AS BORING AS COFFEE CAKE

I wrote two blogs in draft recently. One was about how Taylor Swift shouldn’t agree to demands from her fans to speak up about Gaza; the other was a commentary on coffee cake not actually tasting anything like coffee.

Sort of sums everything up. I mean absurd and pompously opinionated. Sometimes I just think I’m writing thoughts into the void, to distract myself from the fact that nothing interesting has happened to me. I mean coffee cake. Come on, Matt.

The Taylor Swift thing was about how people are simultaneously polarised and tribalised. To belong, I suggested, was the pinnacle of modern desire, and yet along with it comes the need to conform - to whatever is left, right, Republican, Democrat, Palestine, Israel, Laurel, Yanny. I called it tyranny. It rips people to pieces. But who am I to comment on it? All these blog posts just slip down the page and then drop off into some archive even I can’t be bothered to read. What difference can I make?

Perhaps I just need to focus on real life.

Alright. I’m on a train, it’s approaching Culham. An automated voice has just told me to mind the gap between the train and the platform. I’d like to think it’s human kindness that announcement, but deep down I know it’s just a legal cover, a sort of ‘well we did tell you’ defence in court for anyone unfortunate enough to slip between the two. There you go. Now green fields are flashing by, under grey evening clouds.

You can disagree with me about coffee cake. I’d argue that we’ve all convinced ourselves that that taste is ‘coffee’ when it actuality it’s not even close. Same for tomato soup. Same for carrot cake. Same for strawberry pop. I’m literally boring myself.

But what should I be blogging about? Should I be blogging at all? If I can’t pontificate about things that I can’t change, if I can’t be silly, and my humour turns out to be about as funny as a class detention, I’m not sure what that leaves me with, other than trains and fields and telegraph poles.

POLLEN DIARIES: PART 29

Tingly nose. It’s the early warning system, kicking into action before the worst week of the year. To be honest, it’s a pretty useless early warning system - what’s coming is coming, and like an apocalyptic comet or a giant tsunami, there’s no stopping it. The best I can do is hunker down and not let myself be surprised when I start sneezing my head off.

In a few days’ time. June arrives. Nature, like clockwork, ticks into action.

I’ve taken an Allevia then. I’ve still no idea what anti-histamine does to the rest of me, but hopefully it only blocks up the parts that might let grass pollen in - fexofenadine doing its thing.

You know the worst of it is… it’s so boring! It’s runny nose and scratchy throat, it’s puffy eyes and red-raw skin, and then it’s crusty nostrils and pockets filled with spare tissue and toilet roll. And then it’s over.

But for now it’s a tingly alert, a sign of the inevitable, the approaching foe that, when it’s here, must be fought with grace and dignity. I do wish I didn’t have this yearly skirmish. It would be so nice if it could just be summer.

Anyway. Buckle up, Matt. Or whatever it is you’re supposed to do.

CANDYFLOSS AND OLD SOCKS

I went for a walk today. Now. Is it me or is there a lot more weed about these days? I stopped outside one house, sniffing the air. Sickly green and sweet, there it was, just hanging in the stillness of the afternoon.

I had two university mates who used to do it. Not often, maybe once a term. They had the decency to puff away in the shed at the bottom of the garden. I remember looking out of my bedroom window and seeing the thin wisps of smoke curling through the cracks in that shed roof. Thudding music pounded down the garden. I never smelt it though.

It’s awful. There’s a staleness about it that’s like old socks, but there’s also a kind of candyfloss to the scent - as though it’s sort of Disneyland mixed with a toxic waste plant. That’s drugs for you though - the entrance is all balloons and innocence; inside the park though, you’re on your own kids, and it’s all swamp.

It is more prevalent though, I’m sure of it. Either that or I’m just recognising it more, or confusing some spring blossom with the smell.

It makes you paranoid as well, apparently. I wondered for a moment whether standing right outside someone’s house and sniffing the air like Mutley, was a good idea.

