EROSION

Sometimes life feels like the act of doing everything you can to prop up a crumbling ruin.

It’s like a war against erosion - a little brick dust here, some falling masonry there. Maybe occasionally a tinkling of glass as a window snaps or something, but definitely you against time, against the relentless weather, and the decay of the ages.

What’s worse is that you remember that it wasn’t always like this. You used to sit in the shade by the round tower, picnicking on the grass and enjoying the sun. In those days, there wasn’t a danger of timber collapse. You had time. You had energy.

I’m very weary at the moment. It’s not just the body I’m talking about as a gradual ruin, though I admit it’s easy to make that leap - nor is it the house. It’s much more than that. It’s a feeling. It’s an idea of being a responsible adult, landed with the job somehow, now that the Churchills and the Queen Elizabeths and the great statesmen and the grandparents have all gone. That’s probably the worst thing about being a responsible adult; all the responsible adults have disappeared. Tag, you’re it. Pack that picnic away - here’s a ladder and a mop and a broom.

I think it’s politics too. Last night in an election debate, a member of the audience asked the candidates for Prime Minister, “Are you two really the best we’ve got?” and the room erupted, perhaps the nation erupted, with enthusiastic applause. Worse, in America, the choice this year is between two men in their eighties - not exactly the demographic you need for propping up a ruin. It’s a little depressing.

So what are we all going to do then? What do I do, working round the clock for what feels like diminishing returns? What should I be? How should I be?

We need support don’t we. We need… each other. I need to know that I’m not holding together a broken castle on my own, that there’s a reason and a joy in it, and that it means something. To be honest, I feel like I need this more than ever.

TWENTY NINE DEGREES

Well it’s 29 degrees in the UK today, and that means every person you see is legally obligated to comment about it.

“Morning. How are you?”

“Hot.”

To compensate, we’ve taped brown paper to the windows and the desk fan is whirring away like it’s about to taxi to the runway. For some reason (I’ll let you speculate) we don’t have curtains or blinds - hence the parcel paper. And hence the reason it feels like I’m working inside a sepia photograph. If it weren’t so hot, I could have donned a stovepipe hat and twiddled a pipe.

No pipe twiddling though. Just coping with the heat. By the way, I do know that 29 (84) is probably not that big a deal around the world. It’s average for LA, and in the peak of summer in Dubai for example, this is night time. But here, in Blighty it’s worthy of sweaty comment, especially as none of us ever seem quite prepared for it.

Also, this is a beautiful country of rolling green with verdant trees that sing beneath changeable skies. We have sea on every side, rolling and crashing onto glistening rocks, and breezes that blow the heather on craggy cliffs. We’re a land of fields and hedges and farms and villages, where cricket is played to polite applause, and swallows dart in and out of quiet church spires. We sip tea in the shade, we eat boiled eggs and cold ham, and we ruffle newspapers and talk about the weather. So there, California. Pah to you, dusty old Dubai!

If you need me, I’ll be googling stovepipe hats and tapping away in my cool-sepia wonderland.

YOW! I FEEL GOOD

Instagram, being the great reflector of ‘all-the-things-you’ve-recently-searched-for’ has started showing Sammy endless reels of people suddenly shocking other people with a sudden loud blast of James Brown’s ‘I Feel Good’. It’s the latest fad. And it is (apparently) hilarious.

A man is carefully sifting flour in the kitchen. “YOW!” screeches James Brown out of nowhere. Up goes the cloud of white and away go the arms flailing as he topples backwards and then emerges from the pile like a painted ghost. The woman in the foreground shakes with laughter.

Here’s a guy in a hammock by a pool. He’s clearly relaxing. But wait… what’s this… his significant other raises a finger to her lips and smirks behind a shush. “YOW! I feel good…” the hammock jolts with arms and legs as he leaps with adrenaline. By the time we’re into “I knew that I would” the guy’s sliding on the wet floor and tumbling into the pool with an angry splash. The hammock swings empty.

A lady sits at a desk. It looks like she’s invigilating an exam. Not for long. Yow! Papers everywhere. 

On it goes. Grass, water, boxes, flour, tomatoes, arms, hands, angry scared faces, prankster in stitches. Same every time. Angry man. Wife (including my wife) in stitches.

