Plan

It is stunningly beautiful here. I sit on the terrace in the mornings when everyone else is still asleep, watching the sun come up and the mist burn off the surface of the sea. The mountains emerge slowly, magnificently, from the haze across the channel and it is so quiet I can hear the lemons and figs plopping from the trees into the long grass of the orchard behind. House martins swoop down to drink from the swimming pool, joined memorably one morning by a proud, strutting jay.

The regular world and its concerns seem to have no relevance here, a place where wealth is measured by the number of olive trees; the length of a walk is measured by the number of cigarettes; the temperature is measured by the noise of the crickets and the beauty of a girl is measured by the thickness of her hair and the heaviness of her breasts. Sunshine, fresh air, good food, slow life are gradually working their magic on me.

September always feels much more like the time for things to start afresh. January is so cold and miserable and bleak. Coming back after the summer break seems like the right time to begin new plans, make resolutions, try a different approach. For more than half my life, autumn has been the time for change, and it’s a hard habit to break, it’s woven deep into the fabric.

I have had time to think, to mull, to ponder, to consider. I have determined that my experiment to live life outside the submarine has not worked out well. All this being open, being in touch with my emotions, saying what I feel, has occasionally had some wonderful benefits, but it has left me feeling vulnerable and exposed, wide open to hurt that would have glanced off and left me untouched if I had been safely inside my protective shell. It has reminded me why I built my submarine in the first place.

A second lesson I have learned from the experience is that no-one actually wants to know how you really feel. It’s too complicated, too dangerous, too difficult. They start to worry about what it might mean for them. There’s a kind of horror as if you’ve pulled the skin from your face - people don’t really want to see all the workings inside.

Finally I realised that you can be as open and bare as you like, but other people still keep their boundaries, regardless. For sure, there are a few who will let you get closer, share things that perhaps they wouldn’t generally, but there remain walls and secrets and barriers that must not be crossed. I am conclude there is general consensus that everyone should stay in their armour so the business of life can be transacted neatly, properly and without unseemly emotional seepage. Peep under the visor occasionally, if you’re careful.

So I am returning home by submarine. All shiny and new, fitting as closely as a second skin, painted to look just like me. You might never notice it’s there, unless you know me well. But it will be bolted firmly closed, and I will be invulnerable to the autumn and the winter, and everything will be fine.

School Reunion

There has only been one school reunion that we know of, and that was about ten years ago, when Friends Reunited first made it possible to get in contact with enough people to make it worthwhile. I didn’t go: I lived a long way away, I had a small toddler. I was tired and fat and pregnant. I was working 70 hours a week. I was too scared to go.

It’s not the sort of school to have an Alumni Association (no-one would even know what that meant, Latin has never been on the curriculum) and there isn’t a newsletter. The school itself is unrecognisable: after the third arson attack it has now been completely rebuilt, and the photographs I’ve seen look so gleamy and modern I had to check they weren’t computer-generated visuals. After its long history as a secondary modern, it became a comprehensive just before I started there and had a brief flurry of academic success with its small new sixth form. Now however it’s a sink school again: only 22% of pupils left with the requisite 5 GCSEs last year.  Poverty of ambition is just one of the many poverties to strike the region.

There wasn’t the hoo-ha about which secondary school was best, not where I grew up. It was a very small town, or a big village, I’m not sure, and everyone automatically went up to the same seniors. Nobody thought of getting a bus the eight miles into town to attend the grammar school (undeniably a better school but now also a comprehensive), and no-one went away to private school. You’d have to have gone away to board, there weren’t any private schools at all within travelling distance. Leeds Grammar was a good hour away on the train, with a twenty minute bus ride to the station and another twenty minute bus ride up the hill at the other end, not realistically possible on a daily basis.

People of my age fall distinctly into two groups: those that stayed and those that went. Most of my year left school at sixteen: the boys generally went down the pit or took apprenticeships, the girls to various jobs in town. Several girls were pregnant by the time they left, a number more by the time our little group of twenty-two geeks had finished our A levels two years later. The miner’s strike was some months old by then and the town’s economy was already completely fucked.

So some of us couldn’t afford to leave, and some of us couldn’t afford to stay. First Friends Reunited and now Facebook tell me that the exodus from the South Yorkshire coalfields is rivalled only by the Irish Potato Famine. Well, I might be exaggerating, but only slightly. And once you can’t be where you belong, you might as well be anywhere, so classmates are in California and Canada and Australia and Andorra. Most of us, however, have stayed within travelling distance of the place we still call home.

The previous reunion was clearly going to be mostly for the people who stayed around. This one in November, however, appears to be aimed at the wider diaspora. Teachers are being wheeled back out of retirement, there will be a tour of the shiny new school, the launch of a newsletter. I scent the possibility of a call for funds too, although perhaps I’m just jaded by the incessant requests for money (enormous amounts proposed, most recently £500 per month for 5 years) from my Cambridge college. The gathering already has its own Facebook page, and the discussion boards are lively with plans. It is even rumoured that The Gents might play.

School was fine, but I wouldn’t say I remember it as the best years of my life. (In fact I don’t when that period would be, I need to give it some more thought). Being a violin-playing, specs-wearing, freckly swot who arrived half way through the first year when everyone else had already settled into their friendship groups turned out better than you might have thought. I had some nice friends, a handful of whom I’m still in touch with, and we had some laughs. There were excellent teachers with an infectious passion for their subjects (physics excepted), and a strong interest in music due to the excellent colliery band. Sure there were bullies who forced us all to suffer regular random punches, kicks and smacks around the head, but they didn’t pay me any more attention than anyone else, so that counted as a blessing of sorts. Later, the new sixth form meant small classes, six in my largest group, which I believe accounted for the good results we all achieved. The escape route of a university place was also a great incentive to studying hard.

I’m not sure how a reunion now would turn out. The pecking order would certainly have changed. The cool girls have turned into raddled single mums with too many children and not enough money. The cool boys are fat blokes with nicotine-stained fingers and lines of bitterness etched too early into their faces. It’s not a wonder: work has been a struggle across the whole area for the last twenty-five years.

My big fear though, is that somehow despite my outward success (at least in comparison to the people who still live in the village) I will still be completely uncool. I suppose it’s the ultimate manifestation of my Impostor Syndrome. I have (with the help of my submarine protection-mechanism) been able to reinvent myself and convince the wider world at large that I am smart, successful, and if not sexy then certainly more attractive than I was at school. These folks will know for sure that there’s been a mistake. How could that skinny ginger nerd have gotten so jumped up?

There’s another problem too. I’m not sure how long the evening will last, and I’d be frightened to go to the toilet in case Renetta and Michelle slam my head into the paper towel dispenser or burn me with their cigarettes. My bladder might burst, and purely on the basis of preserving my health I think I might have to decline the invite.