I moved on. Don’t do drugs, people. It’ll wreck your life and your clothes will smell disgusting. Plus, statistically it increases the chance of weirdos standing outside your house and looking odd.

THE SUNLIT VALLEY AND THE GREEN WOOD

I went for a walk in the woods this morning. It’s so nice to feel the cool shade of leaves, and see the sunlight fall in patches on the fallen logs, the brambles and wild grass.

We’re so blessed where we live - just beyond, the woods open out to a view of rolling countryside. I stood watching the wheat blow in the morning breeze, lit by the warmth of the white, spring sun. In the distance, neat houses nestled in the green trees, near the undulating fields, and an occasional church tower catching the light.

You can see my parents’ church from up there. You can see roofs of their village, and trace the road behind the tree-line. I said a little prayer for them.

It’s not easy watching them wrestle with age. My emotions have been all over the place in the last few weeks, and every time I’m forced to contemplate them, it’s like opening a well of endless questions - the kind of questions you shy away from until you absolutely have to face them.

They were down there somewhere, I imagined, probably wheeling breakfast out to the front where they can enjoy the sunshine. It sounds like too much effort to me, but it does set them up for the day.

I’m not afraid of dying.

It will be sad for people, of course, but I don’t think I’ll mind the actual end when it comes. What I can’t bear is the thought that the last chapter, just before the book’s closed, might be horrible. I’d rather just close my eyes one day, feeling rested but healthy, and then wake up in Heaven. The thing is though, it seems that for some reason, most of us have to go through the twisting, tearing, humiliating pain of illness and sickness and disease, just to get there. I just can’t believe that God wants it that way.

Meanwhile, over the sunlit valley, my remarkable Dad is, apparently, doing very well with it all. I can see it. He’s refusing to let any of it depress or overwhelm him, and he’s living his best in difficult circumstances.

I walked back up through those leafy woods, letting the green light pool around me. A bird flicked through the trees, the wind ruffled the canopy above my head. Gnarled branches, ancient and modern twisted toward the patches of blue sky between the green. It’s all so peaceful.

Perhaps that’s what it means when God says he looks upon the heart. There’s something about the way you handle yourself through the last chapters of your life - peace, light, freedom in a secret place, even though out there, things look so difficult and must be frustrating. My Dad might have his attitude just about right then. Grace, peace, joy, freedom.

How is it, God, I wondered in the wood, that my heart could be so heavy and so light at the same time?

TREE REX

I realised about 30 seconds before a meeting that I was wearing my ‘Tree Rex’ Christmas t-shirt. Now, don’t get me wrong - I really love my Tree Rex Christmas t-shirt. It depicts a T-Rex (natch) playing electric guitar around a Christmas tree in the snow, neatly combining several of my favourite things absurdly.

It’s not exactly the best though for a zoom meeting in which I have to look like I know what I’m talking about. To be honest, that’s most meetings, these days. Yesterday someone said my writing set the ‘tone’ for the company, which I don’t think was a joke, and absolutely terrified me. The tree rex doesn’t fit, does it?

So I threw on a hoody and zipped it up. Seems I’d rather look like I’m on the beach in April, or heading home from the gym, than celebrating Christmas dinosaurs in the middle of May. Nobody said anything. It was too hot though; I started sweating.

I just noticed the T-Rex is wearing sunglasses. That’s cool. His arms might be too short to curl a festive solo up the fretboard, he might have existed 150 million years before Christ, he might be wearing an improbable Santa hat with fairy lights wrapped around his tail, but he’s also wearing dark glasses in winter - yeah I’m out of place, sure it’s absurd for me to be here on a t-shirt on a hot May morning, he says into the microphone, but here I am, dudes, and I’m just going to rock out.

Yeah man! I like the cut of his jib. Maybe I’ll drop the hoody for my next meeting.

NOT ENOUGH IN THE TANK

I could barely run this morning. I blame the weekend - Northern Lights, Eurovision, barbecues and breakfasts; I’m three-quarters red meat and disappointment.

