This Is This

I know Cool Week is so last week, but I saw something yesterday that blew me away.

I was out walking at lunch when I noticed a restaurant called The Willard Road Restaurant. It was of course in Willard Road. It looked pretty nice too, which is all the more reason for the cool name. Normally nice restaurants in London have stupid names like Poormans, Fly Flew Flown, Chez Tariq, Dulcimer, The Larch, K2, Completement Nul or something lame.

That’s not even the best part. I looked under the name and you know what it said?

Guess what it fucking said.

It said:

“The Willard Road Restaurant

Chinese cuisine”

Way.

They could have gone for anything. Lee Chang’s, The Sunrise, Happy Valley, Jade fucking Dragon - anything.

But not them. When they were picking names they probably didn’t even realise how cool they were.

“You know? Fuck it - Shen, what street are we in? What’s that sign say over there?”

“Willard Road”

“That’ll do.”

“I’ll call the sign company.”

“Tell you what, pry that one off the wall and we’ll use that.”

What’s the Mandarin for rock star?

*It wasn’t really called this. It was called the something else road resaturant, but I’m not about to announce to the entire weberati where I can be found at lunchtime. No offence, like, it’s just you can’t be too careful. You’re OK, though.

I was playing little league baseball when I was eight. I stood out in left field with the Pennsylvania humidity and the Wilson mitt my dad bought me from Sears.

Lester pitched one to this heavy kid and he hit it high and hard in my direction. I took a couple of steps to where I thought in was headed, which was pretty close to where I was. I thought that was kind of a shame because I liked doing those running catches which a dive or a hop and then throwing the ball fast and low to second or third and try and make the double play. The dads and mums in the stands always went crazy and your team mates fell silent. I can’t decide which sounded sweeter.

The ball headed earthward toward me and knocked my cap off back over my head with a quick knock to the bill. That was my thing. I’d seen catchers so it on TV, but they were doing it because you can’t see up high in a facemask. I had not reason to do it, but I thought it looked impressive so I did it anyway.

With the ball heading towards me I focused on nothing else. “Read the writing,” my dad used to say to get me to really concentrate on the target. I was consumed with the idea of the catch. There was nothing but me and a ball made of cork, twine, rubber, wrapped up in leather and surrounded by sky.

Clack.

The catch.

I didn’t even throw it back straight away - I just tightened my hand in the mitt around the ball and waited for the cheer.

And there it was. The crowd went silly and I threw the ball back so hard to no one in particular that it hit the batting cage. I took a couple of steps back, picked up my hat and put it back on and punched my glove and couple of times.

I looked for my dad in the stand and didn’t see him. I couldn’t hear him. You know how kids know their parents voices in a sea of noise? Nothing. Normally the dads led the cheers. Some even got into arguments with other dads, but never mine.

The inning went on with no sign of my dad. A couple of plays went on, a few base hits but nothing for me in the outfield and still no dad. My bask turned into a stew.

Then out of the corner of my eye, there he was, standing about 15 feet from me on the other side of the wire outfield fence, just him far away from the parents cheering in the stands.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hi,” I answered, keeping one eye on the game.

“How you doing?”

“Um. Good. Where have you been?”

“I took a walk,” he said.

He had a soda in his hand. Crud. My big moment and he wasn’t there to cheer on my glory.

“You see the catch?” I said.

He nodded and smiled and managed to say “Nice catch” over the lump in his throat. There’s your glory.

I realised then how that moment summed us up. Neither of us needed to go in for all that cheering stuff. There was enough pride and quiet admiration to fill Yankee Stadium, right there on either side of the fence in left field.

I stared into the deepest depths of my soul for this one.
OK, so I scrolled through song titles on my ipod and picked them out to make a poem, but the results were no less startling.

A design for life,
crackity Jones?
A good idea
changes
nothing, man.

Make yourself comfortable.
Breathe
today.
Tomorrow never knows.

OK, so cool stuff and ways are cool, but it’s not cool to act like you know about, possess or display cool.

So if the way to be cool is to try not to be, right?

Yes. And no. If you’re even trying not to, you’re still trying.

If Bananarama taught us anything, it’s that it ain’t what you do, it’s the way that you do it.

It’s Atticus Finch killing the rabid dog to save the town and his kids from an uncertain but probably nasty fate.

His intentions were more important than the act.

Giving is more important that what you give.

Loving is more important than who you love.

Laughing is more important than what you laugh at.

