Category Archives: Uncategorized

January 13, 2012 · 12:20 pm

The London Boat Show

I was at the London Boat Show yesterday. I wore a striped blue and white t-shirt and deck shoes. I fit in perfectly. I don’t own a boat, but I have been on one. A fact I made sure not to let other people forget.

Here is my sailing story (because I imagine not all of you managed to catch me at the Boat Show). I am wearing a life jacket.

The preposterously blond sailing instructor yanks me around by the back of my life jacket. ‘Too big,’ he says dismissively. ‘What?’ I am affronted. ‘That chap over there is much bigger than I am,’ I say loudly. ‘No, no,’ the instructor says laughingly. ‘Your life jacket. It’s too big. Get a different one.’ ‘Oh,’ I say, smiling apologetically at the now furious looking ‘larger’ gentleman.

I am wearing a life jacket because I am in a sailing race. My entire sailing knowledge has been derived from ‘Swallows and Amazons’, but I do not feel the need to tell my friend this.

We are taken to our boat, which is little. ‘What do you want to do?’ she asks me. ‘Everything!’ I say optimistically. ‘Oh, OK, great,’ she replies. ‘I really know very little about sailing.’ ‘Do not worry!’ I shout at her, and clamber into the boat. ‘Um, you might want to move to the other side so we don’t capsize when I get in,’ she says politely. I move, grab the rope that controls the sail, and take hold of the rudder.

‘So an experienced sailor took me out yesterday,’ she tells me. ‘The thing to avoid is jiving.’ ‘I’m sorry?’ I ask, incredulously. ‘Did you just say jiving?’ ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘It’s important that we turn a different way so we don’t capsize.’ ‘I have no idea what you are talking about,’ I say peremptorily, and pull in the sail. Unfortunately I let go of the rudder, so we swing frighteningly in a circle. ‘No problem!’ I tell my friend, who now looks terrified. ‘Sailors do things like that all the time.’ My friend looks entirely unconvinced.

We pick up some wind, and begin to sail. ‘Do you know where we’re meant to be heading?’ I ask my friend. She waves vaguely towards the horizon. I swing the boat around wildly into the oncoming path of another sailor. ‘Move please!’ I shout at him.  It is the portly gentleman I previously insulted. He does not seem as keen to move as I would like. I am unfazed, because I have quickly learnt that to turn our boat all I need to do is let go of the rudder entirely and allow the wind to work its magic. I really seem to have taken to this sailing lark remarkably well. ‘OK,’ I say to my friend. ‘Let’s get serious. We should probably win this thing. Where’s the first place we need to get to?’ My friend points mutely at what could be a buoy, but from this distance could also easily be a discarded Sainsbury’s plastic bag. ‘OK!’ I shout enthusiastically. Unfortunately the boat remains at a standstill. ‘You need to head starboard!’ my friend shouts at me.‘I don’t know what that means!’ I shout back. ‘Towards the rocks or away from the rocks?’ My friend looks at me despairingly. ‘Why would I ever tell you to sail towards the rocks?’ she asks. It’s a good point, but as the captain I can’t stand for this kind of mutiny. I firmly swing the boat towards the rocks. My friend jumps across the boat to stop me, and we capsize.

‘Well,’ I say cheerfully as we bob about in the water. ‘That sailing instructor was right. The other life jacket would have been too big.’

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January 11, 2012 · 12:02 pm

The difficulty of hope

Here are the things that make my life much more difficult than it needs to be:

  1. There is only one plug socket next to my bed. Which is currently hogged by my bedside lamp. And because no matter how hard you try to persuade them, plugs don’t share sockets, my phone and laptop charger are desolately banished, miles from civilization. (And by civilization I mean the delicious warmth of my bed, which I have bravely created by inching my feet ever further down under my duvet).
  2. Which brings me neatly on to my next complaint. My bed. My bed is too big. (Bear with me, I’ll win you over). My bed is too big, and it is ruining my life. For a start, I have parted with vast sums of money on sheets. Because my bed is too ‘big’ for normal, ordinary sheets. My bed greedily luxuriates in its over-priced, fancypants sheets. (Which are actually slightly less comfortable than normal sheets, because of the pricklings of financial anxiety one gets when you lie on them). My bed, not content with its pernicious influence over my bank balance, has started to extend its reach. My bed does not want me to leave it. It has two methods of ensuring this. Firstly, it hides all things I might possibly need in order to go outside. (It is easy for it to do this, because of the billowing expanse of sheets it casually reclines in). Secondly, it grows surreptitiously in the night, so that when morning arrives my bedroom door is so inconceivably far away that only an incredibly fool-hardy person would risk trekking towards it.
  3. And finally, the CD part of my CD/Cassette/Radio player is broken. But I’m irresistibly hopeful, every time it tells me mockingly it’s ‘reading disc’. (You might think I would have learnt after the first 30 CDs. If anything, I was even more hopeful).

In fact, possibly it is just that which is really making my life so tricky. Hope. Because like it or not, despite it being 2012 (a year for the advent of robots if ever there was one), we still live in a world where plugs are selfish, beds are demanding and some foolish people think the iPod is going to catch on.

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January 10, 2012 · 10:24 am

Young Person

I call one of my oldest and closest friends. ‘So you see,’ I begin. ‘I was queuing to get my Young Person’s railcard replaced.’

She interrupts me. ‘You’re not a young person,’ she says baldly. I am shocked into silence.

I have no pithy comeback. I have entirely forgotten the point of my story. (I am aware that a lack of wit and memory are not imperative in the old, but nevertheless, it’s not a great sign). ‘Well,’ I say finally. ‘I did not expect this.’ (I genuinely did not. I was calling mostly to check my friend hadn’t gotten better Christmas presents than me). I finish talking to my friend and put the matter out of my mind entirely. (She got a handbag, but I got new shoes and two dresses, so I think it’s OK).

A few days later I am calling a different friend about tights. ‘I’m wearing a navy blue skirt,’ I tell her proudly. My friend is a little confused, but congratulates me politely. ‘And I’m wondering what colour tights I’m meant to wear?’

‘Oh,’ my friend replies, relieved. ‘Black is perfectly fine.’ (I think she was a little worried I was now going to call every morning for approbation on getting dressed by myself). ‘In fact,’ she continued. ‘Black and navy are very chic. What time are you getting to the pub?’ ‘Well,’ I say graciously. ‘Now that you’ve sorted out this tights thing for me, I can be there whenever you’d like.’ My friend explains that the ‘grown-ups’ will be there from 6.30 til 8pm, and that we can come whenever we’d like. ‘Um,’ I begin tentatively. ‘You do know that we are grown-ups?’ My first friend was right. I’m not a young person. I quietly pull on my thick black tights and pop along to the pub at 6.30.

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January 9, 2012 · 12:49 pm

Least said, soonest mended

My Mother calls me. ‘Hello?’ I say. ‘Darling,’ she begins worriedly. ‘Did you know that you went out today without your make-up?’ ‘Um,’ I reply slowly. ‘Well, I was just popping over to see you quickly then returning home to shower.’ ‘Oh,’ my Mother replies. ‘So you thought you’d only subject us to it?’

I’m not quite sure what to do with this sentence. For a start, my Mother has taken to referring to herself as ‘us’. ‘Well,’ I say. ‘I’m just in the newsagents buying some sweets, and then I’m off home to shower. I’ll try and sort everything out then.’ ‘Oh good,’ my Mother says, relieved. ‘I just thought I should tell you.’ My Mother’s greatest motto in life is that nothing should be left unsaid.

My friend was surprised by her one morning as he was coming out of the bathroom in his boxers. ‘Darling,’ my Mother called out loudly. ‘You have a friend here who isn’t wearing any clothes.’ (My Mother had popped by to deliver some mail.