It’s been hot too. I’d say it’s been the temperature you wish it actually was when you’re in one of those heatwaves that make you stay indoors - just the right side of what the English call ‘too hot’… but also hot enough to be verging on uncomfortable, but not over the line. One of these days I’ll do a temperature scale according to British people, but I’m too tired today.

I’m sure I used to have more energy. I feel as though I’m here but not really here, sort of translucent like Marty McFly at The Enchantment Under The Sea dance. Inside, I could vault a fence and run to China, but in the real world… well in the real world I couldn’t run very far at all without it feeling like my legs were weighing me down and there wasn’t enough puff in the tank.

The older I get, the more I think there might be a widening gap between what I think I can do, and what I can actually do. That is okay by the way, as long as I also know there are things I don’t think I can do but actually can. Now if I could just know the difference…

THE LAST EUROVISION SONG CONTEST

I reckon I’ve watched my last Eurovision for a while. I don’t want to sound like one of those old fuddy duddies but it’s all gone too explicit for my liking.

“I used to watch this with my Grandma!” I said, while half-naked models cavorted on stage. At times the action went beyond suggestive and crossed into overt sexualisation of a song, or an image, or a singer. When a novelty act came out apparently naked from the waste down with fireworks going off around his flesh-coloured bits, I had to wonder at what point we lost the fun of silly hats and props from IKEA, and switched them for debauchery.

Unfortunately, worse than the cavorting, and far far less amusing, was the brazen evil of some of the acts. Yeah - I mean it. Again, forgive me for sounding like a curmudgeon but when Ireland swirled out of the dark fog into satanic magic, I felt a very real, spiritual tug, and almost immediately I switched off the laptop. Whatever was going on was suddenly pounding my head with ice cold fear and pain, and I’m not partnering with that. Ever.

Similarly, Slovenia’s entry was a lady in skin-tight snake leather, with no curve left to the imagination, plus a coven of naked men writhing around her like snakes. As the camera panned past her sneering face, I saw a flash of eyes behind her own, like eyes within eyes, and I knew that some entity from a stage in Malmo, Sweden, was actually pouring hatred at me - somehow - through the screen.

That sounds daft doesn’t it? I promise you, it’s not. I saw it. We saw it. We switched it off.

Sad, isn’t it? I learned flags and capitals from Eurovision. Plus the French things like ‘douze points’ and ‘Le Royaume Uni’… I used to wonder what it would be like to write a song that got to be performed, and I learned about hooks and middle-8s and song writing! It was always silly - of course it was, it was the Eurovision Song Contest, but it was fun!

So that was my last Eurovision I think. Sir Terry Wogan’s gentle quips are a thousand years ago and my Grandma is long gone too, along with the fun. Europe, now at its most politically diverse state in maybe a hundred years, is a desolate wasteland of pornographic europop, if tonight is to be believed.

And that is a shame, because Slovenia, Ireland, Finland, Austria, Croatia… these are beautiful, beautiful places of rich history and stunning scenery! And I think that’s how I want to think of Europe.

I told Sammy, and my friends, that I simply don’t want to watch it next year.

“I honestly just wish I was having a worship time instead,” I said, texting. I mean it. I really do mean it.

THE CURLY-HAIRED BOY ON THE TRAIN

There was a boy on the train yesterday. Maybe 16. Grey joggers, white t-shirt, black trainers. He had the regulation curly hair on top and shaved back and sides, plus a young, round face, and clear, green eyes.

The train was slowing into the station as he moved towards the door, accompanied by a girl whose face I couldn’t see. She had her back to me. They were talking.

“My Mum’ll get fined if I don’t go in and do my GCSEs,” he said, clicking. His tone was two parts defiance, one part sadness. She asked him if he was going to go back to school anyway. He swore.

“No way I’m going back there,” he replied.

“How come?”

The boy used an old-fashioned term I can’t repeat but he implied that school was basically full of people he either hated or were universally unlikeable. Something burned in those green eyes. He turned and looked at me for a half second. I smiled, carefully.

