Thy wish, Harry, was father to the thought

Tangible events are rarer in old age. We contemplate, we wait for the unspoken, we doze. If action filled our earlier years we may be forced to find quieter alternatives later on. Are we adaptable enough for this?

How about: thinking? In youth, thought seemed as natural as breathing, hardly worth thinking about. A jeu de mots! Are we on our way? Not really.

Purposeful thinking is hard. Quite distinct from daydreaming. It requires a subject. With possibilities. With blank spots not yet filled in. Marked out in logical steps.

Let the subject be: thinking! A good choice, offering infinite possibilities. But should we first define thought? That is, apply our mind to it, not Google it. Immediately difficulties are apparent. Thought seems to be a dynamic sequence. But of what? Images? Spoken words? Written words? Music? Mathematical statements? All these things and more?

Obviously, thought – with all its implications – is too enormous for a retired journalist (A shallow profession in many people’s view.) who has reluctantly put aside ski-ing and long-distance swimming. Understanding thought may be enough.

We lurch forward. We think to arrive at a conclusion – ie, information that may benefit us. Ironically the conclusion must come first, it is the target we aim at. With the bow, arrow and force applied to the bowstring. What might the first step be? A forest of signposts arise. Let’s choose To History. Have I ever thought successfully?

I have. I read a book so vivid, so comprehensive, so important I felt honour-bound to arrive at its essence and to convey this to others. My debt to the author. The book’s essence was not stated; articulating it was up to me. Hard abstract work conducted in the vault of my mind.

Today, I faced my next blog post.

Mr Little's last

Until I left school for good and joined them, adults bored me. They talked about politics, food rationing and events which happened pre-war, none of which impinged on my often imaginary world.

Mr Little, the local cobbler, was different. Spry, eternally in motion, he welcomed me to his solitary and esoteric workshop, listened to what I had to say, commented, then added his own thoughts, just as if we were the same age. It all happened more than seventy years ago but I seem to remember discussing the attractions of the countryside and of biking.

As he talked he worked, trimming the overlap of a newly attached shoe sole, the hook knife slicing through thick leather as if it were uncooked pie crust. In the corner stood his roller press, lower roller concave, upper roller convex; it impressed a shallow dent on to a shoe sole for reasons I have never investigated.

Mountains of discarded leather offcuts rose from every work surface. On a shelf, covered in thick dust, was a pair of brogues, brought in for repair and never redeemed. The pungent smell of leather has lasted me a lifetime.

It was Mr Little’s own peculiar universe, a rarity for other unrelated reasons. How few adults have the ability to address young people as equals; most patronise, wag an admonitory finger, jollify falsely. I am guilty of all these defects. Yet Mr Little (I’m ashamed to admit I can’t be sure of his surname) responded enthusiastically, revealing he had shared my experience, demonstrating an unspoken bond.

Those few conversations, which ended when I was 12 and moved from the area, must have affected me beneficially, though I can’t say how. But I feel the warmth even now. See his face lighting up. So here’s his tribute.

See also the explanatory re-comment regarding our recent whereabouts.

Wa-hey Hay!

Our fifteenth Hay Festival covering some 180 one-hour sessions over the years: novels, poetry, movies, chamber music, physics, biology, technology, language, fashionable ideas, politics (including visits by Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton), sociology, the law, history and general fame - anything that might suggest I'm a workaday polymath on the lookout for a molehill to dominate. A guttering candle amidst encircling gloom.

One new feature this year - policemen with machine guns, for anyone's a target these days. Even I may be seen as a threat by a narrow-minded cult, blown to bits as an example to all wouldbe-intellectuals bestriding the border between Wales and England.

I ponder my funeral, supervised by members of another cult with all the wrong ideas. It's the clichés I'd resent. "He died while doing something he loved." Bollocks! My guess is dying occupies the whole of your mind; the surroundings are irrelevant.

What impact has Hay had on me? Flicking through my Hay coverage in Tone Deaf and its predecessor, Works Well, I am horrified by what I have forgotten - great, great encounters crowded out by memory banks succumbing to the passage of time. Best concentrate of what I can remember. A presentation on chromosomes which I managed to hold on to for all of ten minutes. John Updike being lordly and Seamus Heaney being charming. An elegant Frenchwoman who translated for Sarkozy, former French president. Germaine Greer's wilful interpretation of Marvell's "To his coy mistress". Despair and incomprehension at Brexit. Resurrection of the past and a shedload of fearful guesses about the future.

A worldwide cultural phenomenon in a small border town with 30 bookshops. A glacé cherry to decorate retirement.