Mantra

It would seem to stupid to stay in bed and pull the covers over my head. After all, it's a contender, in my book, for the most beautiful place in the world. If thinking is bad, then walking is good. Early up the hairpin bends until I am nothing except aching legs, panting lungs and pounding heart. And in case I am at risk of becoming too contemplative on the downward stretches, not to say maudlin, I have with me a small daughter who has promised to sing me (1) all the songs from Hairspray, (2) all the songs from Taylor Lautner’s album and (3) if it’s a long walk, all the songs from High School Musical I, II and III. In the circumstances, I think we had better go for a medium-length walk.

Indefatigable in her jibber-jabber, this little lark is one half of what I get up for every morning: even the mornings there is nothing to get up for. Looking just like me but skinny as a rake and with ribs protruding both front and back, she starts her day (usually around 5am) with an account of her dreams and her first bowl of Weetabix. Inside her head at night, it’s as busy and bizarre and colourful as an LSD trip. What a mysterious little thing. Three bowls of cereal, couple of pieces of fruit and we’re on our way.

At least half of her conversations revolve around mermaids - I’m something of an expert now. We didn’t spot any on this morning’s walk, however we think we saw the swish of a tail when we were on the boat this afternoon. I thought salty swims and the breeze blowing in my face would prove to me beyond doubt that I am not in fact made of cobwebs, nor of dust. They would be gone and I am still here: substantially, literally, virtually and indeed metaphorically.

Only a few days left to reconcile myself to the autumn, whatever it will hold. I will come back cool, calm and collected. I will be fitter, browner, thinner. I am on the way with my novel, I have a piece in a publication. Everything will be ok. Everything will be ok. Everything will be ok.

Innermost

I am cobwebs, I am dust
I am broken, I am bust
I am sorrow, I am tears
I am terror, I am fears

I am tired, I am beat
I am lost, I am defeat
I am lonely, I am cold
I am ugly, I am old

I am out, I am rejected
I am down, I am dejected
I am wrinkled, I am grey
I am drifting far away

I am poison, I am vile
I am bitter, I am bile
I am sorrow, I am rue
I am drifting in the blue

I am the gift that is not given
I am the car that is not driven
I am the bell that is not rung
I am the song that is not sung

Fears

Time to think can be a blessing or a curse: it all depends on what you’re thinking about, doesn’t it?

“Soon you will have to leave the business world behind”, said P. One of the choices I have been mulling over. Is it possible, I wonder, to work and write at the same time? People manage, Trollope and Larkin, for instance. I’m not sure about their other responsibilities though. I can’t go home at five o’clock - and even if I could, there is homework to supervise and supper to prepare and laundry to do.

I am resting here, with sunshine and sea and sleep and books: this is good. But I do not have my grounding. I am away from the people and places and tasks that keep me steady. I am waking with nightmares, terrors, in the small hours. I am afraid to be away, and afraid to come back too. I worry at threads that maybe weren’t even loose. I am adrift from my moorings. Everything feels so precarious; I fear I have invented the good parts of my life and when I come back they won’t be real after all.

A hug, a kind word, reassurance, means so much more than you might think. I can’t convince myself that I matter in any regard.

I feel like nothing. I feel like cobwebs. I feel like dust.

Quiz of the Week

It's an easy one this week. No multiple choices, just answer in the Comments (and yes, you can be anonymous if that's how you like it).

Which song would you associate with me?

I'm intrigued.

Don't Get Weird On Me, Baby

“Which is your favourite Lloyd Cole song?” The Farmer's Boys were playing in the background, but it couldn’t be the Eighties because we have children and jobs and mortgages and directorships and teams of staff and all sorts of things that seemed inconceivable in those days. It was one of the rare sunny afternoons in London when for a moment you feel as if you are on holiday Conversations like this are important in their small way. A question like that is a short cut to a sweeping swathe of common ground, a history written in music where we listened to the same songs and maybe on the same day, in different cities or, who knows, on Blackheath in the same pub.

He went for Perfect Skin. I’d have guessed that. Not because it was the main hit, but because he was in love with the girl in the song. All the indie boys wanted this girl, and we all wanted to be her. We might not have had perfect skin, it was our late teens after all, but hell we could be sexually enlightened by Cosmopolitan. I confused desire with enjoyment, at that time. I so wanted to be liberated and bold and free, and I so wanted to be turned on. I was a raging torrent of longing, frustration and hormones: and the boy to girl ratio was 12:1 in my college, 3:1 more widely in the university. No shortage of prospective playmates then.

I would start enthusiastically, give and ye shall receive, right? But it didn’t work like that, for all the good manners and fine breeding of these boys. It took me a long while to realise that, feminist or not, it’s only sensible - in the bedroom at least - to follow the principle of Ladies First. Despite my best attempts (and there were a fair few) my university years were orgasm-free, or at least when anyone else was present. I had a pretty good handle on the mechanics of boy-meets-girl but that isn’t the important thing, is it?

My theory now, for good sex from an early age, would be to get trained by a more experienced partner. Two young people trying to work it out as they go along might never get there. I bet there are a lot of couples like this, feeling deep down that they never quite got the hang of it, that other people in films and books and on tv, and in real life too, are having much better sex than they are.

I’d also recommend lessons not just in how to do sex, proper lustful, unembarrassed sex, but in how to talk about it. How can you ask for what you want, say what you like, give instructions or beg, if you don’t know the words? This is a barrier too: so many people who can do it, but couldn’t discuss it to save their lives. Or their marriages, for that matter.

Some people did have the advantage of a misspent youth and joyfully, eagerly, learned this stuff early on. But the kind of girl that would teach you these things is not necessarily the person you would take home to meet your parents, the kind of person you imagined marrying, being a mother to your children. That’s a role for Nice Girls. And Nice Girls don’t want to do that dirty stuff, hear those filthy words or - god forbid - say them. Do they? Or Nice Boys either. And it’s nigh on impossible to introduce these things later, I’d imagine.

My favourite Lloyd Cole song is Rattlesnakes. The girl in that song gets to look cool alright, doesn’t she? And read great books and carry a gun. Her heart’s like crazy paving (oh great lyric) and there are all sorts of things she needs.

Me too, me too....

Walkies

I woke early this morning and walked to Kassiopi. Leave any later than 8am and sun is already too hot to manage the hairpin climb up to the coastguard station. It’s only about four miles but I swear the first two are almost vertical. Stopping many times on the bare unshaded hill gives plenty of opportunity to look back down on the village, the boats in the harbour, and hidden in the olives, just visible if you know where to look, the roof, chimney and end window of our villa. This will be our last stay: it is too expensive in these straitened times. We could be on safari or having a tour of China or on a private hut on stilts over a lagoon in Mauritius for the same price, if not less. I fancy contemplating the abyss from a difference perspective next year.


Turn right after the path to the coastguard station and suddenly there are trees and shadows and a gentle downhill slope. I am surrounded by the sounds of birds I don’t recognise, the whirr of cicadas rising as the temperature climbs, the skitter of gekkos on the stones beside the road, and an occasional rustle in the bushes that might be a rabbit or even a snake. Pass the riding stables, through the nature reserve and Avlaki bay opens out round the bend in a dazzle of turquoise and white and silver. Sea merges into sky at the vanishing point, the stones are already hot through the soles of my trainers. I have the whole vista completely to myself.