They got off the train. I followed, hopping down onto the breezy platform. How terribly sad, I thought. For some reason, I was imagining his Mum, maybe taking a photo of him outside a front door. Curly hair, green eyes, school jumper, shiny shoes. 2013-ish… 5 years old, excited perhaps about starting school. Maybe her, teary-eyed.

What happened? How did he get here, to this train, with this friend? What journey connected that September day to this? And what would be next? And what would I say to someone like that if I got the chance? I believed I was seeing a future regret being lived out, right in front of me. And the curly-haired boy seemed unaware of it.

What are you supposed to do in those moments? It feels like a God-thing, but all I’ve got is a sort of sinking feeling. I had about half a second to say something in the moment, and I was in minus-numbers on the bravery scale. I don’t much like the thought of being told to F off, and I wouldn’t have said anything if I’d had ten minutes, probably.

Plus half a second? Hey don’t throw your life a- … You’ll really regret not going - … Think about your m…

Yeah. Statistically going to get my head kicked in if I start eavesdropping on teenagers on the train. I hope he does at least find a path to education, something rewarding, anything that helps.

I think it’s probably just another moment for me, connecting with a glimpse of God’s heart for people. It’s strange to say, but I’m also a curly headed boy on the train - complete with my own set of regrets.

The summery breeze blew across the platform as I headed for the station car park. Sammy was waiting for me, beaming, happy to see me after a long day at work. I unplugged my AirPods, flung my rucksack off my shoulder, and climbed into the car. I smiled.

FEET OF FLAME

I think I’ve got precisely two ways of walking up stairs. I worked it out today on my way into the office.

By the way, a big old raspberry to anyone who thinks my life is dull. If anything proves what a rip-roaring, roller-coaster of a time I’m having, then it’s surely this.

Alright. So Method 1 is the full on bound up two stairs at a time. I do this at the station, especially if the train is slowly rolling in on the platform I’m heading for. It feels good; much like striding on the moving walkway at the airport and pretending you’re a giant. In some small way it also feels like free cardio too - lunge.

Method 2, I’ve realised, is more measured. I do this one on the way up to the office (it’s on the second floor). Why not take the lift? I don’t hear you ask. Well, friends. It’s not the nicest lift. And it’s mostly mirrors.

No, my lovely office-stairs-method is one step at a time, yes, but I’ve noticed that I’m using only the balls of my feet. All the weight, all the pressure is carried there, one foot at a time, and weirdly, only on the front 20% of the step. My heels hover off the edge, probably quite dangerously. The toes push, the foot bends, up I pivot.

Now. Am I setting myself up for a nasty accident? Bounding up like an excitable puppy at the railway station feels like a boyish recipe for disaster. Tip-toeing my way up two flights of concrete steps in a shared office space - seems risky.

I need to put my whole foot on the step either way, don’t I? Plus, I don’t think I should rush. Most often there’s no real need.

Funnily enough I haven’t considered how to walk down stairs yet. I think it would be mad to take them two steps at a time (though no less dangerous I suppose than my current methods), so I probably tipple down them quickly, like Michael Flatley. Though I bet he does a little Riverdancey pirouette at the bottom.  

I’m often compared to Michael Flatley, you know. It must be the sequins.

MAYBE ONE FOR THE EGGHEADS

Look, I don’t want to go on about this, but in an episode of Mastermind once, Clive Myrie, the presenter, said that, “Out there in the light [outside the studio], two minutes is a span of time in which you can boil an egg...”

I looked it up. The higher the altitude, the longer it takes to boil an egg. That’s because of air pressure - where the air is really thin, there’s less energy in the atmosphere, so you have to provide more heat for longer to get the water to boiling point.

The lower you are, the more air is stacked up over your head, meaning you can boil an egg much faster. Given that the Dead Sea is pretty much the lowest point below sea level, you’d have to assume that that’s the fastest place to boil an egg. That’s what I looked up. Guess what? 198 seconds.

Three minutes and eighteen seconds on the shore at En Gedi. My friend Paul and I went there once - we didn’t once consider taking a camping stove and a stopwatch. Seems like a missed opportunity now, doesn’t it? Oh well.

