TERRY NUTKINS

“Oh,” I said, looking at my clothes. I was wearing a dark green t-shirt, a gilet, jeans and sturdy boots. “I’ve accidentally dressed as Terry Nutkins.”

“Who’s Terry Nutkins?” asked Sammy.

Unbelievable.

THE KIND OF DAY FOR BUMBLEBEES

I think it must be sports day at the school down the road. Through the still air and the open window, I can hear a man with a loudhailer, accompanied by whoops and cheers from a crowd of young voices.

It’s another summer day here - 27 degrees, light wind, blue sky. Probably just about perfect for a school sports day. But probably not the day for me to take a quiet walk around the park - the school playing field adjoins it.

This is the kind of day for bumblebees I think. It’s a lazy sort of afternoon, the kind where a bee might buzz in, circle inquisitively and then fly off again in search of lavender. Bees don’t worry about sports day.

I don’t suppose they worry about the news either. Over the weekend, the USA bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities - took them right out, with bombs so heavy they can tunnel through metres of rock before exploding. I wonder whether it’s changed the world, perhaps terribly, perhaps not. It’s complicated - and nobody knows what happens next.

Somehow it seems important to me that sports day continues, and bumblebees buzz, and swallows dart between the eaves. It’s hard to believe it’s all part of the same world, the same story, isn’t it?

The kids out there are really cheering now. That would have been me once - pounding down the track, shiny baton; pale, thin legs in the hot summer sun. It mattered a great deal at the time, I seem to remember. But the memories are sepia fragments, snapshots of an old world now - it really didn’t matter half as much as I thought it did. I’m glad we had it though.

THE CONCEPT OF BREAKFAST

“Would you like me to explain the concept of breakfast to you, sir?” asked the waitress. Now that’s good service; philosophical discussion, easy side up.

She meant of course, the mechanics of breakfast; how I as a breakfaster could order tea, then visit the buffet. And so I did. 

I’m at the fancy hotel in St Andrews. It’s hard to describe just how fancy it is, other than to say that the people on the table next me were talking about golf and CEOs pulling in three-million dollars and using it to finance storm-chasing. I thought that might be city-jargon for some high-level wheeler-dealing, but no, it turned out to be chasing actual tornadoes across the Midwest. So I am here, yes. Fancy hotel. But I am out of my depth.

That feels like a bit of a theme. I’m out of my depth socially too. I just don’t quite know what to say to people - work people, I mean. Coupled with the blinking faces of colleagues who don’t really know who I am, and it’s a bit awkward.

For me, the concept of breakfast is patience. You wait through the night, hoping that the sun will rise and light your way. And then, gloriously, food, sustenance, orange juice, tea, bacon, coco pops and this morning in Scotland, haggis, which I was surprised to discover, is simply the inside of a spicy sausage. These things mark the end of night and the first etchings of a brand new day with all its opportunities. Maybe I should try going over and above my shyness today, and talk to more people. 

ONE TRAIN TO GO

Couple of hours to go. Pfft. Shortly after I wrote that, the train slowed down outside Newcastle and an announcement bing-bonged into the carriage to say that the train ahead had ‘encountered’ an ‘obstruction on the line’. Could only really have been one thing really couldn’t it?

Next thing we know, the train rumbles back to Newcastle where we’re instructed to wait at the front of the station for a ‘rail replacement bus’.

I’ve always thought those things out to be called ‘train replacement buses’. Today, they could have been called anything you like though, as after an hour’s wait, two of them turned up with the ambitious plan of taking 300 people to Edinburgh. I was in the queue for the promised third invisible coach when an announcement went up that the line was now open and that we should all go back inside Newcastle station and get on the next available train from Platform 2.

What followed was what I imagine Glastonbury’s like when Beyoncé turns up unexpectedly. Either that or a rumour spreads of a usable toilet. The stampede for Platform 2 began.

Now by this time of course, two more trains behind ours had had to terminate at Newcastle as well, so the 300 people had ballooned to a crush of probably 800 people, running with cases for the train.

I decided to wait for the next one. People were hanging into the train, cramming themselves in. The guards had to call it a day in the end and got the remainder to stand back behind the yellow line.

Where is my top hat and copy of Bradshaw? How is Mr Gladstone getting on, and what will become of the Irish question?

The next train was slightly better. I managed to get onto it but it did mean standing up for the next two and a half hours. I’ve arrived at Edinburgh Waverley now and I’m taking a break with a cup of the old earl grey tea. It’s very nice to sit down. Pretty much everything since arriving at Newcastle four hours ago has been standing up.

One more train then to my destination. Then one short taxi. This has been horrendous, but I have done my best to remain as thankful and as positive as possible - that stuff really matters.

Postscript. I just spilled hot earl grey tea down my t-shirt. Oh the Victorian inventions are really testing me today, it seems. Thankfulness eh. It’s hard work sometimes.

SHUFFLE ABOARD

I’m on a train, barrelling up north. Third in two days. I’m off to a work function in St Andrews, and so at the end of this train, Edinburgh, then a connection across the Forth Bridge.

I can’t imagine what the Victorians would make of this. At the beginning, it must have been marvellous, as though the world were changing with shiny engines in clouds of steam. The dizzying spin of trees and fields, the colossal power of a locomotive pounding its way through the lazy English countryside. It must have been like living in the future.

It didn’t feel futuristic yesterday when I got on at Birmingham New Street. I was standing in the middle of a long carriage, case between my legs, rucksack bulging from my back. There must have been 200 people on that train, and only 100 seats. Not exactly the golden age.