Past the second taverna, I am an accompanied for a while by a white and brown dog of indeterminate breed. He is keen to show me the dustbins and lampposts along the route but I am keener to peep through the wrought iron gates at the villas up on the headland. This is an odd in-between stretch, not quite village not quite countryside. I chat amiably to the dog, ask him a few questions, but he doesn’t reply. I realise he probably doesn’t speak English. I’m not a fan of dogs generally, as I’m sure I’ve mentioned, but this fellow seemed friendly enough despite his silence. He licked my calf as he turned back at the bend into town.


I remembered a girl I shared an office with once. I hated her in the way it is only possible to hate people with whom you must have enforced contact over a long period. Cell-mates perhaps. She was called Christine. She had a mess of frizzy strawberry blonde hair which she thought made her look like Nicole Kidman (trust me, it didn’t) and an Irish boyfriend whose phrases and Kilkenny accent she affected, even though she was from Norfolk herself. It was a constant source of amazement to me that someone who had travelled around the world (as she never tired of telling us) could still have such small horizons, such a narrow mind. She may not have liked foreigners (all sorts) but she had an endless love of and interest in dogs (all kinds). She had dog notepaper, a dog necklace, a hideous plasticised canvas book bag with dogs on it, read magazines, watched programmes about dogs. Although she did not have a dog herself as it was not allowed in the terms of the lease on their flat.


“Remind me what breed of dog you have, Chris?” I’d ask spitefully, when she was in full flow, usually some tedious interminable tale of her travels which involved an anecdote to illustrate her truth that foreigners were dirty, dishonest, dastardly or dumb. This summarises my general view of dogs, and she was always trying to convince me that I was wrong. I had given up long before trying to convince her that foreigners might have some points in their favour (even the invention of hummus and central heating had not swayed her) and moved on to sly suggestions that Irish people were actually foreigners too.


“I have a story here that proves the extraordinary and special powers of dogs”. She was triumphantly waving an article from a Woman & Home magazine. It was about a woman with face like a potato whose dog had whined and looked worried and licked at a place on her calf every day for weeks. Eventually she noticed that a mole in that place looked funny. Her doctor diagnosed a malignant melanoma, but was able nip its spread in the bud, having spotted it so early. “This is proof”, she stated, “that canines can divine things we humans cannot perceive or understand”. She had a smug smile on her face that made me want to slap her (although I often wanted to slap her, for all sorts of reasons, including nothing less than tossing her hair in an irritating way). “Bollocks.” I wasn’t even laughing. “It proves that dogs give you cancer”.


I was pleased with my morning’s lucky escape. The dog had failed to exact revenge on behalf of his species for all the mean comments I had made over the years about the licking of balls and the wiping of arses on the carpet (which dog-people ridiculously call sit-up-and-beg). No teeth had been involved, and one lick would probably not give me cancer. I tramped on through the souvenir shops to the small semi-circle of Kassiopi’s natural harbour. I sat for a while on a bench beside a cannon, trying to decipher the plaque, but my Greek was not up to the job.


The cannon was pointed directly at Sarande, just across the channel. From Kassiopi through the binoculars, it looks like an enormous jumble of half-built, half-occupied tower blocks. One year we went on a visit to Albania to see the amazing archaelological wonder that is the ancient city of Butrint. We travelled from Corfu Town on the Flying Dolphin hydrofoil and arrived at Sarande: which turned out to be an enormous jumble of half-built, half-occupied tower blocks. The inhabitants appeared to be comprised of stocky peasants, skinny girls with bad haircuts in ridiculously tight clothes, and frightening men driving black Mercs. The sole exception was our guide, an elderly university professor of history who spoke eight languages and whose father had led the excavations of the forgotten city. He explained many things, at length and in perfect English, including the fact that the most respected Englishman in Albania is Norman Wisdom. I found this impossible to believe but the internet agrees with him.


The cannon’s mouth was stopped with chewing gum, crisps wrappers and drinks cans. Attacking Albania by firing litter across the straits would be a wasted effort: the whole country is scattered with fly tipping. Rubbish lined the country lanes on our drive to the Blue Eye Spring, in the middle of an area that purported to be a national park. Magnificent mountains and very slightly less litter. Kassiopi is clean and lovely by comparison. When I first came to Corfu in 1998, warships plied up and down this channel to keep theAlbanians out, but lately the island has relied on summer workers from Sarande, double the number of Flying Dolphins plying the waters these days, to clean its apartments and restaurant kitchens. This will all be changing again, a third of young Greeks are out of work now.


There were fewer tourists in the cafes of Kassiopi than I’ve seen before, and several of the shops had not opened for the summer. But the sea and sun and sky are still beautiful.

Dreamland

Even he, the man who never apologises, is contrite now. Fawning, making cups of tea, vowing not to drink so much, promising to change. And so, wearily, we trudge the ups and downs of the familiar circuit, the stair carpet wearing threadbare with our comings and goings on this well-worn route. The magic would only work if I believed it, and hope lost its ability to triumph over experience in these matters a long while ago. I’m tired of riding his rollercoaster, I don’t think I’m going to do it any more.

A lot of things are striking chords at the moment: today it has been Jonathan Coe in the audio-Maxwell Sim as I tramp around the pool. Or rather one of his fictional people: a Northern girl called Caroline who we don’t yet know much about, who will be perhaps a main figure or perhaps just an aside, a device to shed light on her ex-husband’s character.

“How can I love a man who doesn’t love himself?” she asked (just before she left, actually). How indeed can you love a man who doesn’t love himself, and extends his dark world-view to those who, for whatever reason, stand close? He wears his own personal cloud, and everything around him must also fall under its shadow.

And yet, I am not miserable here. The sun is hot, the water is clear, no domestic chores to suck up my time so I can read and I can write. I can listen to the girls laughing, splashing in the pool: one of the best sounds in the world. I can swim and sleep and eat seafood and, yes, I can daydream.

Dreamer

I am not to be allowed to enjoy my insignificant-small triumph even for a few hours. I must be cut down to size and reminded of all the things I am here to forget. I wonder who would realise if they were watching us, opposite one another on a table at the water’s edge, bathed in the milky pinks and greys of a gentle sunset, that as he leans intently towards me he is not whispering endearments but hissing bile. You have no fucking idea of what life is really about. Everything is a competition, everything is war. Not writing. Don’t fool yourself. What do you think getting published is all about? You have to be better than the others to be chosen. There are winners and losers, just like everything else.

I don’t write to be published, though. I write because it bubbles up inside me like a spring. I write because I like to. I write because I love words and their beauty and their power. You’re a fucking dreamer, he spits, as if that were a bad thing. You write because you’re a control freak and you can make everything turn out just the way you want. As if that were a bad thing too. Inside my dreamy head, I acknowledge with an ironic smile that, even in his drink, in his contempt, he is smart. How irritating.