Trying is more important than what you try.

And a cool act is more important than acting cool.

Wow, all that from Bananara.

So we’ve learned that cool exists (see Monday), the uncool can be cool (see Tuesday), and I am not cool (see me). But sometimes cool should be avoided, or at least the attachment to cool.

I sometimes try not to be cool. For example, if I am at a party and I am walking somewhere, it might happen that I find myself walking in time with the music. I realise this might make me look like I’m trying to walk in a cool way, so I take an extra half step just to break out of sync and go back to being kind of awkward me, which I know I am. Stepping to the beat looks like I’m trying not to look like my goofy old self, and that’s not cool. It would be like if I called all of my son’s five year old mates “dude”.

There is a formula that Not Cool trying to be Cool equals extremely Uncool. If you don’t got it and you act like you do, then you are The Eagles.

Sorry, my friend, someone had to say it.

Other attempts at not looking cool happen when I am driving around the charming leafy Berkshire village where I live with Public Enemy playing. Lyrics and phat (oh yeah…) beats blazing, I cruise past the Post Office as an old lady walks in front of me to cross the street.

I’m ’bout ready to bounce. Trouble on the corner with a blunt and a fourty ounce.

She looks at me.

Madd uncivilized lifestyles. 30 years bids for kids, now thats wild

I wave her on. She’s probably off to buy sweets for her grandchildren. Nice.

I’m raising my child, I’m stepping to the curb with a sign “Do Not Disturb”

She crosses in front of me.

Too much “don’t give a fuck for a damn thing” but choose what the other man bring.

Nice wave and smile.

I sing a song cause I see wrong. God damn right.

I hope she’s OK with the curb on the other side. It looks a little high.

I’m not down with the Fee Fi Fo, where I come from, see, the brothers ain’t dumb.

She’s crossed and gives me half a wave and a three quarter smile. I hope she has a nice day.

What good is the hood if you’re acting the fool. So watcha gone do now?

I consider buying the new David Gray CD.

Related links:
The Last Word In Cool
Uncool In Isolation
Cool By Uncool
Cool Week

I have managed to isolate what makes me uncool. Here is a list of the most uncool things about me, which, hopefully, if I can eliminate, might make me cool:

1. I like bluegrass

2. I am interested in the First World War

3. I drive an SUV

4. I blog

5. I have very large feet for my height (like a tall hobbit)

But actually, getting rid of these things would not make me cool, because they are a part of me. I’d be a normal guy with regular feet driving a sensible car, but I’d be no cooler.

I was never hugely uncool. At school I was popular in a class clown type way, but if you wanted to impress the girls, you got seen with Chad Beck and Chris Toomey, but you could still hang out with me.

Now that I have kids, cool is something I’d have to work at, which if I did just wouldn’t be cool. Don’t get me wrong, I’d like to be. I want to know who Sigur Ros are, the difference between trance and ambient, and to have read Sadie Frost or own a PSP, but I don’t. But that’s cool.

…a list of cool songs by uncool people

Badge - Eric Clapton

Madame George - Van Morrison

While You See A Chance - Steve Winwood

Calling All Nations - INXS

No Sign Of Yesterday - Men At Work

All This Time - Sting

Rock Me Amadeus - Falco

Take Me Home - Phil Collins

Saturday Night’s All Right For Fighting - Elton John

Love And Affection - Joan Armatrading

Hot Legs - Rod Stewart

How Deep Is Your Love? - Bee Gees

Jet - Paul McCartney and Wings

New York State Of Mind - Billy Joel

Dancing Queen - Abba

Under Pressure - Queen

She’s A Star - James

For Everyman - Jackson Brown

Look Heart, No Hands - Randy Travis

No One Is To Blame - Howard Jones

Fast Love - George Michael

There are others. If any of you think any of these musicians are cool, or if these songs are uncool, then please don’t worry. I am not cool at all, so I wouldn’t know.

Tomorrow, in Day 3 of Cool Week, I will explain why I am not cool.

James Taylor On West Wing last night? Come on. It’s a sign that might be an omen and that’s why all this week here at This is This has been declared “Cool Week”. I’m writing about cool: what it is and my thoughts on stuff that doesn’t suck.

This month I bought an ipod. This doesn’t make me cool, but it might help me be no less cool than other people who are.

It. Fucking. Rocks. And when I say “fucking”, I mean “rocks”. It’s like a party in my ears. I can put it on shuffle and act surprised (but in a cool way, you know?) when good bands come on. This surprise is just for me, in the way I have private jokes that only I will enjoy.