Searching for coherence

Since I retired my birthdays have been celebrated in some style. Once at the garlanded Stagg Inn at Titley, then at The West Arms at Llanarmon Dyffryn Ceiriog, deep in rural North Wales where the seven-strong group stayed the night. Often transportation is a major cost but VR and I have never stayed our hand for what else might we spend our assets on? Participants travel from Gloucester, Luton and Tavistock.

Both the above watering holes were fancy-schmantzy and the socialising was in my estimation a success. But money doesn't always make a dinner cohere. Poor quality champagne at one equally chic place led to an evening of disappointment, though my relations disagree with me and say things went well.

This time we demotically took the bus down to central Hereford, called in for a pint at the Lichfield Vaults in Church Street, then dined at Simply Thai, now a favourite of ours. They do a spicy soup based on coconut milk... Best of all it worked as a family gathering, I could tell. This type of atmosphere is always hoped for but never guaranteed; blood lines do not necessarily bring about comity.

Presents can be difficult. Last year, extravagantly, I asked that my car be cleaned and valeted. It rained. This year the sun shone and the Poles who run this service put their heart and soul into it. I stepped into a vehicle that shone and smelt with newness, as it did a year ago when I bought it. I was aware this was wilfully conspicuous consumption, that I was averting my eyes from food banks and the gloom of Brexit. Then I thought of the cat that greeted us earlier at the bus-stop, rolling and stretching in ecstasy on the dusty pavement. Yeah, a bit like that.

Feet to walk to ScunthorpeOr to do the ootchy-koo

Today I pick up my prescription glasses, in effect my reading glasses. During the two cataract ops my eyes received lenses that made them great for long distances, horrible close up. That's the choice: it's either that or the other way round.

Ever since the first op, back in November, I've made do with with cheapo reading glasses bought at the pharmacy for £5 ($7.50). Today's new glasses are spec'd exactly for my eyes. I can't wait. How I've cossetted my eyes in the interim, how I've ignored other parts of my body.

Time to look elsewhere. My feet are to be found at the southern end of my legs.

Considering my height (6ft 1½in. - 1.87m) my feet aren't all that big at 10½ (Euro 44.5, US 11). However, they're far from perfect. Since I retired twenty years ago I've worn nothing but trainers. As a result my feet have become as soft as a baby's bottom and pebbly beaches are just murder.

I suspect I wore cheap shoes during WW2, the formative years. Thus the fourth toe (left or right from the Big One) is hooked sideways. Tight shoes would kill me, hence trainers.

My feet are quite wide and I'm glad of that; I'm less likely to topple over. Were I a woman I'd look terrible in stilettos; since I'm a man (the jury's out) even worse.

Parts of the right foot lack sensation, the byproduct of a sciatica attack five or six years ago. I don't balance well on one foot so I've ruled out becoming an acrobat.

VR profits from my feet: hers are tiny and the tininess is enhanced in my company.

Technology fascinates me but I wouldn’t swap my feet for prosthetics. Maintenance adds up to a monthly wash.

Memento Mori

Gothic's not just architecture
Short story: 1193 words
Note: Initial "dialogue" rewritten for greater coherence

“A great fella, a great salesman. Snowballs to Eskimos - he could have sold anything. Anything…”

Without stilettos I feel naked in front of everyone. Though the front row definitely does help. No one's turning round – facing me.

“… even condoms to Catholics.”

Listen to them snigger. But condoms were his kind of joke!

“Good company too. Showed me the ropes up in Newcastle. Now there was a hard city for our products, but he made it fun.”

How much longer is he going to speak? Christ, I’d kill for a cigarette.

“Anyone who makes Newcastle fun is…”

I never asked: why Newcastle? He was often up there. Was there a bit of fluff?  If so she'd never have been a Geordie. He hated northern accents.

“As you know, our leading rep, three years running…”

And didn't he go on about that!

“Promoted to regional manager. Everyone’s choice.”

See, that’s what I don’t understand. His popularity. No one saw through him. No one recognised the lout. But then they’re all the same, I suppose. It takes a lout to know...

“Our condolences to his gorgeous wife, Megan.”

You should know how gorgeous, laddo. The way you stroked my bum as I came in.

MEGAN had hoped to edge away, her palate yearning for a Marlboro. But the funeral director guided her to the chapel exit where a queue had formed. Mainly men, looking ahead, grinning like wolves.

At least the sixtyish man at the front was no threat.  Tailored three-piece, Barbarians tie and white hair carefully combed, he had to be the MD but the name he gave meant nothing to her. A light kiss on the cheek was more in keeping but then he hung on to her hands: squeeze, slacken, squeeze, slacken.