All that writing. Why don’t you apply yourself to the long-awaited business plan? All that thinking. Why don’t you invest your time thinking of a way to get your business out of this fucking black hole? Oddly enough, I have thought about this a lot over the last couple of years. Even I am not control-freaky enough to believe I can turn around the economy single-handed. My mind turns disloyally to life insurance, to horny yet tender sex with a man who is kind and clever and funny and does not drown me in scorn.

I look at him across the table. He is confused for a moment: I’m not fighting back. I was lost for a while in my erotic reverie, vivid, sweat lightly beading my forehead, a hot pulse now between my legs. What? Nothing. His eyes are bulging angrily, a vein in his temple throbbing, his face red, his breathing fast. I wonder whether, if I delivered a few home truths, he would fall dead right in front of me? A pop behind the eyes as the vessels finally give way to hypertension? A tightening band across the chest and pain shooting down the left arm as the neglected pump packs up? I hope you’re happy in your fucking little dreamland. Oh yes, oh yes.

Author

My poem, the one that was submitted to a writer’s website, is going to be published in a book! An actual real-life, hold-it-in-your-hands, put-it-on-a-bookshelf-book, with paper and pages and typography and everything! This is a momentous milestone - only for me personally of course, not for the literary canon more generally. Nonetheless I am thrilled. I must be on the way to becoming that which I wish to be: and to be introduced as a writer, rather than the more tedious current professional designation. Be the change you want to see. A tiny fraction of the wisdom of the wisest, but still taken to heart.

It has taken me too, too long to see that I can’t become a writer by talking about writing, or fretting about it, or complaining that I’m not: I can only achieve it by writing. And so here I am, my scales and arpeggios and etudes flowing, or clumping agonisingly, struggling leaden-slow from my fingers to the keyboard.

Regional White Wine of Drama

As if we are not already long on histrionics. As if heat, tiredness, limoncello hangovers and youth hormones are not already a potent mix. However, if a proper Greek tragedy is to be played out, then the Regional White Wine of Drama will be an essential ingredient. There will be no matricide as, feisty and sneaky though they may be, I could still easily beat them in a fight, should it come to that. Patricide is similarly thus ruled out. At 38 degrees, no one has the energy for the rending of garments, although tossing of said items liberally across the floor and all available surfaces can still engender weeping and wailing on my part, despite the temperature.

Dashing oneself into the sea from a high rock would require a wearisome climb to a sun-baked peak in the heat of the day with biting insects, and snakes lying malevolently across the path like a curse. It becomes easy to understand the Greek lust for explorations and sea battles: the sailing into the breezy blue, the winds a cool caress and the hot stones moving away along the horizon.

So in the heat, we stay put. Resting, reading, and preparing ourselves for the evening’s battles with liberal imbibing of the Regional White Wine of Drama.

Agni

Under the water is another kingdom. In the long waving meadows of sea-grass, fish graze calmly like sheep amongst the fronds. Sun dapples the sea floor with crazy paving, the stones carefully arranged by mermaid hands to create paths and patterns invisible to the clumsy humans lining the beach like sausages on a grill. Below the shimmering surface there is no sound. Deep calm, the calm of the deep. Only the slow huff and puff of breath through the snorkel, punctuated with the rhythmic splash of one lazy flippered foot, and then the other.

An octopus has made his home under the concrete footings of the jetty. He is the boss, one tentacle suckered firmly onto the pitch-dark pine pole, his baleful eye watching over the bustle of the underwater thoroughfare. A school of whitebait, moving as if controlled by a single brain, swish past in a teasing giggle of silver but he is unmoved.

In a still corner between two jutting crags, a fish parliament is in session. Solemnly the bream are still and listen as one after another they state their views. Or perhaps it is a choir practice and they are singing in wonderful mysterious fish-harmonies. A special ear is needed to hear the songs of the sea.

It is a veritable underwater jungle. Tiger fish, zebra fish. Sea horses, scorpion fish. Further afield, many days of swim-safari and there might be dogfish, catfish, lion-fish too. We will dine on sea cucumbers and be entertained by the clown fish.

The path to the next bay is barred, to keep it exclusive for the luxurious motor yachts, but the coastline itself, all the thousands of miles of it in this country of islands, wrapping around the equator in its length, belongs to the people. Every centrimetre, even the beaches of Onassis’ Skorpios, even the tidy shores below the Rothschild and Agnelli villas. Anyone may pull up his fishing boat where he pleases, or indeed snorkel around the headland, guided by a smiling sea-bass. With a head popped out of the water, the gin-palaces rise like skyscrapers with gleaming sides in navy and white and gunmetal, and balconies of teak and chrome. But under the water their hulls are greenish and barnacled like the smallest fishing smack.

Terrace

Waking before dawn, the mountains across the channel wait patiently for the new day. Albania, only a short mile away, looks mysterious and deserted. No thick forests of pines and olives but scrubby bushes and brown-ish yellow areas between. Grass perhaps, or dusty rock. At this time of day the sea is calm and a soft translucent dove grey: no boats yet to churn the surface and pierce the quiet with their hornet outboards.

The sun creeps ups, heralded with a fanfare of pale rose before the light suddenly edges up above the line of peaks with an almost audible dazzle. Once an inch arc of the shining disc has emerged, no longer possible to look directly, only see the soft-focus slopes become dappled with long bushy shadows which grow shorter as the temperature climbs and the sea is flooded with sunshine.

The narrow necklace of sea changes over the hours from milky greenish opal to flashing silver. At noon it is brilliant turquoise over the white stones of the shore lying quietly like perfect eggs under the surface, and where the water is deeper, shot with aquamarine. Later there are pools of dark sapphire under the cliffs, and beneath the overhang a dark mysterious lustre of jet.

By the time the sun is sinking, the mountains are tired. Crushed together all day, silent in the baking heat, the light drops from their west faces and they slump into the sea, the colour of bruises.

Arrival

Fractious and hot from an early start and a long journey. Before the unpacking is finished I am relegated to the spare room. Yet again. The crime this time: almost (although not actually) losing my purse. Rooting, concerned, in my bag as we came around the turn to the view point where we first spot the villa. Ruining the moment, and thus apparently the whole fortnight will be down the drain. This does seem unlikely, but after only an hour’s sleep, arguing would be too wearisome.

Note to self: only book holiday houses with two master suites in the future. Or perhaps strike with a preemptive defensive manoeuvre and be the one to do the banishing, on spurious infinitesimal but vitally early grounds, thus scoring a fortnight in splendid nocturnal isolation with the best bathroom.

Service Interruption

Normal service may possibly be interrupted. It will depend entirely on technological possibilities... I'll be back.

Story Stealer

It's a surprise, but one thing I have done in all this distress is write.  It made a difference, having one of my poems selected for publication on a writing website, and it made a difference getting positive feedback on this blog from people whose opinion I hold in high regard.