Foo Fighters! Carole King! Public Enemy! Stan Getz! Nick Drake!

But… (Twist 1)

These are my cool CDs. I single them out to make me look cooler than I am.

It is a playlist for cool people. Urbane, eclectic but interestingly so, broad and diverse. How about a little Billie Holliday? “Your table’s ready for you, Sir.” Early Bowie? “My friend wants your number.” Ali Farka Toure? “Ou est la salle des Impressionistes?”

These are all albums I own, but not all the albums I own.

If I’d mentioned my less cool bands I would have said:

“INXS! Jackson Brown! Sting! Toad The Wet Sprocket! Pop Will Eat Itself! Men At Work!”

That’s just a soundtrack for noogies.

However… (Twist 2)

I am turning cool on its head, because with itunes I can buy singles again. I haven’t bought a single in about 15 years (Heaven Sent An Angel by Revolver) and singles can be cool, because there are lots of songs by uncool bands that are actually very cool. You know I said how the mundane makes the good things exceptional? The egg and the yolk thing? Well there’s a list of cool songs by uncool bands.

Which I have yet to write.

(to be continued)

VO: “This Is This is written in front of live audience and is brought to you by the letter M and the number 4″

…an autobiography where the word count for each post is limited to the corresponding age for that entry. Idea.

The Sum Of All Years

1
Born.

2
Stood up.

3
We moved south.

4
Was child knitware model.

5
Promptly left for United States.

6
Star Wars became my only love.

7
Well, that and baseball. And Wagon Wheels.

8
Started playing football. I ruled the left wing.

9
Learned saxophone, spurred on by the Happy Days theme.

10
Is Ritchie Cunningham a healthy role model? Pneunomonia in hospital.

11
Developed a colourful relationship with asthma - hid this from Roxanne Beiswinger.

12
The family left Philadelphia for France. They didn’t have French toast there.
Boathouse Row

13
It was an upheaval, in those days before the internet and satellite TV.

14
Mum and Dad split up. I returned alone to boarding school in foreign England.

15

Life got good again, like it does. I made friends, met a girl, travelled lots.

16

Played in a dixieland pub band with guys 60 years my senior. Just a coke, oldtimer.

17

England felt like home again, as Luke, Guy, Lindsay and others became my family, friends and brothers.

18
Set out alone travelling for a month round Europe and Turkey. Slept on roofs and started playing guitar.

19

Wrote a book (unpublished) and moved to Manchester. The university, coincidentally, stood where my dad did his RAF training.

20
I worked for a radio station over the summer in New Orleans where I foolhardily rode out Hurricane Andrew.

21
Luke died suddenly and without warning. Nothing had ever hit me so hard before or since. It still does, some days.

22
After university, I worked part time and sent CVs out. I joined a band, met a girl and fell in love.

23

I got a job and eventually the girl fell in love with me. We moved into London and the band played Brixton Academy.

24
My mother ended a life which wasn’t as sad as she felt. It was a terrible, hopeless end and I wish she’d hung in.
Tune

25
We moved out to the country and bought a house near our surviving parents. We bought two cats to put in it and we looked forward.

26
She said “yes”! Or rather - she saw a ring, we bought it, then I got round to finally asking her “will you?” and she said “yes”!

27
In Alaska we gawped at bears, whales and eagles. There are no words, nor any to describe the arrival of my son, who blesses our lives daily.

28
I stopped eating meat after Son was born. It’s like a light went on, and I couldn’t justify killing non-human animals based solely on the argument of speciesism.

29
We went to Iceland (what is it about us and cold places?) and did up the house a bit. These years are less about events and more about living.

30
My daughter was born to no less joy and wonder than her brother’s arrival. And when she smiles at him, it’s like everything I’ve done has led to that moment.

31
We stayed in mostly. And that’s fine. Forget quality, I needed quantity time. It’s a hard adjustment to make but ultimately a valuable lesson to learn that the house always wins.
See what I did there?

32
It’s the smaller joys that have brought the most comfort. Like the time we planted sunflowers and watched them grow, and how my daughter giggled when I said hers had her smile.

33
Bad things happen - they’ll bother you more if you’re always holding out for the good stuff. What you want will come and go, but what you need will find you in the end.