Honestly, Sammy finds this kind of thing disproportionately funny. She was squealing on the sofa, eyes close to watering, breathless with hilarity. 

For her, the funniest thing ever is a dog running off with a man’s trousers, or a guy showing off about something and then falling over in a whirl of limbs. I don’t think we can risk an episode of You’ve Been Framed without an ambulance standing by.

By the way, she doesn’t like seeing people get hurt; that’s not what I mean. But a harmless cartoon banana skin pratfall - that’s her humour.

Meanwhile I am unmoved by such slapstick antics. And I’m particularly baffled by the Yow craze sweeping the Internet. All I could think was, “Someone’s got to clean that up,” or “Well that’s just mean!”

But humour’s like that I suppose. Irony, wordplay, jibing are often funnier to me but sometimes just as painful or scathing. And someone has to clean those things up too, eventually, if you think about it. 

I like that she finds slapstick so funny. It makes it easier for me to know how to make her laugh. Though in the wake of this current fad, I guess I’d better be on my guard when I’m quietly eating my cornflakes.

RETURN OF THE FOOTY

The football’s back then (soccer).

Now. Quick question: is it less of a thing?

I mean twenty years ago or so, an England game in a Euros or a World Cup was enough to stop the nation. To be honest, I think there’s less appetite for it these days.

Hardly anyone seems willing to cover their houses in red and white, or flutter a couple of St Georges from their car windows. I mean people do, but I remember quiet streets and pubs erupting in spontaneous cheers on still summer evenings. I remember newspapers with in-depth coverage of metatarsals, and ill-advised karaoke nights in the England camp. Songs were on the telly, and adverts were everywhere - Beckham as a cowboy, David Seaman stopping a tin can in a game of street footy, John Barnes guzzling Lucosade Sport as though its isotonic ingredient magically outweighed its sugar content.

I think I must have been younger. Maybe football was aimed at me and my demographic in a way that nowadays just passes me by. We used to go to each other’s houses, to pubs, even to a farm once, where they’d rigged up a massive white screen at the end of a barn! These days, we all seem to prefer to cheer on the boys from the comfort of a laptop on a sofa.

Another explanation (other than the obvious fact that I’ve changed) is that this world itself is different. What was the geopolitical situation when England beat Tunisia 2-0 in 1998 and I almost choked on a jacket potato in the Bath university sports bar? My guess is that there wasn’t much going on. I’ve absolutely no idea.

And what about that night when everyone, and it really was everyone, stopped to watch England v Germany in the Harvester I worked in in 1996? Would that happen now? Would the staff and the diners gather around a little telly to hold their heads in hand during a penalty shoot out? Not when there’s a cost of living crisis and multiple wars brewing. The world was far less interesting back then; perhaps football was all there was to distract us from Princess Diana and the likes of John Major giving a boring speech in Brussels.

Well anyway. It’s the Euros once again: a month-long jamboree for people who like that sort of thing. I’m watching for the stats - you never know what’ll crop up in quizzes of the future. Also, I guess it might just come up in conversation, and it’ll be good to have half an eye on the things that matter to people.

I also think we’re far less comfortable being nationalistic these days. The politics of the last decade has kind of wrecked flag-waving for us, just like the hooliganism of previous years might have done. The England flag, perhaps even the Union flag these days too, has carried a bit too much sentiment, unfortunately. Maybe things are different elsewhere, but patriotism here can be a bit of a tightrope. TLDR: thanks a lot, Nigel Farage.

Anyway. The footy is on. England might win. They might not. Gareth Southgate might be a sir before the bells chime twelve; he might not. Our heroic young men (children) might get clattered by the French, or the Italians or the Germans. And yes, there might well be a good old penalty shoot out to watch from behind the sofa. All I’m saying is that somehow it seems we just don’t care quite as much as we used to, and I’m sure there are reasons for that. But then, neither do I really. And trust me, that is okay.

A MILLION POUNDS IN THE WOODS

I went for a walk today and, between the dripping green trees and mossy barks and branches, I found myself thinking about what I would do with a million pounds.