It did get better. But it hasn’t done much for my enthusiasm for trains. Actually, I’m probably a bit bored of them today - lugging your case about, squishing into a seat, standing in the aisle, trying not to sneeze. It would be alright, save for the overcrowding. Was it always like this? The modern system, the inevitable conclusion of Victorian wonder, is of course, capitalism - and that means selling more tickets than there can possibly be room for, and expecting the ticket holders to just shuffle aboard and get on with it. Which we do.

I wonder if it will happen with space travel? Will the novelty of rocketing to the moon wear off? Will passengers file miserably aboard rickety shuttles and not even bother looking out of the window? Will there be companies profiteering from commuters who have to take laptops and spreadsheets to Mars? I reckon that’s how today’s kind of train travel would look to those wide-eyed Victorians who weren’t sure whether 60mph would kill them, but were still excited to climb aboard and find out. How did it ever get so dull and so lifeless when it started so brilliantly?

“We are now approaching… Darlington” said the automated announcer. Darlington. That’s one end of the Stockton-Darlington line where it all began isn’t it? Well. That’s apt. The train squeaks into the station and pulls slowly to a halt. Couple of hours to go I reckon.

POLLEN DIARIES: PART 30

I’ve not been too bad with the old hay fever this year. You know me - usually I go into snotty detail about how the flowers are beating me up and I want to slice my own head off. Well. Thankfully I’ve been spared the worst of it.

I am however, suffering. This morning I woke up with a throat that was drier than a ship’s biscuit. No, wait - a ship’s biscuit that got accidentally left out on the poop deck. In the sun. In the South Pacific. All scratchy and angular and crisp - a medieval hair shirt of a biscuit; a rich tea that would crack if you smiled at it. That’s how it felt. I must have been snoring like a chainsaw in a death metal band.

The last two days have been difficult. I’m bunged up today, hot and stuffy and sniffly. I’m not sneezing but my eyes do feel hot and tired. Hey max (Vaseline) is helping, but I’m not sure whether the fexofenadine isn’t simply sealing up my nose to stop pollen getting in. I feel like a little free-flowing air might help, but I also feel like a kid in a horror movie who’s been told not to open the window. Actually, that would be the title of it probably: Don’t Open The Window.

Why do people watch that nonsense? Sorry if you like it; it’s not for me to call it nonsense. I just like being able to go to sleep without nightmares and turning the lights on.

Anyway, out there beyond the window, the horror is grass. And I don’t want it to come floating in here.

Come to think of it, a ship would be a really good place to be in June. A thousand miles from hay - no breeze could carry it on the wind. Sea air, night and day, pals singing shanties round lanterns and barrels, clear heads, eyes lucid and nostrils to the wind. Just don’t scoff the ship’s biscuit.

SHOWER GEL

For a reason that's lost in the mist of time, we've got a small bottle of chocolate shower gel. Chocolate. It smells like chocolate and it looks like chocolate. I used it for the first time today. It might well be chocolate.

It does feel like a prank, doesn't it? I doubt it would take much practical nous to print up a label and squeeze some actual chocolate sauce into a bottle. And someone did give it to us - though admittedly, someone who I don't think is particularly into pranks. But it's possible I suppose that someone already did the fun bit and then passed it on to them for a laugh?

It's smooth stuff. When I squeezed it out, it plumped out into a brown pool in the palm of my hand, exactly the way a sort of free-flowing chocolate would. I used it, and then watched it rinse into the bathtub, worryingly brown, incongruous and troubling against the white. Perhaps in the 70s when bathroom suites were primrose yellow, avocado green or yes, chocolate brown, the introduction of such a rusty-looking fluid wouldn't have bothered anyone. Somehow though, it's all wrong isn't it, on the white porcelain. Without being too indelicate, brown shower gel's asking for trouble.

There is a way to tell whether it's chocolate or not. It moves like it, it looks like it, and it definitely smells like it. It didn't even occur to me to try tasting it today. To be honest, I'm not sure I want to - which probably is enough evidence, if I think about it, that my subconscious knows what's what. My skin does too, as it goes.

ABRUPT FORWARDNESS LEVELS 1 AND 2

“Do you want an apprentice?” asked Bossman out of nowhere. He just appeared. I haven’t seen him on the train for a while and to be honest, I had forgotten about his… abrupt forwardness.

It’s my own fault; the other day I told an American that I appreciated their kindness, after they’d emailed me with a message that said, “I do not like your work. Let’s chat.”

Now that was abrupt forwardness! But I’d been surprised at myself for finding it genuinely refreshing. The bossman on the train had suddenly jumped into more abrupt forwardness as though I was just kicking off level 2.

I slipped my headphones out of my ears and relaxed my startled face. His nephew needs a job. 

The conversation on the train as Oxfordshire flew by, led inexorably to me actually finding out Bossman’s name; he added it to my phone in case I found an opportunity for his nephew to apprentice as… well, I’m not quite sure what he thought it is that I do. Cyber security something or other? (I think he said).

Bossman had “thought of” me (a random bloke whose name he didn’t know by the way but who admittedly sort of works in cyber security) and had then been determined to ask me whether I could help his nephew.

I’m still going to call him Bossman.

I think you’ve got to be smart with ‘abrupt forwardness’. It’s always context-based, and, like using a laser to crack open a walnut, it might not be as appropriate as it is effective, and it is worth considering carefully.

I didn’t say that to the American. No, if anything I thanked them for the ‘laser’ because I’ve never seen a ‘walnut’ so precisely sliced. They did apologise though, so you know, it was kind of alright.

As for Bossman. Is it weird that he still doesn’t know my name? Probably. But easier than the other way round.