Unguided minds

Jo(e) showed impossibly neat bookshelves

on her blog. Here's one of mine. Would you

say Homerically untidy? Tell the truth I'm

a tiny bit proud of this lack of organisation

PJ PRACTICE At what time of day may one decently change into pyjamas? The Reagans (former White House residents) thought 6.30 pm was OK but then he was already snoring by 9 pm.

A more cogent point is: what are we risking? Are pyjamas a sign we prefer sleep and/or preparing for sleep to being awake? Intellectually we've given in? Some people cloud the issue with talk about pyjamas being "comfortable" but what does this say about the clothes they normally wear?

I was very conscious of the Reagans when I first changed into PJs while it was still light. Now Wiki tells me that Ronnie departed the presidency at age 78. And I am six years older than he was then.

Drinking booze while wearing PJs. There's another tester.

SCREENING Skyping the family is now a routine. And we've widened the circle, Professional Bleeder has joined us. For a few seconds we were even wider: Darren, Occasional Speeder's husband, could be seen tentatively cutting grandson Zach's hair, leaving him with a Half-Monk.

When VR joins me we're a foursome and you realise the need for a workable protocol. None of us is good at guessing when others have stopped talking. Interruptions become endemic. My facetiousness is now a burden to me as well as the others. There's a two-second gap before laughter is signalled and this gets on my nerves. More so when laughter is not signalled.

I have plans for our next session (6 pm today) for which OS has said we should all have a drink (s?) in advance, and then drink steadily and visibly throughout. This could alter the goalposts.

DEFINITION The question: What's posh? arose. Daniel, Ysabelle's partner, said it depended on having two or more gravy-boats. That went down well.

A little fervent noise

I'm a creature of habit. I believe routine helps octogenarians maintain their tenuous hold on life even when black-shadowed Plague is not idly deciding who next to strike down. When he is abroad I want him (He's surely a he.) to think: "Nah, not that old geezer with the wavy white hair. He's too ordinary."

Thus I reserve my news gathering for the TV News at Ten, late evening. I am under-informed during the day.

So it was VR, facing our living-room windows, who announced a degree of action among our otherwise non-existent neighbours last night as it got dark. "They're getting ready for the hand-clapping," she said.

I was shot through with guilt. Hand-clapping on our own door-steps, as a tribute to our much endangered National Health Service and health carers, has become a nationwide tradition, 8 pm, Thursday. I'd missed it the previous week because of my news habits. I rushed out in my stocking feet.

Not much was happening. I shouted to L, emerging with her kids: "Looks as if we're going to be lonely." But I was wrong. Other front doors were opening, often poignantly disclosing a singleton widow or widower. R who is neither, who lives opposite and who has loaded us with kindnesses, played Land of Hope and Glory, someone else blew a whistle, the rest clapped.

The nearby houses are all detached which meant clappers were somewhat dispersed. But unity may arrive less obviously. Dupuytren’s Contracture has curled my little finger inwards and I’m a lousy clapper. But I adapted. Back indoors the TV revealed larger crowds, countrywide, making more noise. We were understated, very British, no adjacent TV cameras.

I’ll do it again next week. I urge participation, even if you’re alone. I promise: you won’t feel a fool.

It beats crying

Neighbour Richy asked could he bring us

anything from Tesco. Yes please, we said. These
appeared (full) on the doorstep. Guess why

I like making people laugh. It’s socially rewarding, of course, but it also has psychological advantages.

Make someone laugh and you’ve aroused their interest. That’s always worthwhile even if it may be fundamentally selfish.

As in France where laughter can be a powerful conversational tool. Laughing Frenchmen are comparatively rare. Address one in French and he’ll immediately detect the foreign accent. His face takes on a certain remoteness, a certain condescension. He imagines he’s starting out on top.

Let’s suppose he operates a DIY shop and I’m looking for bath taps. “They must be easy to operate,” I say. He nods. I pause, then add casually, “Although I’m English I do wash regularly.”

That initial pause may disconcert him; have I been struck dumb? However the following admission will not only surprise him it may suggest this is how Frenchmen do, or should, regard Brits. Other nationalities would apologise here. Not the French. My DIY man laughs knowingly, showing he’s in on the joke. Spreads his hand on the counter, better disposed to listen, to treat me as an equal.

Doctors are different. They are endowed with built-in superiority. You are a medical conundrum that needs resolving, often a humdrum and familiar collection of defects. This mode has been repeated a thousand times.

You stop, you sigh, you wriggle in your chair. You say, “These symptom confessions are a problem. Too much detail and I appear paranoid and self-centred. Too little and I’m surly, perhaps resenting the fact you’re not a herbalist.”

Hey, I’m sympathetic. There’s not much to laugh at in the average doctor’s surgery. Especially now. Doctors enjoy an occasional laugh. Indulge them. You may save the human race.

TECHNO-NOTE
This post attracted NO COMMENTS. I wasn't offended; it has happened before. Tone Deaf is not one of the world's must-reads.

But perhaps you tried and didn't get through. Perhaps - for reasons unknown - the system didn't pick up your blogonym automatically. This is required info; without it a comment is blocked. However if the slot adjacent to "Commenting as:" is blank, just fill in your blogonym manually and the comment should go through. When you make your next comment (I'm been terribly optimistic in this) the previously empty slot should now carry your blogonym and all should be well.

Viral stuff

Plague positrons

THE BIG WIPE? Toilet rolls have been leaving supermarket shelves at rocket speeds. Yes, customers are panic-buying but why toilet rolls? Is Britain suffering from collective diarrhoea? If not, why not flaked almonds or vanilla essence – two things we recently invested in. And “invested” is the right word; the tiny bottle of essence cost £6.