“I blame myself,” the man whispered. “He worked hard. A third year topping the list deserved something extra. The vote was unanimous but perhaps the car… proved too powerful.”

Powerful or not it had been a high spot in his life. He’d insisted they had dinner at that pricey French place in Oxfordshire and they’d touched a-hundred-and-thirty on the M40. She’d been terrified, then resolutely calm. At that speed dying would be like being switched off. No pain.

Next was Emily. They knew each other over the phone and had spoken many times. “I’ll get him to ring you,” Emily had always said, and she did. Emily, well padded and perfumed with Bourjois, hugged her. “When you’re free here, Megan, we’ll sit in my car and talk about him.”

Megan hesitated.

Emily said, “I liked him, too much for my own good. I did what he asked, I was always loyal. But he was unreliable and I knew you were suffering.  If anything still disturbs you, just ask.”

“I’ll need time.”

Should she rake over her old suspicions? - something to think about tomorrow. But now there were all these men. A sorrowing widow could not, of course, fend them off. She would be in their hands – literally – taking their antics at face value.

Yet it was even worse. The dark suits used their dubious grief to embrace her floridly and kiss her lengthily. With three of them processed a muscular tongue from the fourth levered itself between her lips. She had no defence. Marriage had linked her indirectly to salesmanship and tradition forced her to accept this associate role.

Latecomers tried even harder.  Bodies pressed against her, saliva dissolved her lipstick, and her satin blouse pulled away from her black skirt. Thank God for the funeral director, close by, who cleared his throat to discourage the more ambitious excesses.

And who, when the queueing was at an end, propelled her gently back into the chapel to see to her make-up. A thankful repair as she moved out to the Range Rover containing her father, mother and sister, all po-faced.

Her mother lowered the window. “We came, as promised.”

“So I see,” said Megan.

“Any problems? Money?”

“The mortgage was covered by life insurance.”

“How lucky,” said her mother.

“Unlike my choice of partner,” said Megan. “As you’ve often reminded me.”

“I described what I saw. Unhappily it turned out to be the truth.”

“Unhappily?”

Her mother raised the window and her father drove the tall vehicle away at speed.

Although the funeral director was pear-shaped and his trousers formally striped, he had immense dignity. “My dear, it’s all over now. So much bad behaviour but I thought you coped bravely. I’ll drive you back.”

“Mr Crumple, I know it’s sluttish in a new widow but I desperately need a cigarette.”

“Sluttish? Never in this world, my dear. If you don’t mind I’ll join you.”

Megan leant back against the ridiculously elongated car and inhaled for seconds. A month ago she’d tried to give up. Thank God she’d failed. Mr Crumple moved two discreet steps away leaving her to her thoughts. Except she had no thoughts, only an angry vacancy.  And a mild curiosity about Newcastle. Such a long way to go for a night or two of infidelity.

The car park was empty since hers had been the last funeral of the day. Even Mr Crumple had briefly disappeared into the chapel, called there by a functionary. She dropped the cigarette stub on to the tarmac, treading on it with a hardly elevated court shoe which did nothing for her ankles. They’d been the first thing he’d noticed about her at the charity ball four years ago. Conceivably the last thing he remembered as he succumbed to the car’s multi-function steering wheel. Multi-function: his words.

With perfect timing Mr Crumple walked towards her, his face professionally impassive. “My dear, a small matter. I have made no commitment. You may turn the request down without any guilty feelings. You are entitled to your privacy.”

But Megan agreed the request straight away, perhaps to show solidarity with her own gender, perhaps in reaction to that heartless and humiliating queue. As a result the woman slid unshowily into the limousine to share the back seat with Megan. A woman nearing forty, her brown hair arranged in a timeless – no, old-fashioned – style, wearing a suit that wasn’t even sombre, but then not everyone wore dark fabrics at funerals. A woman who said, “I’m gan the railway station. No distance at all. I’ll not speak. You need your quiet.”

Megan nodded, almost to herself. Trust him; he’d not chosen to make the same mistake twice. An older woman, though. That was surprising.

Now Megan felt the need for another Marlboro, this time to be smoked reflectively. Time to dwell on the failure of her marriage. How she’d mistaken his alertness for intelligence and how he, it seemed, had discovered her prettiness and well-shaped figure weren’t enough. A man who had gone for a trophy rather than a wife and who might well be paying a tortuous price for this as the flames presently reduced his earthly remains to ashes.

But, hey, there was a bright side. There’d be none of Mother’s parchment-flesh turkey this Christmas. Or that revolting  “traditional” bread sauce. She could if she wanted make do with a slice of quiche.