Still, not two minutes though, is it, Clive Myrie? Or is the Mastermind studio buried so far underground that you can assume ‘out there’ maybe in the green room, deep below Salford or Glasgow or wherever it is, it’s possible to boil an egg in two minutes? I still doubt anyone’s tried it.

If it were Catchphrase or Tipping Point, I might be more inclined to chalk it up as host patter, with a cheeky wink at accuracy. Those shows are after all games. Not Mastermind though - the nation’s most revered and longest running television quiz show. That needs gravitas and precision - otherwise how can we believe the question setters aren’t just scrolling Wikipedia, or double-checking with a Year 2 class, or just guessing?

I know. There must be other things you can do in two minutes: throw laundry in the machine, eat a banana, or, download a podcast.

I like a soft-boiled egg. I’m not sure I like it when it drips out of a watery shell in a lukewarm gloop of albumen and slimy yellow yoke though. I think if you’ve started, you should finish… and that means at least three minutes, eighteen seconds.

And no passes.

THE FIFTH MONTH

It’s suddenly hot. Alright, not heatwave hot, but the thermometers are all showing a nice 23 degrees in the house, and through the open window, the air is static enough to pick up the fun of distant children and a rumbling aeroplane.

Must be lovely up there: cumulus clouds casting fluffy shadows on the fields and glinting motorways; above, only the bluest of skies.

Too early to call it summer? I’m tentative, but there’s no doubt that May can sometimes be exactly that - sometimes the entire summer happens in this month, and all that follows after it is scorched grass, monsoon rain on the flower-show roses and school holidays in raincoats and model villages. May has the best of it, so why not call it what it is?

I think, if I were ranking the months in order, May would be about fourth or fifth. Top-half, for sure, but memories of exams and hay fever keep it from real glory. And let’s be honest, it’s never going to compete with the likes of December and September.

For me though, it’s got a good balance of fresh trees, hopeful skies and warm afternoons. I could do with some of those.

THE STRANDMON PACT

I bet there’s a Swedish furniture designer somewhere who randomly just cackles to himself every now and then. Sinking back into a comfy armchair, swilling a glass of something in a crystal tumbler; pushing a trolley around a supermarket, watching a ball game, just gently in unexpected moments - he chortles to himself as though somewhere far off, he’s pulled off the world’s most devious practical joke.

Meanwhile, in England, his greatest and most Machiavellian project of course, is being pulled out of gigantic cardboard boxes by couples unaware of the terrible pact they’ve entered into.

On the one hand, the promise of a cosy chair to settle into on those dark wintry nights - a repose to write and think and read and draw, curled into the sturdy, soft embrace provided by its smooth fabric and elegant arms. On the other, the descent into the knee-crunching, arm-twisting, finger slicing argument-filled Mephistophelian bargain of actually having to assemble it.

Here’s the thing: the Strandmon only has four main bits to it. It really is the simplest piece of IKEA furniture, and in theory it ought to bolt together like Lego. Nope. Today, we both were upside down under the seat, twisting screws into holes we couldn’t see, and at least one of us (okay, me) was huffing and puffing about it as though being put through a medieval trial of character.

Every joint, from finger to kneecap felt involved. And the worst of it? It’s actually the third time we’ve bought and built one of these things - one didn’t survive the sewage flood and this was its replacement. Fool me once, says the wise man, shame on you; fool me three times, cackle away in a Swedish supermarket.

I reckon it would make a brilliant session for marriage prep classes by the way. At one end of the church, the vicar with a stopwatch; at the other, sparkly-eyed couples with IKEA flat packs. At the end, they all sit round in a circle of Strandmons and discuss what they’ve learned about themselves.

My knees hurt, and I think I got sawdust in my eye. Not to worry - at least there’s somewhere to cosy up now. Sammy gave me a high-five, then we cleared away the rubbish and shuffled the chair into its new corner in the kitchen.

It had better be comfy. Otherwise I’m booking a grumpy ticket to Stockholm.