I found a voice. Not mine, but one that is familiar. It's flowing quite easily. The full sweep of plot is not fully formed yet, but the characters are emerging nicely, as are some key events and interactions.  I also wrote a short story, a piece of flash fiction and a poem for Bugged, although the poem was finished too late for submission. I might put it on here some time, I suppose.  I thought my restless mind could be better applied than googling (my restless body I walked into submission yesterday with over 11 miles in the rain, and it quietened down a little bit after that).

I'm stealing stories. Some of them I'd left alone until now, knowing they were great but they were not mine to have. But then I figured a story that belongs to someone that I know, is now a story that could be mine. I base this on the logic that there's a sort of Venn-diagram overlap of   -  you  -  that means I am connected in to all your triumphs and tragedies, all your characters and friends, your loves and disappointments. 

And like Frank Bascombe said, I can make them turn out the way I want them to. I can deny you the consummation to your most romantic encounter, or turn a humiliation into a golden glowing marvel.  Now I get to decide who has the happy endings.

Quiz of the Week

Last week’s quiz, Why Am I So Hard To Love? didn’t tell me anything I didn’t know. Duh, I do set the questions after all.

These are the shortcomings I already know. Maybe my quiz should have had some open questions (unprompted as we used to say in the glamorous world of marketing). It would be interesting to know whether I missed anything out. But I’m probably paranoid enough already, without asking for more things to worry about.

I am thinking that, in honour of my holiday (which will be restorative and calming) I am going to have a more positive quiz. Afer all, I've just been reminded about running myself down all the time, haven't I?! I need to regroup and get my head together. It will be hard graft,whether I am taking the business down finally or building it back up again, and I need my energy.

So help me. This week's quiz is How Should I Mostly Spend My Time On Holiday? I would like to know what would help me gain more equilibrium. I’ve made some suggestions, but do feel free to make more. Down there, in the right hand margin, at the bottom.

Later. 6.45pm.

Course, it was always going to be a great day. The last day in the office before the holiday always is. 

It's not a good start to wake up in tears at 6am, but I seem to have reconciled myself to my place in the overall cosmic scheme, and so after a few hours of crying I was as ready as I'll ever be to face the world. I don't know why I ever expected anything different. Like I say, I'm a slow learner.

So much to do, and yet almost immobile under the crushing burden of pressure. He had conveniently forgotten his offer to pick the children up from Birmingham, so I had to fit all that in as well, at the last minute.  Then I had to work out how to entertain them back at the office.

"Mummy, what do you do when a boy asks you something on line and you don't want to answer?"  Ooh. Has it begun already, at eleven? Deep concern beneath my air of casual enquiry. "That depends on the question". Bated breath. "It's something I don't want to talk about with a boy". Okaaaaay. What does he want you to do? "He wants me to tell him what speciality I would have if there was a zombie apocalypse".  Excellent question. "I don't want to get into a conversation about zombies, I might get spooked out".  Silent sigh of relief. One less thing to worry about in my hellish day.

I decided to take my job as seriously as it deserves, so I gave them roles for the afternoon. One to do the switchboard, one to photocopy her head.  It worked well.  No one noticed. Then I palmed one off on a mate who owed me a favour, and the other one is helping the cleaner just at the moment.

Meanwhile I am trying to do about two weeks' work in the next couple of hours.  However I have drunk so much coffee I have had to spend 50% of the day on the toilet and I am jangling and hysterical. 

At one point in France, I felt so dreadful that I lay awake on the hard narrow bed of the spare room, and thought of all the different ways I could kill myself.  Like counting sheep, but grimmer: an intellectual exercise to distract me from the practical possibilities. I am not going to do that in Greece.

I am going to reorganise my inner landscape, and change my priorities. I'm finally at the tipping point, nearly so nearly sank last night, the coup de grace. But I've decided to swim.

Outside Looking In

It's a feeling I used to have a lot. The one where everyone knows the secret and I don't. Things happening around and about me that I don't understand,  a joke and everyone is laughing except me.

I felt like this all the time when I was younger, so I'm in familiar territory.

Life is out to crush me at the moment. I keep on fighting, not prepared to go down without a struggle. But I'm not sure why. Every small victory, every hellish day got through, only brings me to another one.

More of the same, more of the same. And I get more and more exhausted. And at the end of tunnel is another tunnel. And at the end of that tunnel is a couple laughing in the sunshine -  but the girl is not me.

Run Down

I really must keep better track, you know. It's probably PMT (or if you ask my mother, it'll be my menopause).  I am so exhausted I can barely put one foot in front of the other, and I'm in a very odd mood.

It's the strangest time I can think of for a long while. The girls have hardly been here, the pressure of work has been extraordinary, and and and... Never did a person need so much reassurance.  I am driving myself nuts, never mind anyone else. I am my own worst enemy, and when I've run out of things to worry about well hey how about I go out and create some more from the ether, just to remain fretful.  I'm an insult to the good people around me.

I feel listless and panicky at the same time. All is not right with the world.  I had a dream last night that I died in my sleep  -  I was quite surprised when I woke up. I look old, tired, fat.

I am hoping that a holiday is exactly what I need. Sunshine, swimming, reading, relaxation. And sleep, ah sleep, how I yearn for a day when the alarm is not needed and my body can take as long as it needs, in the cool darkness of the shuttered room and the soft hum of the air conditioner.

I will come back re-charged. I want to look like I've been away: fresher, brighter.  I want to feel like I've been renewed.  This is important: autumn holds more promises than a spring, this year.

Idle Hands

I’m pondering a name-change for my oeuvre. Postbox of Smallville, perhaps?

Too much time, and the whole wonderful world wide web at my disposal. The temptation has been niggling away for a while. An itch I’ve tried to ignore, an idea I’ve tried to put out of my mind. It seems just too nosey and intrusive, e-snooping, a sort of electronic listening at doors.

But it was there, the thought. Had been for ages. A couple of things that were said, a couple of things happened, and I thought....hmmmm.....Coincidence? Or not? Sometimes I’m a great believer in serendipity, lucky breaks, fortuitous circumstances, synchronicity.

Sometimes I’m not.

The first bit of googling, well, I’d done that before. It was a form of flattery, actually. When I looked again, I found the first coincidence. It was like eating toasted marshmallows: even the first mouthful makes you feel slightly sick but you still carry on. With this new information, I discovered more things I’d have been better not knowing. Uneasy now, but with my fork firmly committed to the flame, I paired the name I hadn’t known with the place I’d never heard of.

Looks like I might be the ice-cream in the gap between two reels of Gone With The Wind. Like I said, I’m a slow learner.

Ten More Things

It’s an excellent suggestion, thank you. I’ve been mulling it over and it’s taken me a while to come up with a definitive list, but here it is. Ten Things Men Wear That Women Hate. And inevitably, the reasons why.

1. The wrong trousers

There are many ways for trousers to be wrong. Too baggy round the back (we like to see a well-shaped bum). Too tight round the front (we may enjoy the frisson of subtle hard-on but we don’t want to see the full contours of your bollocks, thanks very much). This is the male equivalent of camel-toe, but I don’t know what it’s called. The wrong fastenings. We like jeans with a button fly (cos we grew up fantasising about the Levi 501 laundrette boy); or suit trousers with the erotic complications of a properly tailored zip-and-clip challenge.