My Mother has a very peculiar and unique mail-related illness. All important, much waited for mail is misplaced or discarded, while circulars and Boots advantage points statements are hand delivered to my house. ‘Darling, I know how annoyed you were last time I didn’t forward on your contact lenses. So I just thought I’d be careful,’ she tells me, shoving Dominos flyers into my hands). ‘Well,’ my Mother continues. ‘He’s very tall and muscly, isn’t he?’ She turns to my boxer-clad friend. ‘Did you end up here by mistake?’

A few weeks later we were at a family lunch to celebrate another infuriating achievement by my little sister. ‘I met Lucy’s new friend,’ my Mother says casually to my Grandmother. My little sister grins across the table at me. ‘Did you like him?’ she asks innocently, carefully moving her legs out of kicking range. ‘Well, I think next time I’d like to meet a little less of him,’ my Mother replies thoughtfully. ‘Oh darling,’ she says, turning to me. ‘Don’t frown like that, you’re already terribly lined.’

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January 6, 2012 · 11:51 am

Baths

I hate baths. There are many things that other people like which I absolutely hate.

Baths are one of them. I avoid baths all year long, yet yesterday, like a fool, I thought to myself, ‘Everyone loves a nice relaxing bath. Maybe I should have one.’ (Because it’s not very nice to go about every year thinking all other people are idiots).

I did everything right. I popped downstairs and jimmied with the thing to override the parsimonious heating system. I poured myself a glass of wine (I store my wine in a highly democratic fashion, and therefore you are as likely to receive something extraordinary as to be served cooking wine). I put on The Greatest Hits of the Eighties, so that I could pretend that I was in a John Hughes movie.

I ran the bath in the only sensible way- full blast, hot only. I stopped it long before it could overflow (even accounting for post-Christmas me). I took off my clothes and danced around to Living in a Box for a few moments. I caught sight of myself in the bathroom mirror and stopped dancing instantly. I put my foot into the bath. And removed it instantly. ‘There’s nothing worse than a cold bath,’ I reminded myself. I gingerly topped up the bath with a little bit of cold water. ‘Perhaps there is something worse than a cold bath,’ I pondered as I stuck my foot back in.

I ended up in the middle of the bath, frenetically sweeping cold water with my bare hands through to the end of the bath in a crazed attempt at temperature regulation. I lost all feeling in my legs, and sat down.

‘Ah,’ I thought pleasantly. ‘This is very nice.’ I thought about reaching for my book (which I had pre-emptively placed on the edge of the bath), but my hands were all wet. ‘Ah,’ I thought. ‘This is terribly boring.’

I tried, honestly. I made my knees into mountains and raced my left and right hands against one another. I sank underwater and held my breath until I was nearly dead. I splashed about until there was more water on the floor than in the tub. But after those 5 seconds had passed, I had to get out. Because I am a sentient human, and sitting in an overheated puddle tends to lose its charm rather quickly. (Naturally it took me far longer than I had spent in the bath to get out of it safely, owing to the lake that had spilled onto my bathroom floor). ‘Well,’ I thought to myself as I re-dressed. No matter which way you measure it, the effort to pleasure ratio on that is severely misaligned. And now I have to spend the next 10 minutes mopping up the bathroom floor.’ I’m sorry to say, but baths are no more relaxing than delousing a small child.

You people are idiots.

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December 29, 2011 · 1:33 pm

Dry-cleaning

‘I’m doing the most grown-up thing you could imagine,’ I tell my friend as she picks up the phone. There is a worried pause. ‘What is it?’ she asks slowly. ‘I’m picking up my dry-cleaning,’ I tell her smugly.

‘I’m walking down the road with those lovely plastic covering things slung casually over my arm, chatting to you on my phone. People probably think I’m a celebrity.’  I nod kindly to a gentleman as I pass him on the pavement. ‘I’m very bad at dry-cleaning,’ my friend tells me apologetically. ‘I leave it for ages in a pile and never get round to taking it to the dry-cleaners.’Aha!’ I say, delighted. ‘And then, because you’re got loads of things, they give you with a massive bill.’