That’s it. Thanks for reading. Stand strong.
Roll credits -
(Broadband)
(Narrowband)

Bad things happen - they’ll bother you more if you’re always holding out for the good stuff. What you want will come and go, but what you need will find you in the end.

That’s it. Thanks for reading. Stand strong.
Roll credits -
(Broadband)
(Narrowband)

It’s the smaller joys that have brought the most comfort. Like the time we planted sunflowers and watched them grow, and how my daughter giggled when I said hers had her smile.

Whenever a Londoner tells me about their journey, they will normally tell me the number of their bus or the tube line they took as a part of the story.

Friend: I saw this lady on the way in this morning.

Me: Right.

Friend: I was coming in my normal way on the Number 26 bus.

Me: That’s a great bus.

Friend: And she was reading Belgium Cosmo….

I ALWAYS say “That’s a great bus” or “I love the Circle Line”, because it makes it funny to no one else but me.

I have no idea why I do it. Is it Tourrette’s? Is it Aspergers? OCD? It just sounds fun to say.

You know when you love someone you have little private jokes that make you giggle and no one else thinks they are funny? I have those with myself.

Why not? If you can enjoy music on your own with headphones or sing out loud when you are alone, why not make yourself laugh once in a while.

Doesn’t even have to be funny.

What’s ET short for?

He’s got no legs.

We stayed in mostly. And that’s fine. Forget quality, I needed quantity time. It’s a hard adjustment to make but ultimately a valuable lesson to learn that the house always wins.

See what I did there?

On the way home from work every day, I wait at a bus stop with four or five other guys and talk bollocks as we watch the cars go past. Here is somesuch:

Guy 1: You always see people using their mobile phones when they drive.

Guy 2 I think the levels are back up to before they introduced the law?

Me: Not surprising. I mean does anyone know anyone that’s actually been nicked for using a phone in the car?

Guy 3: They could use those handsets.

Me: Yeah, but then you’ve got the wires and everything. When my phone rings, I just answer it and tell them them to be quick.

Guy 2: You’ve got Bluetooth headsets

Guy 1: Yeah, but then you look like a dickhead.

Me: True. You walk around looking like you’re on the phone on the offchance that someone might ring.

Guy 3: Nevermind bluetooth, where’s the bus? That’s the kind of technology I need.

Guy 2: We should do away with buses and be able to ride waves.

Guy 1: What? Light waves?

Guy 2: Or sound waves. That would be easier.

Guy 3: Or we could use the sky, like in The Fifth Element.

Me: It always gets me in films like that where you have sky traffic five lanes high like in the new Star Wars. How do they drive without crashin when there are no markings or signs?

Guy 1: Well, it’s GPS, isn’t it?

Me: Oh.

Guy 2: Sod that, they should invent flying people.

Me: Yeah. They should invent flying people and we could ride them to work.

My daughter was born to no less joy and wonder than her brother’s arrival. And when she smiles at him, it’s like everything I’ve done has led to that moment.

David Letterman said the finest moment in all of rock and roll was the bit in Mott the Hoople’s All The Young Dudes where the singer says: “Hey - dudes! Where are ya?”

That, he says, is rock’s finest hour. All other moments in the history of modern music don’t match that part of that song. I like the thought that you can take something out of context and put it under a microscope of reverence but that’s not how it works.

I once saw something in a newspaper where they took the best parts of Hollywood’s leading women and photoshopped them to make one face. They had something like Nicole Kidman’s eyes, Drew Barrymore’s lips, Meg Ryan’s nose, Demi Moore’s neck and Catherine Zeta Jones’s cheeks. Or something, I can’t remember. But the interesting part was, she wasn’t all that. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t climb over her to get to you, but she was just OK, you know.

You know that thing that they say about the band in heaven? You’ve got Jimi Hendrix on guitar, Jaco Pastorius on bass, Keith Moon on drums and Aretha Franklin singing. Well, if they ever did hear them jam from beyond the grave, I bet would be good, but not great.

Because it’s the average that makes the good stand out. People are beautiful because they have enough of the ordinary to make the beauty stand out. Things aren’t exceptional despite the mundane, they’re exceptional because of it. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it a while.

It’s the same with life and the stuff in it, the parking space right by the entrance, the days where not much happens, the songs on your ipod. You’ve got to have the filler tracks and days like these for the other ones to be something else.

Caitlin Moran (Jesus Christ I’m quoting Caitlin Moran) said that Dave Gilmour had the best arms in rock. I never noticed it before, but you know, he did some nice arms. But then if he had a body like Brad Pitt, you wouldn’t notice.