2. The wrong tie

There are fashions in ties. If you haven’t noticed this, shame on you. Commonest tie-horrors are hideously-off-trend, grubby, snagged or the ultimate sin: novelty. Cartoon characters, slogans, company logos are all verboten.

3. The wrong shoes

You can judge a lot about a man by his shoes. Don’t underspend: cheap shoes smell, make your feet hurt, wear out quickly. Oh, and they look crap too. Work shoes should be polished and smart. If you’re nervous, stick to a brand like Church’s or Jones. You might not be the height of fashion but you won’t be embarrassing yourself by accidentally buying Elton-John stack-heeled glitter boots. The wrong shoes include trainers (unless actually inside the gym or running); shoes that fasten with Velcro (are you a baby?); shoes that look like they are made for comfort rather than style (are you grandad? Do you have a club foot?); shoes with heels (are you a gay salsa teacher?); shoes that are made of plastic (are you a chav?); sandals (are you a baby? Are you Jesus?)

Buying the right shoes is hard. The best advice is to take a girl with you, or get all metrosexual and start reading the style pages. Socks should not be worn with sandals, but you knew that already. If your feet will be on show, on holiday for instance, look after them properly. It’s right, not wrong, to consider a pedicure (and a manicure too, for that matter). No nail polish though...

4. The wrong shirt

Nylon is obviously out. A white shirt and dark body is not permitted unless you are a Mafioso. The main shirt sins are easily fixed, and are more to do with maintenance than anything else. Firstly, a cheap shirt looks cheap. If you want to look cheap too, go for it. Expensive, decent shirts always end up on special deals so look around. Good places are Austin Reed or Jaeger (good offers) and for your best pulling-shirt, Paul Smith, Duchamp or Liberty (but not one that looks like a blouse).

Look after your shirts properly. Don’t smash them through the washing machine on a 1600 spin cycle, for example. If your wife is in charge of all the laundry, she will be hammering them on a boil wash and extra spin for sure. Because who the FUCK do you think you are, expecting her to do your shirts? Look for signs of wear on the cuffs and collar and donate them to the local charity shop as soon as they are past their crispy best (otherwise you’ll forget and wear them anyway). Learn how to iron the collars properly so they don’t get those little creases on the edges, and how to do the sleeves (bearing in mind comments re wife above).

If you are a person who sweats, well hey why not? It’s manly. But make sure you chuck your shirts out when they start to show deodorant stains under the arms and don’t ever, ever do that arms-above-the-head, leaning-back-in-the-chair thing if you’ve got big sweat rings in your armpits. No, no, no.

5. The wrong T shirt

You can’t go wrong with a t shirt right? Wrong. My friend G, immaculate wearer of all the right clothes, doesn’t even own a single one. Get a t shirt that fits, for start. Not too big and baggy, not too small and clingy. It should be clean, without a saggy neck (if it’s gone baggy, time to say goodbye) and either in good condition or deliberately distressed and vintage: this can be cool.

Naff slogans are definitely out. A particularly bad one I saw recently was “I eat pussy like a fat boy eats cake”. Tasteful. Sometimes humorous t shirts can be very funny, but check first that you’re not way off track. Anything about tequila, or nuts, or superman is probably wrong. Polo shirts are NOT in fashion. And think carefully about whether you want to be a walking billboard for someone else’s brand. Gap, American Apparel, Banana Republic, many choices here are fine. Don’t go too fancy. Band t shirts depend entirely on your taste in music. Any t shirt with no sleeves is wrong. This includes all vests and wifebeaters.

6. The wrong nightwear

If you get cold in bed, a worn-out Ramones t shirt is ok. And maybe a navy towelling dressing gown for when you get up to make me an early morning cuppa. Anything remotely in the category of “pyjamas”, Oscar-Wilde velvet smoking jackets, cosy dressing gowns, slippers, all mark you as a grandad. Men only start wearing pyjamas in bed when they need to cover up their prostate-dribble incontinence pants. Don’t go there before you have to. Unless you want to send a firm “don’t even think about having sex” message – which boys usually don’t, at bedtime.

7. The wrong swimwear

Speedos, see item 1 (no visible parts please). Clingy trunks will not make you into Daniel Craig - if only it were that easy. Vilbrequins were cool, until we saw both Tony Blair and David Cameron sporting them on holiday. This was the brand-disaster equivalent of Kerry Katona wearing head-to-foot Burberry and now they are out out out. You’re not a teenager, so choose something age-appropriate. Hackett would be a good place to try. I once spent two weeks in the next bungalow along from Jeremy Hackett at a resort in Crete, and he could look cool and trendy even by the pool.

8. The wrong glasses

Go to an optician with stylish women or gay men to help you choose. They see people trying on specs all day and they can help you select the right shape to flatter your features. Glasses are to assist your vision, not to hide behind if you’re shy: make sure we can still see those gorgeous eyes. Designer brands are likely to look better. Cheap glasses are a false economy: you will wear them every waking moment so the cost-per-wear works out infinitesimal (Not heard of that coefficient before? Girl-maths. Keep up). Change them every two years or so, otherwise you’ll look old fashioned. And please please keep them clean. No smudges, fingermarks or dirt.

9. The wrong accessories

Signet rings or wedding rings are the only appropriate jewellery. Army dog tags are sexy, but only if you are actually a soldier on active combat, with the body to match. Occasionally a small discreet tattoo might just about be ok, but if you didn’t get one in your twenties, don’t start now. Beards, goatees, moustaches: no. Piercing: no no no. Man-tan. No.

10. The wrong pants

Girls my age grew up fantasising about the 501 Laundrette Boy (see point 1), so you might like to bear that in mind. Crisp white boxers are lovely. Other boxers are fine too. Possibly white or black jersey shorts (Calvin Klein) can also work, if they are nice and fresh and tight. As a general rule, I’d say that any other pants are wrong, especially if your reasons are to do with comfort and or support (are you a grandad?) However I’m lately of a mind that if you are very very sexy, you can get away with dad-pants. Just. As long as they are pristine, you have a massive erection to jazz them up, and you don’t keep them on for long.

More complicated than you thought, isn’t it? Anything that could be prefixed dad- (dad-trainers, dad-pants, dad-jumpers) is wrong. Jumpers in fact I could write a whole separate post just on that topic. Don’t venture into jumpers at all without my say-so. Email me a picture and I'll tell you whether it's allowed.

If in doubt, copy Don Draper. Watch a few episodes of Mad Men and you’ll see him in all situations of dress and undress. When you’re confused, just ask yourself “what would Don do?” and you’ll be ok.

Grand Canyon

I’ve never been, myself.