‘Indeed,’ my friend says sadly. ‘I’m terribly good at dry-cleaning,’ I inform her. ‘I feel like it’s really something I’ve gotten a handle on, vis-à-vis this whole being a grown up thing.’ There is an inarticulate yelp from the other end of the phone. ‘Oh,’ I say quickly. ‘I wouldn’t let it worry you. There’s plenty of things I’m still getting to grips with.’ ‘No, no,’ my friend replies. ‘I’m doing some normal laundry, as it happens, and I’ve managed to skip past one of the stages of the cycle. Did you even know that was possible?’

‘Oh of course,’ I told my friend helpfully. ‘It is possible to do almost anything with a washing machine. Jam it so it won’t give you your clothes back, let it run with no washing powder in, stop it before it’s drained, skip the spin cycle so your clothes are still dripping…’ There is another pause. ‘Well,’ I say finally. ‘I suppose you can see why I’m so keen on dry-cleaning.’

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December 27, 2011 · 4:04 pm

Heads

I’ve been thinking a lot about heads recently. My own, and other peoples. It started at the theatre. I was watching Hamlet at the Young Vic, which is very good indeed, but also very long. Embarrassingly, at interval I turned to my Father and said loudly, ‘How can that be it? Orphelia hasn’t drowned. No-one has died. This is the oddest production of Hamlet I’ve ever seen.’ ‘You know it’s just the interval?’ my Father asked kindly. ‘Yes, of course,’ I recovered quickly. ‘I just thought Orphelia had drowned by now. Um, ice-cream?’ I don’t think my Father was fooled, but he politely went to the bar.

I settled back into my seat, and figured that since I was apparently there for the rest of my natural life, I ought to get comfortable. I leant back casually, and nestled my head against the softness behind me. Which a few seconds later, disconcertingly moved. It seems I had made another miscalculation. I comforted myself with the still blissful memory of the time my Mother, leaving a cinema, put her hand on a bald man’s head.

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December 21, 2011 · 11:10 am

Guests

Someone has eaten all my hotdog rolls.

I don’t want to point fingers, but I’m pretty certain it’s my little sister, who came to visit this weekend. I normally quite like visitors. They bring gifts, and make one look popular, and are an excellent excuse for daytime drinking. My little sister is a different matter. ‘I’m just going to my dressing room,’ she announced loudly. I ignored her, accustomed to years of her impenetrable oddness. I wandered into my bedroom to pick up a book. ‘Aaagh!’ I shouted as my hand touched warm human flesh. ‘What on earth are you doing in my dressing room?’ my little sister asked, perplexed. ‘This is my bedroom,’ I told her firmly. ‘And I think those are my tights.’ I had to take a shower, so I left my little sister to finish getting dressed. I marched back into my bedroom. ‘There’s something I need to explain to you,’ I said crossly. ‘The bathroom floor is not part of the shower.’

‘It’s very wet on the floor,’ my little sister said cheerily. ‘I should probably not have kept popping in and out of the shower. It’s just that I forgot things.’ I look at my shower. Body Shop seems to have thrown up inside it.

‘How is it at all possible for one person to need 8 bottles to take a shower?’ I asked, exasperated. ‘Well,’ my little sister replies smugly. ‘Not everyone thinks all you need to shower is shampoo.’ ‘That’s because everyone else are idiots,’ I tell her. ‘Anyway,’ my little sister says, unperturbed, ‘I’ve found a stash of sweets in my dressing room, so I’m just off to eat those.’

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December 16, 2011 · 1:02 pm

Celebrating my little sister

I had lunch with my family yesterday. ‘I haven’t been mentioned for ages,’ my Father said wistfully. ‘I’m happy to be mentioned,’ my Grandfather interjected. ‘But only in the most flattering of terms. Truth-telling is not welcome.’ I nodded meekly. My Grandmother poked me. (It is treacherous, sitting next to my Grandmother. No part of the left side of my body has been left unbruised). ‘I expect you to drink this,’ she said firmly, thrusting a bellini in my face.