The other numeracy

The World Of Perception: measuring events, artefacts and the passage of time according to our own (non-metric, non-Imperial, non-SI) system.

Soap (The minimum volume coefficient). VR begs me: can't we discard the final sliver of soap we use in the bath? It slips away so easily; treacherously difficult to retrieve. I'd noticed. But the unwrapping of a new bar of soap is akin to taking on a new and virginal lover. A solemn yet sensual moment. For the moment the sliver remains.

Novel writing (The illusory barrier). Second Hand has passed the 50,000-word mark, see below. Those seductive zeroes must mean something. But zeroes, by definition, add up to nothing, especially in a first draft. The pitiless editor and his uber-polished X-acto have yet to slash and burn, taking us back to the high forties. And where, in any case, would be The End? About 120,000 words - but who knows?

Bovril (The elusive last scrape). Paste and jar combine stygian colours, reducing this to guesswork. Aha, I see a brownish streak. I scrape and leave two separate and thinner streaks. I scrape again (twice) and leave four even thinner streaks. Again, and it's eight. I’m mining fool's gold here. Even if I were to continue until I had an infinity of streaks, each one atom wide, I would end up dissatisfied. Bovril is ineluctably mathematical.

WIP Second Hand (50,220 words)

Francine laughed. “… I was cloistered with a PhD (Chem), Cantab. Ted Priest isn’t given to broad-brush statements. Making sense of his answers was often a case of adding integer three to the square root of minus one. But… if I managed to ask him the right question he was willing to play the hypothetical game… he even tossed in a couple of his own speculations.”

Towards a dusty death

Boredom's a bit like an STD, it has no social cachet. Guardian readers believe boredom is a symptom of low intelligence, may even define that state. They haven't thought it through.

If you're an active part of a household boredom is ever-present. It's there in the loo (What's the best brush technique?), the washbowl (The menace of soap curd.) and over and over in the kitchen (Could an unwrung dish-cloth kill you?)

Routines keep boredom at bay. Washing-up has a logical sequence - learn it. Making the bed is a two-person job. Always return the TV recorder remote to its unique place. Why waste time peeling a spud with a knife? The best books for reading on the loo are the best books. A casual approach to re-sleeving a duvet never works. Very few items are entitled to occupy the coffee table.

I'm good (ie, obsessive) about boredom-defeating systems. But the supermarket defeats me. They rearrange product locations to prevent me doing an in-and-out in less than seven minutes. Bastards! However long they detain me I'll never buy marmalade-flavoured Popsicles.

A shelf of multi-coloured packages turns into a blur, transmitting no useful information. I am forced to draw close in order to interpret marketing hyperbole, This is not a leisure-time pursuit.

Ironmongery (eg, screws) has been dropped - probably because it's low margin. Not knowing this I waste time looking; I could be home cutting my toe-nails.

Books. The sort on sale discourage me from reading.

"Colleague announcements" over the tannoy follow peculiarly irritating cadences as if the announcer is pretending to be a robot. Just one more reason why supermarket time is longer than outdoor time.

I feel older; the other customers look older. We are all victims of cumulative retail boredom - insidious and probably terminal 

Was I - perhaps - educable?

I did badly at school because (1) I couldn’t see why I needed a formal education, and (2) no master suggested otherwise.

Having left school I led a charmed life. I submitted sentences to sub-editors who humiliated me into writing better sentences – a simple process. Then, against all my instincts, and using nothing more than the threat of draconian punishment, the RAF forced me to absorb the rudiments of electronics, an applied form of physics. Suddenly I had educational depth! Anyone more biddable might have concluded I’d been chosen and guided by a larger force. Perhaps even A Larger Force, with capital letters.

Yesterday I saw the movie of Alan Bennett's play The History Boys wherein Sheffield sixth-formers are prepared for the Oxford-Cambridge entrance exam.

These are very clever lads, already diverging from nuts-and-bolts school learning. In an easy-flowing yet competitive meritocracy they are, I suppose, employing their intelligence to develop their intellect. For the first time ever I saw being taught as an enjoyable process. I fancied my chances among them.

A delusion, of course. I was imagining myself as I am now - the product of decades of higgledy-piggledy experience - instead of what I then was: a surly seventeen-year-old length of gristle. Gristle too that had unbelievably triumphed over the barriers preceding A-levels. Even so... I was drawn to that noisy, jeering, well-read, broadly talented group of show-offs. Convinced I’d have fitted in.

Well it didn't happen and I’m not complaining. I'm fairly satisfied with the way things worked out, even if I do lack trained analytical ability and a mental database arrived at logically rather than willy-nilly.

 
But there's this worm that's nibbling away... they call it envy

Why are clogs thought to be clever?