Normally, I’d be shutting that thought down. It tends to bring out questions and topics that I can’t afford to think about - do I pay off mortgages for my family? Which ones? How would I give it away anonymously? Would I tell people? Would I just take a few years off work, or throw a large amount of money into a high-interest savings account? Would my friendships change? Would I change? Would it overall, even be a good thing? It seems a bit daft to get stressed over a hypothetical situation; I might as well ask what I would do if I got stranded on Mars.

I’d been researching quizzes and got into a YouTube loop of people answering the final question on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. A young Judith Keppell calmly picked Henry II as the husband of Eleanor of Aquitaine. An even younger-looking Pat Gibson was unbelievably confident about the three races in the American Triple Crown. It was nice to watch, but as the ticker tape fell and the audience whooped and hollered, I did wonder whether Pat and Judith would know what to do with all that money.

Charles Ingram did. In his video, his wife is brought to the floor in a flurry of excitement, and she looks just about ready to throttle him. For a few moments, the major was the most sheepish millionaire ever to celebrate - and of course, it really was only a few moments. They had been cheating, and I suspect both of them knew that they had already not gotten away with it.

I knew some of the answers - not all. I’m rolling in at 80% on multiple choice questions at the moment, and that show particularly, is a huge lottery. I doubt I’d do great. My current Mastermind scores are 65% (not multiple choice of course) but that would only be enough to come second on most shows. And of course, there isn’t a million pounds at the end of the road there - just a glass bowl. Deliberately, I haven’t started cycling through back episodes of Brain of Britain yet (the show I am actually on) but my guess is I’ll be about the same - 60% perhaps. 70 if I’m lucky.

Again though. No big payout for the BoB - just train tickets there and back. It is one of the first things people ask me. Alas, not.

So, it’s probably not worth thinking about that million pounds in the woods, where the grey sky rolls and the green leaves whisper. As with everything inside and outside of all the quizzing, I’m just going to have to do the best I can with what I’ve got.

ON THE RIGHT TRACK

It was a busy day in the office today. In fact, it felt as though everybody was there, a feeling which, I’m not sure I’ve had since before the ol’ pandemic.

I’m on my way home now; waiting for the train from Didcot Parkway. The board says it’s on time but I’m honestly sceptical. It’s been a bit like that today - slightly unpredictable. I was like that too. I asked someone whether they managed to switch off when they’re on holiday and before I knew it the topic had ballooned into a chat about when people ought to retire. I span back round to focus on my work while the conversation bomb reverberated.

“55,” said one person. “55?” asked another, incredulously. 67 was thrown around as a more realistic expectation. Unfortunately. I was clicking through emails, blinking away hot tears. This career, I heard myself saying inside my head, was only ever supposed to be a stop-gap before doing the Real Thing; I don’t want this to be it. This wasn’t my story… surely?

‘Life is what happens while you’re making other plans,’ said John Lennon once. I suppose he’s right. He didn’t have as long a life as perhaps he should, but he at least managed to do something.

The train’s arrived now. It’s the same every week: it pulls into Didcot Parkway, the brakes squeal and then the doors beep - eighteen short semiquaver pips before they’re swooshed open by people anxious to go to home to Didcot. Then, I and the small handful of weary travellers with me, shuffle on to the stuffy train and wait for it to push off.

“How are you doing?” messages Sammy.

“I’m on track,” I say, “Literally and figuratively I suppose.” I smile wryly as the sun pours in through the dusty window. I guess that’s true, although I’m still not certain where the track leads and what I’m supposed to do about it.

WHY I WON’T CONNECT WITH SPAMLEY BOTKINSON

“And what would you like, sir?” said the imaginary waiter in my head.

“I’d like WhatsApp to give me the option of joining a group and seeing who else is in it before I and my phone number get added to it,” I said.

It’s a simple fix. A box appears when you next open WhatsApp and it says:

“Taffy McPherson would like to add you to the ‘Small Garden Society’ group. Would you like to review?”

Yes! Ooh Taffy, Franco, Percy, Melinda, Jeff Concrete and Spamley Botkinson? No, WhatsApp, I’m clicking no.

Then old Taffy (and only Taffy) gets a message to say that you declined the invitation. Because that is what it was - an invite…

I mean imagine a club that a small section of your friends, and some randos, go to. Then one day, you’re minding your own business when Taffy throws a bag over your head and drags you out of Sainsbury’s. Next thing you know you wake up in a tree house, surrounded by people who’ve written your address in their little notebooks. Oh and they want to talk about begonias and what type of soil you need to rehome a spider plant.

