Hymn

Treading Water

There are some unusual consequences of living in one climate zone and working in another.

The three mile cycle to the station was largely obliterated by torrential rain this morning.  Some clothes, like the trousers I'm wearing today, don't show when they're wet.  This is always a dubious feature.  It means that a man sopping wet can appear bone dry.  Indeed having removed my jacket, I looked almost unaffected by the downpour - my flowing locks notwithstanding. 

As usual with these commuter trains, the carriage was cramped and hot and not, therefore, dissimilar to sitting in a tumbledryer.  This is not normally a feature I appreciate but, today, I drew what comfort I could.   I found an empty seat next to man apparently asleep since Crewe.

It's a curious sensation, sitting in wet pants.  Curiouser still as one starts to warm up. 

Near Berkhampstead, my sleeping neighbour stirred.

Poor fellow, I think he woke a little disorientated.

He seemed confused by the clouds of steam billowing from my legs, the puddle between my feet and faint smell of damp dog.

"Morning." I said brightly.

In spite of my cheeriness, I couldn't help feeling as though I was intruding slightly.

He looked at me as if he'd found a stranger in his bed after a drunken night out.  "My God, what have I done?" I saw him think to himself.

'Erm, hello'  he replied, embarrassed, 'Excuse me.' It was part request and part apology.

He got up.  And left.  I didn't see him again.

I was left gently treading water.

Spitting Feathers

I rarely attend professional football matches and haven’t played for a few year s now. Of course when I say ‘play,’ I use it in its loosest possible sense, as in ‘playing dead.’ And, although the players are young enough to be my sons, I still harbour the dream that I will yet have my chance to play for Liverpool’s first team. Utter lack of talent notwithstanding.

Tonight was a local derby. Both teams near the top of the table; fierce rivals and fighting it out for a Cup place and, no doubt, looking for opportunities to beat seven bells out of each other at the local pubs later.

Two things struck me. The first, as I’ve already alluded, was the age and confidence of the players. They looked really really young. I know this is all to do with perspective and that the man in his odd brown coat and ridiculous scarf probably looked very old from the pitch. Still even worlds apart as we are I could understand why they swaggered like gods. In spite of the unbridled abuse they suffered from the opposition supporters and as frequently, their own, these boys were in dreamland: earning an unimaginable amount of money, for playing a game, that merely exploits a natural talent, to the adoration of thousands of strangers in and out of the ground. You could see their invincibility, coating them in diamond-encrusted honey. However short-lived, superficial and unjustified it might be, I felt a pang of envy. Maybe they, seeing the middle-aged man hunched in the stands, were envious too - envious of my simple life and my multicoloured scarf.

My other observation, or more accurately, experience of the match was the fans’ vitriol. Specifically one fan. The one sitting directly behind me. Now I can cuss with the best of them. Why only last week, I uttered ‘Damn and blast!’ in an unguarded moment. But this man, this man, swore so astonishingly aggressively I genuinely thought I had met Mr Tourettes himself. His language was so blue I wondered if he was coughing up paint. And the slightest incident would rouse him to the vilest tirades.

But it wasn’t his language that upset me, Man of the World, that I am. It wasn’t even the unreasonableness of it, lack of imagination or poor sentence structure. No. The thing to which I objected was how he spat his obscenities. Literally spat them.  It was as though I had an industrial crop sprinkler a couple of inches from my neck. I felt every syllable. Every single one. By half time I had a trickle of another man’s saliva dripping down my collar. It’s never a pleasant experience. I know that others might disagree, indeed I suspect there are large internet communities dedicated to this very phenomenon but it’s not my cup of tea. In fact, I’ve not felt it since foolishly rescuing an anaesthetised Colombian priest from a dentist’s chair in Ghent. But at least he had the good manners to offer a complementary exorcism afterwards.

I know what you’re thinking. I’m a tough guy. Intimidating. Daunting. Frightening, even. Especially in the tweed coat I wore tonight. Surely I simply socked the hobbledehoy and thought no more about it. But this isn’t Serbia. And I had my gloves on.

No, I respected his right to scream foul language inches from my ear, and to drench all those in the seats in front of him. I took the only course of action that was reasonable. I put my collar up.

Bright

I took three hours to install two light fittings today.  Many men would be embarrassed by such ineptitude.  Not me.  I'm just glad that I no longer have to go upstairs to turn the porch light on.  Although I still have to control the stereo from the microwave.