I’m not gay, or anything.

We went to Iceland (what is it about us and cold places?) and did up the house a bit. These years are less about events and more about living.

The Sum Of All Years is an autobiography where the word count for each post is limited to the corresponding age for that entry.

Son, 5: “This diya that ‘(Daughter, 3)‘ made is funny. It looks like someone’s shoe.”

Me: “What’s a diya for?”

Son, 5: “Hindus light them at Hindu festivals.”

Me (wanting to enourage awareness about diversity without cultivating a perception of divisiveness, although you can’t win these days): “Really? Just Hindus?”

Son, 5: “Yes, not Christians though. They have different parties.”

Me: “Christians, eh? And what are you then? Jewish, Hindu, Christian…?”

Son, 5: “Nothing. I’m a boy called ‘(says name)‘.”

I stopped what I was doing, stunned and humbled, and turned to him. He was looking right at me, matter of factly, dead in the eye.

Son, 5: “What? That’s what I am.” He says his name again.

He waits for my expression to change. He waits. And when it does, he walks away.

It could have been the absolute realisation of his true nature. It could have been some glimpse into mine. Maybe it was something for both of us. It could have been that he was a tired five year old whose dad asks too many questions. Either way, you can’t doubt the true wisdom of the beginner’s mind. It’s the still water where the moon appears.

I had a flu jab this month. It was just for the standard tap water niffle fever, not your fancy Evian flu that’s making the headlines.

While I was there the nurse said: “Would you like a pneumonia vaccine as well? It lasts for up to ten years. It’s piece of mind for you, like.”

I thought she had missed a career opportunity selling television extended warrantees.

“Is it free?” My stock response when someone asks me if I want something.

She said it was, and explained that I would feel like I had a cold for the rest of the day and my arm would feel tender for a while. These were symptoms I could do without.

But then it was free.

Being a sucker for “free stuff”, I thought what the hell.

I spent the next early evening in bed shiverring and drowsy and my arm hurt for about five days. My trouble with vaccines is that you don’t really know if they ever came in handy. That’s why I’m no good with the whole God thing. I can’t believe in a protection unless I can see it working.

But I am thinking that now that I have had the jab, I am at least protected against the possibility of being strick down. And maybe that is what faith is all about anyway.

Plus you don’t have the dead arms.

I stopped eating meat after Son was born. It’s like a light went on, and I couldn’t justify killing non-human animals based solely on the argument of speciesism.

Over the valley of hell and hate.
Over the knees in water and mud,
You shall know your path by the trail of blood,
And silent figures shall guide you back.

Major E.G. Hoare - 9th Kings Liverpool Regiment, Ypres 1917
Commanding officer of Private Walter Jones, No. 330820 (my grandfather)

You know how sometimes when someone says hello to a group of people and they all say hello back at the same time and then you say hello a second later and the orginal person replies with a hello for you?

That means that you were not part of the group they were saying hello to.

Although well meaning, it couldn’t be more exclusive. It’s kind of like: “Well, I was actually saying hello to this group of people, but here’s your one.”

They weren’t even expecting to say hello to you either, and when you said “hi”, you caught them halfway through a breath which they interrupted to say “hi” back.

You’re there and they have said hello to everyone else, and there’s a little hello, just for you.

This individual hello can be made worse if the word “oh” is attached before it, as in “oh - you’re here” or if your name is at the end of it. “Hello everyone! Hi Cliff. Hey look everyone, Cliff’s here.”

Then someone points and everyone laughs and I look down and I realise I’m wearing nothing but Post-it Notes and there’s a breeze picking up.

In Alaska we gawped at bears, whales and eagles. There are no words, nor any to describe the arrival of my son, who blesses our lives daily.

If I had characters on this blog, a la JonnyB, one of them would be Bored Colleague.

I couldn’t do it as well as he does, but here just today is a snippet from Bored Colleague who ambled to my desk this morning.

Me: What brings you here?

Bored Colleague: Just thought I’d come down here and not work. I’m too bored.

Me: OK.

Bored Colleague: I’ve already had my first hour of guitar practice in the sound room.

Me: Jesus.

Bored Colleague: No, I was taking the piss.

Me: What, just now, or when you were playing guitar?

Bored Colleague: Both.

Me: Right.

Bored Colleague (Looks around my desk and points to CD): Is that the new Kate Bush?