I understand you can fly over in a helicopter. You can trek down into the valley. You can white-water raft down the river. You can climb up or abseil down the cliffs. You can participate in archaeological digs in the bottom, or camp. You can hang glide or parasail. You can see it from space or on Google Earth or in satellite photos. You can drive almost right to the edge of the precipice in places, or even over the edge if you’re Thelma and Louise (ahhhh, Susan...sigh...) You can wander right out over the edge of it on the Skywalk. You can stay in a luxury five star hotel. You can visit at dawn or sunset. You can see it stone cold sober, wrapped in a gentle haze of soft red wine, or tripped out on LSD.

Whatever. There are lots of different ways of contemplating the abyss.

Blakeney

They honeymooned in Blakeney, at a place called the White Horse. It was 1961 so they were just in time to completely miss the Swingin’ Sixties.

They were both virgins. She was making him wait. That was one way to catch a husband, in those days. I’ve often wondered if that meant that the men who were most eager to marry quickly, whirlwind romance, all that, were the ones most likely to be led astray by their dicks throughout their lo-o-o-o-o-ng married lives. Anyhow. He wrote her a series of ever-more heated letters in the run up to the wedding. Not the sort of explicit stuff we’d come out with nowadays, with our porno-literacy and frank shamelessness, but a lot of panting enthusiasm about finally being alone, having the opportunity to be close, and so forth.

He had almost managed to get some practice in, before he met her, on a rare and bold overseas holiday with a friend to Spain. They had met a pair of Spanish nurses (oh happy fate!) and spent the week wooing them. Come the last night, he was lying on a deserted beach under the cover of darkness, kissing her, and he thought he might be onto a sure thing with his dusky Latin temptress. He edged his hand under the frill of her skirt and she didn’t move it away. He left it there a while, then stroked around her knee and began to move upwards. He realised to his shock that she had a thick mat of hair running down the inside of her thighs almost to her knees. Curly, springy leg-pubes. He knew from the dance halls that English girls did not have this. Respectfully (appalled) he removed his hand from the frills of her petticoat and walked her back to her hotel. It left him with an enduring horror of Mediterranean women, and I’m sure this is the reason why he married a strawberry-blonde with almost invisible eyebrows and lashes, just in case.

She made the dresses for all seven of her bridesmaids, each one a different pastel shade with a sheer net of embroidered daisies over, and jaunty pillbox hats to match. Her mother was a seamstress for Norman Hartnell and her aunt worked for a milliner, so they knew what they were doing. She looks slender, elegant, beautiful. He looks nervous in the photos. Skinnier than we’ve ever seen him, with his hair heading towards a quiff. He says it was called a brush-cut, slicked with hair oil.

I think they were married in the morning and drove to Blakeney after the wedding breakfast. It must have been a long, long drive in those days on those roads: it take ages even now, from London. The place though, looks idyllic, still. I went there last weekend. I’ve never been before, but the road passed so close I wanted to swing by, see what it was like. The White Horse sits half way up the High Street. Flint-and-brick cottages lead down to a quay with small sailing boats moored amongst the rushes.

I suppose they freshened up, had supper, chatted. She was very nervous, I know that because she told me. Him, I’m not sure whether he had specific worries at this point or just general ones. They went back, got ready for bed, each taking their turn in the bathroom. She had new nightdresses for the honeymoon. Two was the prevailing advice, for obvious reasons. They did the deed. She never told me how that went, and I didn’t want to know. It turned out not to be the main event of the evening.

His foreskin was very tight, and had dug in like piano wire. The end of his penis had bulbed out above, swollen beyond all reasonable extent, deep purple-red, angry and painful. They had no idea what to do.

They waited. They panicked. He was certainly beyond arousal now, but it wasn’t going down. He looked at it and started to feel faint, sick. What young man wouldn’t? They were in a horror of embarrassment. He lay on the bed, terrified, appalled. She got dressed and went downstairs, roused the landlady, asked her to call a doctor, said her husband was ill. The landlady, knowing they were on honeymoon, was terribly concerned and asked lots of questions which the bride was unable to answer in any sensible way.

It was late Saturday night in Norfolk. The doctor, when finally roused from his bed, would not come out until she had explained exactly the nature of the “illness”. Maybe they had lots of panic calls from newly-weds, maybe they needed to check. So she whispered, trying her best to explain, having no vocabulary to describe the scene, worrying that the landlady was listening all agog further along the corridor. The doctor would not come up but prescribed a cold bath with two pounds of table salt. She asked the landlady, who had to unlock the pantry and whose eyebrows were by now so far risen up her forehead they had disappeared into her hairline.

I suppose after that, the cold water and the shock ebbed everything away naturally. They had booked for a week so they had to face the landlady twice a day until the next Saturday. I don’t know how the rest of the honeymoon went, or what happened after that, how things were. They sorted themselves out enough to have a family, after a few years.

“Don’t rush into sex”, she advised. “It’s a disappointment for everyone concerned”.

Quiz of the Week

Well, my first quiz results point to the conclusion that I’m perfectly normal. Muahahaha, my evil illusion is working! You see, I took a quiz a while ago called Are You Clinically Insane? It was on Facebook so it must be scientifically researched and reliable. It showed me a photo of Britney in her shaved-head phase and said:

Bipolar: Ever wondered why you're so moody? You experience days or weeks of paralyzing, cheeto-binging depression, then a week of frenzied, hyperactive, ridiculously irresponsible behavior characterized by wild thoughts, sleepless nights, maxing out credit cards, having unprotected sex with dozens of strangers... or shaving your head and attacking the paparazzi with an umbrella. Some might call that chemically imbalanced... others call it "passionate".

See, it's insightful.

My next quiz is about my renowned characteristic of being hard to love. I must be, because my own mother told me (and she’s not the only one to say so, oh no).

Do join in. It’s down in the right hand margin. Be frank – after all, it’s anonymous.

Positivity

Maybe it’s me. Maybe I am too ready to criticise, listen to the bad stuff, tune in to the downsides. What if I was more positive? Maybe the most appropriate action I can take today is to count the blessings.

Today’s exercise is to list, with no qualifiers, the good points. Here goes.

I am married to man who is:

• 
  
  Clever
• 
  
  Well qualified
• 
  
  Charming
• 
  
  Charismatic
• 
  
  Ex international hockey player
• 
  
  Runner of marathons and ultra-marathons
• 
  
  Fit body
• 
  
  Nice eyes
• 
  
  Successful
• 
  
  Generous
• 
  
  Popular
• 
  
  Respected
• 
  
  Enthusiastic
• 
  
  Energetic
• 
  
  Excellent driver

I should thank my lucky stars, really. I guess. Or at least, stop whining so much. It must be me, right?

Commitment

I'm convinced there are more interesting ways of being tied down than the one I seem to have chosen.

Wasted

I was thinking about my post from the other day, about what a useless bunch we all are. I’ve been pondering the overall uselessness of the skills I employ at work, combined with the skills I have but don’t use any more, and the skills I learnt but have now forgotten.

I’ve concluded that I have wasted a huge amount of time, effort and brain-space with this endeavour (tryer that I am) so allow me to waste some more time listing them here. It will make me feel better.