‘Well, let me finish my one quickly,’ I replied. I began to drink from my glass. ‘Do hurry up,’ my Grandmother exhorted me, jabbing me in the ribs. Safe across the other side of the table, my little sister smiled smugly. I downed my bellini and grasped my Grandmother’s. ‘Do pour your Grandmother some wine,’ my Grandfather told me sternly. ‘The poor woman. Oh, and you’ve taken her cocktail too. Gosh.’ My little sister laughed indiscreetly as I tried to explain. ‘Oh for goodness sakes lovely, all this chatter isn’t any closer to pouring your Grandmother a glass of wine. We’re 75 years old. Do you think we have endless time?’ my Grandfather replied. I sloshed some wine into my Grandmother’s wine glass. ‘Congratulations,’ I tell my little sister glumly. We’re here to celebrate some new and imposing achievement of my little sister. It’s starting to wear a bit thin. ‘Here’s your gift,’ I say, passing a package across the table. She loves it. ‘Toast!’ my Mother shreeks from her end of the table. ‘Well done. We are so proud of you,’ she says loudly. ‘And well done me for getting the best present,’ I add cheerfully. ‘And also drinking the most bellinis.’ Well, it’s unlikely I’ll be getting one of these celebratory lunches of my own, isn’t it? I might as well make the best of it.

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December 14, 2011 · 12:31 pm

Libraries

I’ve been thinking a lot about library etiquette recently. This is because people in my local library seem to think talking is completely acceptable, and view my loud ‘shushing’ with alarm and disdain. ‘This is a library,’ I hissed at two schoolgirls yesterday. ‘And?’ they replied staunchly. ‘Just, you know, checking we all knew where we were,’ I said bravely, beating a hasty retreat. (They were by the reference books, I had come from fiction. There was no way my paperback Martin Amis was going to stand up to the full force of The Encyclopedia Britannica).

I wandered over to the information desk. ‘How do you choose which books to place in prominent positions?’ I whispered. ‘What?’ the librarian asked crossly. I gave up. I flashed my dinosaur library card (yes, you can choose from a variety of images. But only if you look at the first two they offer you and say knowingly, ‘I’m sure you can do better than that. Where are the good ones?’) and borrowed my book.

‘You have borrowed one book. Are you finished?’ the borrowing computer asked me peremptorily. The trouble with technology is that it’s impossible to pinpoint tone. Was the computer disappointed in my paucity of books? Was it exasperated that I had taken so long to locate my dinosaur backed library card? Or was it, as I like to think, commending me on my selflessness in withdrawing books one at a time. (I thought about asking the librarian, but we seemed to have gotten off on the wrong foot. Plus I could see those schoolgirls lurking in the recesses of the library).

I casually scampered out of the library clutching my book. I was excited to read it. I started as soon as I got home. Sadly it was one of those books where everyone accidentally sleeps with everyone else and most people die. I returned to the library. ‘I’d like something a little cheerier,’ I whispered to the librarian. ‘Something you would let a child read.’ ‘The children’s’ library?’ the librarian bellowed. ‘It’s the other entrance. Go out, and it’s on your left.’

I meekly followed her directions. And walked into a book-lined sanctuary. I’ve given up on the adult’s library entirely. I can’t tell you how peaceful and pleasant the children’s library is when all the children are at school. I also picked up some splendid holiday reads, and so far not one person has slept with his best friend’s girl. ‘I’m very impressed with this,’ I whispered to the librarian (It takes about 1 hour to read a children’s book. I’ve spent most of my day popping back and forth, dutifully returning my book and borrowing another). ‘Oh, did they like it?’ the librarian whispered back. ‘Um, yes?’ I whispered back confusedly. It seems people in the children’s library are impeccably polite, and ever so slightly odd. This really couldn’t be a better fit for me.

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