Sure you can leave. It’s awkward, but you can leave any time you like.

I know. Zuckerberg won’t do it - it’s probably technically complicated, plus it goes against some principle about not stopping people connecting or something - obviously they want to maximise and streamline that, makes it far more likely that I’ll join the Small Gardens flumpbook page or follow Spamley Botkinson on Instagram.

Well. Let’s normalise leaving WhatsApp groups we’ve been press-ganged into. And yes, family chats included I say. I mean I can’t leave mine, obviously. There’d be nobody left to make tumbleweed jokes that get no reaction. Nevertheless I say WhatsApp groups need to earn their keep in my list of things that ping at me!

For some reason the imaginary waiter has the voice of Stephen Fry. I can’t imagine he’d mind purging his WhatsApp groups. He’s got a lot of pressure to be permanently clever and witty, and I suspect, zero tolerance on spurious nonsense from loose acquaintances.

“Very good, sir,” he says, bowing away, a serving towel folded neatly over his arm. I doubt WhatsApp will make it happen though.

THE PATH OF THAT WHICH YOU SHOULD BE DOING

I’ve been on a productivity training course today. It’s a part one of two (more tomorrow) but so far, mostly as you’d expect. Turn your notifications off, use a to-do list tool, group your actions, drink tea, make toast, drift off, stare out the window… oh wait. No, not that.

I chipped in with a thought.

“Hayley,” I said, raising a hand, “I had a thought.” Hayley let me talk. Nice of her really.

“It seems to me that distractions are like questions marks about your focus. When you’re really focused on one thing, by definition you’ve convinced yourself that that thing is the most important thing you’re doing and so when something else comes along, like the doorbell, your phone ringing or a Slack message, you have to quickly decide what the most important thing is now, and either choose to carry on or ignore it. It’s stressful in the fog of not knowing what to do, who not to let down, and which task deserves you. The fog, I think, forces you to really quickly prioritise…”

She came in and agreed, though steering it expertly away from where we’d landed. I didn’t mind that. I was lost in thought still. It’s not like me to pipe up in those moments, yet there I was. Interesting.

Also, I’d accidentally tickled the edge of the elephant in the room - the truth (and it is a truth) that work might not be the most important thing in any of our lives. Harumph says the elephant. Hurrah say the quiet freedom lovers. Hayley I think, would be keen to think of distractions as things that distract you from the noble path of That Which You Should Be Doing, to bolster the corporate world and the capitalist system. I had been quietly radical, though admittedly in a way so subtle that you’d blink to miss it.

Tomorrow we get a bit more detailed. Using tools to capture actions, organising your email so you can finally get down to that utopian dream of Inbox Zero, scheduling, reviewing, adminning (not a word but you know what I mean) your life like a planning board.

Sometimes the path of That Which You Should Be Doing is hard to find, easy to question, and yes, lost in the fog. Sometimes I think it’s not a path at all but a maze, or a looping set of circular walkways, or perhaps an incomplete slab that looks like it might drop off the very edge of the world.

By the time I’d thought of all that of course, Hayley had moved the conversation on to writing stickies and depositing your thoughts into a ‘second brain’ like a notebook or an app or something.

Honestly - dumping all your random thoughts on a page somewhere, as they spew endlessly from your overactive brain?

It’ll never catch on.

MISUNDERSTOOD GENIUS

Real things that happen to me eh?

Alright then.

I accidentally ordered myself a notebook with the words “I Am A (misunderstood) Genius” printed on the front.

Sammy just couldn’t stop laughing. She found it hilarious that I’d done that. I am a misunderstood genius… To be honest, I couldn’t even remember doing it. I’d ordered a spiral bound notebook for quizzing, and that one came last week, but I hadn’t clocked that I’d left this self-aggrandising token in my basket!

It’s the kind of thing a child buys! Or maybe an aunty, as a gift for that clever little boy who likes puzzles and maths - but an adult buying that book for themselves! I don’t think I’m ever going to live it down…

“Come on then, Genius,” she said as I followed her downstairs. Brilliant.