Me: Yeah.

Bored Colleague: Is she related to George W?

Me: I’m actually quite busy.

Normally these things are rubbish, and this is probably a fluke, but it’s more or less bang on. I read this and thought - “Hey, I am strange and shy.”

But I would argue that I am not picky.

Oh, and “Silver” isn’t a colour, by the way.

Cheers to Bonnie for this

Your Birthdate: December 22

You tend to be understated and under appreciated. You have a hidden force to do amazing things, doing them your own way. People may see you as strange and shy, but they know little. Your unconventional ways have more power than they (and even you) know. Your strength: Standing up for what you know is true Your weakness: You tend to be picky and rigid Your power color: Silver Your power symbol: Square Your power month: April

These days, everything in TV these days has to be bigger, ruder, bolder or more expensive. Where you had Candid Camera, you’ve now got Big Brother. Where there was Mission Impossible, there is now CSI. Where Ironside once, er, sat, there is Oz. Where there was Top Cat, there’s now the Sopranos.

I think instead of going back to family values, we should keep going. Why turn back now? So grab a bucket of guts and swear along to the new crop of television shows soon to impale themselves on the spikes of the Neilsen ratings.

Genocide, She Wrote - Jessica Fletcher attends a convention for short story writers but there’s ethnic cleansing afoot. Leading a ragtag mob of UNHCR envoys, she decides to investigate.

LA Prison Showers - You’ve done the crime, now it’s prime time.

You Love Lucy - The live webcam where you’re in control.

Miami Cold Turkey - Getting busted was the easy part.

Who Wants To Be Billionaire - Why settle for six figures?

America’s Next Top Chief Justice - Six hopefuls battle it out for the ultimate seat on the Supreme Court.

Changing Countries - The makeover show where anything goes. Two nations’ ministers for the Interior are invited to change the legislation of their neighbouring countries. This week, ministers for North and South Korean ministers remove their blindfolds.

Simply Come Driveby - Celebrities have 6 weeks to prove that they have what it takes to be ruthless gangsters.

Seriously Fucking Lost - Having survived an horrific plane crash, a group of traumatised but ultimately good looking survivors have to find a plot before they starve.

The Mezzo-Sopranos - Just when you thought things couldn’t get any lower.

The Wild Wild West Wing - Josh, Toby, CJ and Jed swap their suits for stetsons in a ten-gallon rootin’ tootin’ six-gun shootin’ adventure.

Twenty Feet Under - It’s deep.

CSI Manchester - The forensic team go to the rainy city to investigate car theft, gun crime and drugs.

She said “yes”! Or rather - she saw a ring, we bought it, then I got round to finally asking her “will you?” and she said “yes”!

We moved out to the country and bought a house near our surviving parents. We bought two cats to put in it and we looked forward.

The Sum Of All Years is an autobiography where the word count for each post is limited to the corresponding age for that entry.

So aaaaaaaanyway… I went for this job interview on Wednesday. It was my first one in years and I wanted to make a good impression. I arrived 5 minutes early and the receptionist put me in a room with a coffee. Eye contact, black no sugar, don’t check her out. Nice, though. Kinda has that whole sexy librarian thing working. OK - wrong. Don’t check her out. Everything’s going well.

I take a seat facing the door and I start reading the paper I bought on the way. I read any old paper, but today I took The Independent because it’s a highbrow middle of the road publication and the perfect interview day newspaper.

Finish this phrase:

“The Independent?!?! What are you, some kind of a ….. ???”

See? You can’t. Always thinking, me.

The person doing the interviewing was an external recruiter, which means that they don’t work for the company who is doing the hiring, and they won’t be your boss. This can be a good thing, apart from when the interview starts like this:

Interviewer (confidently and concerned): “Cliff, how are you?”

Me (I put down newspaper and stand up): “Great thanks. Nice to meet you.”

We shake hands.

Interviewer: “We’ve met before actually.”

I can’t remember ever having seen this guy before in my life. I stare at his features. No dice.

Me: “Really?”

Interviewer: “Yeeeees. It was a while ago. When was it now?”

Me (shaking my head): “Um.”

He continue to give me prompts, getting more and more specific, but the penny doesn’t drop. I wonder if I should just say “Oh I remember now!” so we can move on and get started. But then I think he would probably know I was making it up, seeing as I am the world’s worst lier.* And all the time I am thinking this, he is reeling off more details.

