about seven years from now. A dad and two boys push their bikes up the hill. They all look quite exhausted. Seven years from now I expect they’d all like to be back here in moments like these. That’s how nostalgia works I suppose; you don’t know you’re in the good times until you see them in the rear view mirror.

Anyway. Sammy’s coming out to walk with me in a minute. She’s back from work and ready for fresh air. The shadows are a bit longer now, but it’s still warm. I’m going to switch off and listen to the trees for a bit.

HOT TUBS AND GOLDEN CROWNS

So Harry Boiler came over. My boiler’s fine. Good to know. He did tell me about his inflatable hot tub though.

“They any good those inflatable hot tubs?” I asked, casually, as if I’d heard of them. I didn’t want one; I was just making conversation.

Harry told me how his cat had deflated the four-seater, and how they’d just replaced it with a sixer. Malibu in one hand, freedom in the other, Harry and his folks (but presumably not the cat) sit out under the stars in the chlorinated steam and bubbles, relaxing at the end of the day. Nothing finer, apparently, than a well-inflated hot tub.

Although it does cost £100 a month to run, he told me. I think you’d really have to make the most of it, especially in these eye-watering, belt-tightening days.

Speaking of belt-tightening, I also put on the State Opening of Parliament, and let it play out while I was working. This is the moment when the Sovereign comes to parliament and explains what the government intend to do over the next year. Only this year, the Sovereign (the Queen) sent Prince Charles to do it for her, due to her ongoing mobility problems.

This ceremony glitters. In comes the monarch to the Lords, to fanfares and velvet, to a golden throne and a crown on a cushion. Then Black Rod, the Queen’s representative from the House of Lords, goes to collect the members of the House of Commons. Monarchy and parliament collide. The commons slam the door in Black Rod’s face; Black Rod pounds the door of the chamber with a staff three times. It’s all symbolic of how the monarchy can’t interfere with how the country is run.

Then, when the speech about how the government will tackle the cost-of-living-crisis had been read out loud, the diamond-encrusted crown, the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Cambridge were chauffeured back to the palace in three separate Rolls Royces.

Anyway, Harry Boiler has an inflatable hot tub and after a tough day with spanners and pipes, he kicks back and sinks in. Boilering must pay well, I guess. Meanwhile (and I didn’t say this) I prefer my baths indoors, on my own, and not costing £100 per month.

Three, separate Rolls Royces. Sometimes you know, I do wonder about all that.

OOH, FIXED IT!

I like to think I come across at least as competent.

You know. There goes Matt. He can be unusual, even avant-garde sometimes, but at least he knows what he’s doing. At least he’s not going to do something that makes him look like a complete buffoon.

-

My ‘integrated camera’ on my work laptop has stopped working. It happened around three weeks ago - all I get is a fuzzy grey square where my face should be.

Mind you, the actual mirror does that to me sometimes. B’boom!

Anyway, it’s been broken - the camera, not the mirror. I did all the things you’d do: I checked the Device Manager, I updated the drivers, I checked for privacy mode, and I opened similar apps that use the camera. Nothing but blankness. It kept saying everything was working.

When you work from home of course, this ‘integrated camera’ is the only way anyone can ever see you. So most meetings I’ve been on in the last couple of weeks, I’ve explained as well as I can that my camera’s not working, including much of the detail I’ve already mentioned.

Then today, in a meeting, as I was explaining this yet again and my manager and his manager were both suggesting helpful fixes, I happened to notice that the slider lock, the catch I’d thought was for the lid of the laptop, was on. It wasn’t covering the camera, but it was on, and it suddenly occurred to me that if I flicked it, if I just pushed it half a centimetre to the right… my face would appear in a burst of bright light.

You know when you know something? And you’re 100% certain that you’re right; that of course, the universe has to work this way, it always has, does, and will? There was an inevitability about what that switch did. And I knew it. I just couldn’t bring myself to click it.

“Anyway,” I said, moving the conversation on. “I’m sure I’ll figure it out. It’s no big deal.”

“You could always ask DevOps to take a look,” said my colleague, “You might be due an upgrade I guess.”

“I’m sure I’ll sort it.”

“And you’ve definitely updated the drivers?”

“Yeah.”

“Uninstalled? Reinstalled?”

“Yep. Anyway…”

“Must be a setting somewhere.”

“Yeah, um, must be. So anyway…”

Perhaps you’re a different kind of person to me. You’d have clicked it and fixed it and owned up straightaway to not having seen it. You would have embraced the fact that you’d been a little foolish, maybe even apologised and laughed about it.

“Ooh! Fixed it!” I can hear you say, delight and wonder spreading across your face. Chuckle, chuckle, chuckle, “What did you do?” - own the silly mistake, and the moment’s gone. Good for you. I wish I had your acting skills and confidence levels.

I just left it alone until after the call. Sure enough, the camera popped into life, and there I was, back on screen. I think I’ll just not mention it at my next meeting and hope nobody asks me how I fixed it.

“What was wrong with your camera in the end Matt?” someone might ask.

“Oh,” I’ll wave it away dismissively, “Just incompetence.”

And that will hopefully be the end of it.