My life has been driven by ambition, most of which I've achieved. Here's the metaphorical stepladder:

To be a hack (ie, a bottom-feeding journalist). Defined by the ability to type a 1000-word original article in one hour. Skill acquired in two years.

To be a sportsman manqué. Thus: a rock climber who fears heights, a cyclist too overweight to ride uphill, a clumsy skier, a swimmer with an irrational fear of suffocation.  All goals reached quickly and effortlessly.

To be middle class. A 1930s semi in Kingston-upon-Thames almost confirmed this; a four-bedroom house in Hereford with three toilets ensured it.

To be thought foreign. Instantly achieved in Pittsburgh, Pa. More meritoriously when I was diagnosed as German while speaking French in France.

To be regarded as sexually desirable. By women if possible; by fellas and animals if not. Project stalled as researchers look for ever more sensitive equipment capable of measuring tiny amounts of data.

To be labelled intellectual. For me, the ability - and the desire - to analyse and discuss abstract rather than material matters. Thus the serial killer, instead of talking about guns, rope, knives and victims, alludes to the rewards of his art form.

This appears problematic. Having read Robert Muesil, heard Elliott Carter, tiled the bathroom with Rothko colours and eschewed Strictly Come Dancing I was mildly optimistic. However lack of formal education is holding me back. I cannot easily recall the date of the 1832 Reform Act, I suffer dreadfully from long A vs. short A discrimination, and have only eaten meat loaf, never having expected it to issue from a loudspeaker.

I will, however, persist. I am buying a bust of Goethe (death mask left) and I intend to add analects (sparingly) to stews. 

Security where none is required

Two decades ago, perhaps three, VR urged me to adopt a more adult approach to acquiring underpants.

Buying in batches of six isn't a good idea since all tend to self-destruct in the same week, twelve years later. Crises however long postponed, always arrive inconveniently.

The sensation when (typically) the elastic withers is out of all proportion to the mere loss of underpant function. Deep inadequacy descends when you realise half the garment is hanging like a limp bunch of grapes down the interior of one trouser leg, and the other the other. You are uncertain. You can't be sure the effect isn't noticeable to male passers-by and they aren't whispering "Poor child." behind your back.

These thoughts passed through my mind last week when I paid for yet another half-dozen pants at - Where else? - Marks & Spencer. A minute later I found myself reflecting on the bill - £36. Enough for two suits when I was in the market for suits. I continued to remain philosophical.

My tranquillity didn't last. Donning the first pair I noticed a horrible innovation. The flyhole was secured with a totally unnecessary button. To what end? Of no benefit at all to M&S's elderly customers cursed with waterworks that operate intermittently.

What else have youthful designers got in store? Trousers with zip-up legholes? Hankies with velcro-assisted folding? Lockable bath taps? Don't they realise that life is short and they may have to answer to a vengeful and inevitably ancient God?

It's quite mysterious, really

What happens when you hear music? Different things.

FAMILIAR MUSIC. Conventional songs. Immediate and precise anticipation of rhythm and melody ● Identification with singer ● Lack of apprehension ● A sense of “friendship” ● Isolation from other stimuli ● A need to separate words (meaning) from words (sounds) ● Increased emotional sensitivity (sometimes to embarrassing levels) ● Pride in being able to recognise structure ● Being tempted to participate.

FAMILIAR MUSIC. Instrumental, orchestral. Recognition of rhythm, melody and structure can be source of relief ● Disappointment (often acute) when recognition fails ● Minor surprises when theme is carried (or echoed) by different instruments ● Occasional irritation when small phrases and figures prove predictable (eg, parts of cadenzas) ● Loss of self in fff passages ● Increasing sensitivity linked to crescendos and diminuendos ● A sense of apprehension as instrumental volume drops to very low levels ● Refined delight when instrumental “layers” are detected in orchestral tuttis ● Identification with conductor ● Pride at being part of the event.

NEW MUSIC Search – often frenzied - for known historical parallels ● Disproportionate relief when parallels are recognised ● Squaring the fact that keeping track of the immediate past and present (in order to grasp the structure) can leave listener melodically adrift ● Deciding between concentration or passive acceptance ● Shutting out intellectual processes regarding meaning, originality, plagiarism, etc ● Suppressing one’s sense of inferiority ● Withholding judgment en route.

NOVEL PLUS BACH I ease Blest Redeemer (50,779 words) along with performances from YouTube. Today I was comforted by 16 min 24 sec of Andras Schiff doing Bach’s GoldBerg Variations. Ordered the disc even though I have it by Glenn Gould. Different performances can in effect be different works