He finally pins down the exact day and event when he tells me who was with me when we met and still I can’t place him.

There is a pause.

I have two choices. I can either say “Ooooh…. Was that you?” and make him feel totally unmemorable, or I can look like a doofus and say “Nope. Sorry, I don’t remember a fucking thing.”

I chose the latter. I tarted it up a little of course, but that’s what I went for.

And I’ve blown it. The interview went ok, but my first impression smelt of wee.

Come to think of it, as I write this now, the fucker probably put my name in his Outlook calender which he updates meticulously, because that’s what he does. That’s his line - people and meetings. What I do are projects and events. I’m a creative person, in editorial and production. I have meetings, but my job is the outcome of those meetings, not the meetings themselves. And the people in my meetings?

Of course, that’s all hindsight now, because the first impression the interviewer got was me being a skwinting buffoon who couldn’t remember what Mr Outlook meeting man could look up by hitting Control F.

*Actually, I’m not the world’s worst lier, but then you saw right through that, didn’t you?

My mother ended a life which wasn’t as sad as she felt. It was a terrible, hopeless end and I wish she’d hung in.

Tune

Fact: Many consellors are rubbish at sorting out their own problems.

I can see lots of parellels where people do jobs for other people that they can’t apply to their own lives. Loads of financial advisers are terrible with money.

When I worked in newspapers, I made a living writing about things that happened to other people. I instantly became rubbish at corresponding with people and could not muster up any creativity.

I guess when you do something for a living, you stop enjoying that thing in your real life.

I know sport journalists who got into their jobs because they were real football nuts and who don’t follow the scores when they are out of the office.

Plenty of preachers live like the sinners they are trying to save.

A lot of comedians are not funny around the house.

Lots of porn stars stop enjoying sex. Apparently.*

I wonder if Life Coaches are always forgetting to pick up their dry cleaning or they can’t get their kids to school on time.

Maybe firemen are reckless with matches around the house.

Or high-tech computer game writers go home and unwind by roll a hoop with a stick down the street.

*Or so I have heard. If there are any porn stars reading this, would you like to confirm? Say… 10 o’clock?

I got a job and eventually the girl fell in love with me. We moved into London and the band played Brixton Academy.

The Sum Of All Years is an autobiography where the word count for each post is limited to the corresponding age for that entry. Here’s the idea behind it.

I took the kids out trick or treating on Halloween. We didn’t visit every house, because it’s not a big tradition in England yet and some people apparently don’t own chocolate.

So we were just hitting the houses I thought would be up for trick of treating. Neighbours who had kids themselves or nice old people who always stop and say hey.

Halfway round the street we stopped at a house with a pumpkin outside, a witch model hanging from the light and a sign saying “Happy Halloween” on the door.

“Go ahead, kids,” I say sweetly.

They walk up to the door, a five year old centurion leading a three year old in a wizard’s hat and a superhero cape. Son, 5, knocks on the door with his axe.

Kids: “Trick or treat!”

Woman (in her early fifties looking embarassed): “Oh. Um, oh dear.”

She mumbled something about her cupboard and shopping.

I look at my feet and shine the torch at the pumpkin on her doorstep.

Wife: “Look kids. Pumpkin!”

Daughter, 3: “Oh yeah.”

Son 5: “Trick or treat!”

He came for chocolate and chocolate he will get. His axe taps against his bucket full of sweets.

Woman: “Um… I’ll see if I have anything.”

She comes back with two of those chocolate wafers you get when you pay too much for coffee in shops.

Us: “Thank you.”

Woman: “Umm. OK.”

She shoots me and wife an apologetic look before smiling at the kids and closing the door.

Now, call me ungrateful, but who would go to the trouble of decorating their house for Halloween and get caught out without sweets for trick or treaters. And this was early. We knocked at about 6:30, so it’s not like she ran out. She just hadn’t bothered. Shoddy.

Apart from the decorations.

I don’t get it. I felt like going back the next morning and giving her the Tom Cruise grilling (”Why would you do that?” “You’re a jerk.”)

Simple rule folks. Don’t put up Halloween decorations if you don’t have sweets.

Do put up Halloween decorations on other people’s houses and dress up as a centurion and go round and ask for sweets, though. They can’t refuse.

It’s the Law of the Pumpkin.

—
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After university, I worked part time and sent CVs out. I joined a band, met a girl and fell in love.

Luke died suddenly and without warning. Nothing had ever hit me so hard before or since. It still does, some days.