Cooking. You may be surprised to know (particularly if you’ve eaten at my house) that I’m a pretty competent cook. It used to be all the rage, didn’t it, proper entertaining? Maybe it still is, for the child-free. Two starters, meat and vegetarian options, two desserts. Home-made bread. It’s making me think that perhaps I should do this again sometime. Although now I’m remembering that we would need to work as a team to run a proper formal dinner party, and we’re all run out of teamworking after a day or week gritting our teeth in harness together. I can also fold napkins in six different ways, including swans, roses and waterlilies.

Sewing. Yes, I can make curtains, cushions, cot-bedding, even clothes. I expect every girl my age can. I can thread the sewing machine, stitch a seam, do a button-hole. I can set a sleeve and a zip, make a dart, overlock a hem. I can darn, let seams in and out, patch. I know which needles to use for jersey and silk and denim. I can also do hand-embroidery, smocking, tapestry, knitting, French knitting and crochet. But it’s only 99p for a top from Primark so I imagine these skills will not be used again.

Reading. Yes, I know most people can read, I mean reading in foreign languages. I used to read a hefty novel or play in French or German almost as easily as one in English, and I haven’t done that for about twenty years. As for my Spanish, I imagine that’s disappeared almost completely. I can still hold a conversation in French, I guess, but my German is slipping away. This is stupid. I love languages and it was once the very only thing I was good at. I must get back into practice.

Tiling. Floors and walls. I’m also counting paving. I was pretty good at all that, when I was too poor to get Czech boys to come and do it all for me. It’s quite boring, but I could do it again if I had to. I can also paint and hang wallpaper (and strip woodchip and Artex...) but so can everyone else. I can use a drill, an electric screwdriver, a saw, a glue gun, a router.

Interior design. People keep telling me I could make a lot of money, doing up houses and selling them. I credit all this to my friend who has spent her career editing very posh home magazines. I used to buy her mags purely out of loyalty, but it seemed to rub off. However I do really hate both shopping and co-ordinating tradesmen, so I hope never to have to do up a house again. Unless I’m embarking on a new life, in which case I will relish the chance to start with a blank canvas.

Music. Oddly enough, I play the piano a lot even though it was always my worst instrument and I am a horribly amateurish grade 5 or so. Yet having been a competent violin player (at one point I considered becoming a teacher) I never touch it other than to help Thing One with her practice. Similarly singing. One solitary cassette exists of the band, me singing a cover version of Each And Every One. No one may listen to this, but I sometimes do, and marvel at how good my voice sounded when I sang every day, properly. I went through a phase where I decided to try and learn one key piece on as many instruments as I could. I can still with a fair wind play Hotel California on the guitar (including the twiddly intro) and Stranger On The Shore on the clarinet, as well as a snatch from Peter And The Wolf on the bassoon. There were probably other things too. What a waste. I can also mix on a four-track.

Databases. Once in 1996 I built a whole CAFM system for a national museum. Constructed in Access, it had work requests, time sheets, planned and cyclical maintenance schedules, an asset register, a contractor register, the whole nine yards. Automatic job tickets, management reports, summaries. I found this the other day and looked at it in wonderment. How did I do that?

Dancing. I have gold medals in rock’n’roll, Latin-American and ballroom dancing. And lordy you would not believe it to look at me now. As well as my twinkling toes, I had fantastic legs, great posture and a flat stomach. I looked fantastic. And I spent the whole time in leggings, huge baggy mohair sweaters and Converse boots, worrying that I was fat. If I’d known then how I was going to look now, I’d have worn a bikini every day.

Skills I have learned that nobody needs any more include:

• Replacing a typewriter ribbon
• Learning how to use various defunct computer packages (Wordstar with all those function keys, Harvard Graphics, FoxPro)
• Using a telex machine
• Adjusting the test card on the TV
• Burping a hot water bottle (microwave gel packs have taken over)
• The reliable use of belt-and-loop sanitary towels (oh thank god)
• Double de-clutching
• Using a slide rule and log book
• Doing client pitches with stand-up presenter-folders
• Labelling everything with a Dymo

There may be more. We were at a friend’s house the other day, and they have a reconditioned Bakelite telephone with a curly wire. Really funky. The girls were very excited: “we’ve seen these olden-timesy phones on TV! Can we try it out?”

They were baffled. They did not know how to use the dial.

I Stand Corrected

“You must think men are very superficial”, he said. Was his tongue in his cheek, or was he a little offended? “Nooooo,” I replied. “Do you like any of those clothes, though?”

Course, he didn't want to answer that one. It might make him look superficial. So he’s going to spend the day being Very Important And Serious, and I’m going to give you ten reasons why boys don’t in fact hate these clothes, but would love us to wear them.

Channelling once again the voice of my Inner Lad, let’s see if I can rise to the challenge.

1. Harem pants
If I’m totally honest, I don’t really know what they are. But I like the sound of them because I like the idea of a harem. I imagine they would be worn with one of those sort of Eastern dusky-maiden crop tops which is quite tight, and a mysterious veil. I’m liking it.

2. Jumpsuits
This is a good outfit for skydiving (I like a girl with a sense of adventure) or mending your car (practical). I have noticed that sometimes the silkier ones can kind of edge into the crack of your ass when you’re walking and I know you find that embarrassing and inconvenient but it’s kind of intriguing.

3. Headbands
At first headbands were scaring me, with those overtones of kamikaze pilots and Christopher Walken playing Russian roulette in the Deer Hunter. But then I remembered Xena Warrior Princess wears one, and suddenly everything was ok. Looking like one of my wank-fantasies is always ok. You could even have a weird curly ear-bun hairstyle-thing if you looked liked Princess Leia.

4. Gladiator sandals
You could wear these with a short, tight Roman toga kinda thing, and have a cat fight with another girl and I could watch. That would be fun. I think Xena wears these, s'cuse me while I just go check.

5. Dungarees
Nothing wrong, per se. The problem starts when you make the mistake of wearing some kind of top underneath. Dungarees and nothing else, and your breasts constantly slipping into view and threatening to tumble out beyond that narrow bib/strap part, that works.

6. Leggings
No complicated fastenings to grapple with, so I can pull them down easily, without the threat of laddering them, unlike tights, which make me a bit nervous.

7. Uggs
Gymslips are so last-century. Any decent schoolgirl fantasy would now have to involve a nubile young thing in Uggs and skinny jeans.

8. Oversize sunglasses
Peer over the top of them and look at me in a sexy way.  I'm thinking like the Lolita movie (part of me is still daydreaming about item 7. I'm not saying which part).

9. Tuxedos
They make you look androgynous, which makes me question your sexuality. I like this, because I've always fantasised about watching you get it on with your best friend  -  maybe you have too?

10. Anything with fringes on it
I still don't know what they are for.

Later, he qualified his first email by admitting that yes, he did like all of these items "in appropriate settings and on the right woman". 

So as long as it's Halle Berry on a terrace by the hot tub, with a vast double bed just in view through the French windows, any of these garments are fine.