The answer is mundane. Toilet rolls have high unit volume (ie, they’re bulky) and they’re sold in multiples, four rolls being the minimum. Twenty purchases could clear 3 metres of shelf-space; twenty purchases of Heinz baked beans and you’d hardly notice. We’re more aware of the absence of toilet rolls than that of other stuff.

VERSE SUSPENDED. I write occasional verse. Not very good but we literary guys have to aspire. Verse is two things: the subject and the unique way we handle it. Two factors that don’t always arrive simultaneously. When they do, we start scribbling.

A month ago I had me a subject: the onset of death. The conceit involves analogies with tidal function and the present tense of verbs. I’m almost finished. But now hardly seems the time to publish.

IT LOOKS ARTIFICIAL. The Plague is keeping me away from Shara, my stylist. My hair it groweth, as you can see. But whence came the wave? Does prettiness presage The End?

SILENCED VOICE My smartphone allows me to command Google orally. At which I become bossier than normal, which means much bossier. I was mildly interested but after a week I reverted to traditional methods. Does anyone still use this unnecessary function?

Fear of nothingness

A person I know and admire asks "What shall I say?" faced with space to fill and only one real topic dominating the ether. I sympathise. As an ex-magazine editor that question lay at the heart of my job. More than once I idly wondered (I was good at that) what would happen if one month I put out a mag with twenty-five blank pages among the ads. The answer was depressingly obvious. On three occasions during 44-plus years, because of market forces, I was made redundant. The blank pages would have led to a fourth redundancy (and not because of market forces).

Actually I exaggerate (I was good at that, too). Subjects often cropped up, it merely remained to research them and write them. But there was one regular exception. As editor, I had an editor's page where I was free to say more or less what I wanted. And it was on that page I sought to create the magazine's "character" - a numinous project if ever there was one. Yet it worked. Within a tiny, nigglingly defined industrial circle I was sort of famous. What you read in Tone Deaf (and before that in Works Well) is me trying to get used to not being famous.

And there were times when the prospect of a blank space on the editor's page loomed horribly. I couldn't, of course, make do with 250 words on Wines I Have Liked or many more words on Women Who Have Turned Me Down, there were limitations. The cupboard was bare, I had to grit my teeth and – damnit! - think. No one ever said writing was easy.

To that friend I mention above I would say: when there’s nothing in the cupboard go ahead and invent.

As I’ve done here.

Interned

Self-isolation becomes a mosaic of experience and information. Here’s yesterday:

● Up at 06.25, draw downstairs blinds, check Tesco website for online delivery slot. THE WHOLE OF MONDAY (March 30) IS AVAILABLE

● The Prime Minister, the Health Secretary and Prince Charles have all tested positive.

● I draft a To Whom It May Concern note authorising J, our cleaning lady, to shop on our behalf.

● Get an email from daughter Professional Bleeder saying Ian (son/grandson) is fretting about the delivery of curtains. I suggest he’s getting old before his time. He’s 31.

● Put on my driving gloves for short walk to Tesco’s filling station to pick up Guardian. One in, one out system in operation. Everyone smiling and efficient.

● Decide to email Tesco store manager complimenting him on his staff’s friendliness. Can’t find his email address.

● VR bakes fruitcake.

● Check internet to see what foolish ideas DT is imposing on the US population in order to get re-elected.

● Brunch. Sandwich based on chicken breast leftovers. Read Guardian. Two strong mugs of coffee to go with huge slice of new cake.

● Doze involuntarily.

● Take very unexpected phone call from friend dating back to newspaper days in the fifties.

● Call interrupted by delivery of six different bottles of Italian white wine, all new to me.

● Follow Gareth Malone’s warm-up instructions for his online choir project. Much lengthier session than V and I can afford for my one-hour lessons. Voice in fine fettle. I sing snatches of song round the house. Go the whole hog in the kitchen with Du bist die Ruh.

● Lie on bed and consider what’s left of my life. VR joins me.

● Emails from daughters flow in. Much more happens but this my 300-word limit.

Untrumpian

Viral incidentals

LA PESTE Yes, I have read the relevant diary passages of the scurrilous but witty Mr Pepys but there’s no doubt about the book we should all be reading. I was impressed when I first read Camus’s The Plague, notably the cool way the story was told. More recently I read it in French (the language is quite simple) and found that the coolth had multiplied. Clearly masterpieces only have to hang around a bit and events confirm their status.

What do I mean by “cool”? The fictional story is told through the eyes of the local doctor, Rieux; his commitment to his task is complete, but his attitude is dispassionate. As we would hope of people in charge; Trump showing how not to do it. There is nothing to be gained by getting excited and uttering overworked words like “menace”.

Rieux and the others do what they do because the need is obvious; discussion is unnecessary. The solutions are mainly traditional, tried and true; good results at first seem distant but it’s important to be patient. Without articulating that need.

Best of all, courage is inferred, never stated. People volunteer for difficult work and some die. But no one dwells on this, calling it a tragedy; it was to be expected. Back to work.

GARETH MALONE He’s famous for getting people together and causing them to cohere as a choir. Most recently – and terribly – with hard-case residents in prison. He’s expert, conscientious and fun. Now he’s got an online project going whereby thousands of people, looking at the computer screens, will somehow become a sort of choir. The first episode was only partially explained and somewhat chaotic. But Gareth could charm the horns off a charging buffalo and I have faith in him