Who gives a flying fuddleduck whether an Al-Qaeda terrorist suspect (otherwise known as an Al-Qaeda terrorist, due to get extradited to the USA where they’re not as fricking soft as we are) gets bugged when talking to his MP? Hasn’t Sadiq Khan MP got more worthwhile constituents to talk to? Someone in Tooting needs to be asking this. It’s probably worth knowing when this bastard wants to talk to someone who’s not supposed to get bugged, because it would seem to indicate that he’s got something to say that he doesn’t want to get overheard. And that’s precisely the sort of thing we ought to be overhearing.
Why is David Davis making a fuss about this? (Well, we know the answer to that.) Why does he care?
Look, no-one gives a toddly-doss what happens to Al-Qaeda and their supporters. No, we don’t want to be a country where people get kicked to death down the cellars, but if they’re Al-Qaeda I’d be prepared to turn a blind eye. What’s the bleeding point in letting them out of prison? What do we expect them to do next? Well, I hope, get their arses bugged off until the end of their days, if we can afford that sort of thing. Otherwise, send ‘em somewhere else where they’ll get themselves strung up. See if I care.
Monday, 4 February 2008
Arseholes in Sainsbury's (well, what a surprise)
It’s rather crappy to blog about things that happened in Sainsbury’s, but I promise not to make a habit of it.
This afternoon, after further lawyer/bank related pains of hell, I nipped into Sainsbo’s just for a couple of odds and sods, not a big shop. Trouble is, when you do that, your shopping basket just screams out “Sad Old Git Living On His Own”. (Madame has gone down to London.) Only two of the five items were alcoholic (I’m drinking the second one as I write). But I felt like declaring to everybody: “I’m not a middle-aged alcoholic saddo! I’m married! I can get my leg over! Look, here’s my wedding ring!”, except it wasn’t, because I threw it at the Iron Buddha during our last row, and she picked it up and Put It Somewhere, as wives will.
Anyway, one advantage of having a small, sad-bachelor shopping basket is, as I thought, that one can take it through the “10 items or less” check-out. Thither I sped, and during the roughly five minutes I was waiting, three people, one in front of me and two behind, tried to unload enormous baskets full of stuff, and had to be told by a patient-but-rapidly-growing-less-so checkout assistant that they were only allowed ten items at a time. What’s with these people? There were three large-print signs up, and all the little plastic prisms dividing one punter’s shopping from another bore the same legend. What part of “10 Items or Less” don’t they understand?
This afternoon, after further lawyer/bank related pains of hell, I nipped into Sainsbo’s just for a couple of odds and sods, not a big shop. Trouble is, when you do that, your shopping basket just screams out “Sad Old Git Living On His Own”. (Madame has gone down to London.) Only two of the five items were alcoholic (I’m drinking the second one as I write). But I felt like declaring to everybody: “I’m not a middle-aged alcoholic saddo! I’m married! I can get my leg over! Look, here’s my wedding ring!”, except it wasn’t, because I threw it at the Iron Buddha during our last row, and she picked it up and Put It Somewhere, as wives will.
Anyway, one advantage of having a small, sad-bachelor shopping basket is, as I thought, that one can take it through the “10 items or less” check-out. Thither I sped, and during the roughly five minutes I was waiting, three people, one in front of me and two behind, tried to unload enormous baskets full of stuff, and had to be told by a patient-but-rapidly-growing-less-so checkout assistant that they were only allowed ten items at a time. What’s with these people? There were three large-print signs up, and all the little plastic prisms dividing one punter’s shopping from another bore the same legend. What part of “10 Items or Less” don’t they understand?
And there was light.....
Just had a strange 40 minutes. I may be a sad old git sitting in front of my computer as a substitute for a life, but this time I had an excuse. At 7 p.m. all the lights went out - a good old-fashioned power cut, reminiscent of the glorious winter of 1973 when I was thirteen and at boarding school and power cuts were fun, fun, fun, not to mention leading to the miners destroying Heath's government.
I thought about inching along the corridor to the fuse box, but soon realised a) I knew where the fuse box was but, having only lived here three weeks and not having had occasion to look into the cupboard yet, I would have stood no chance whatever of finding a fuse, and b) a glance out of the window told me that every house along the street had suffered the same fate. (Torches? Candles? In a house I've just moved in to? Do me a favour.) In fact every house within sight - my first impulse, being the man I am, was to take refuge in the Fox & Goose, but they were equally blacked out. So I went to sit in the car, as the only source of light, until it occurred to me that I might as well go back into the house and switch the computer on, as the battery was charged up. At least that provided enough light to find the gin and tonic I'd been drinking....
I thought about inching along the corridor to the fuse box, but soon realised a) I knew where the fuse box was but, having only lived here three weeks and not having had occasion to look into the cupboard yet, I would have stood no chance whatever of finding a fuse, and b) a glance out of the window told me that every house along the street had suffered the same fate. (Torches? Candles? In a house I've just moved in to? Do me a favour.) In fact every house within sight - my first impulse, being the man I am, was to take refuge in the Fox & Goose, but they were equally blacked out. So I went to sit in the car, as the only source of light, until it occurred to me that I might as well go back into the house and switch the computer on, as the battery was charged up. At least that provided enough light to find the gin and tonic I'd been drinking....
Sunday, 3 February 2008
I am in love...
once more. Just discovered a Ladino singer. (What?) Ladino is the language of the Sephardi Jews axpelled from Spain at the end of the 15th century, It was the mother tongue of Elias Canetti, who won the Nobel a few years back for writing books no-one has actually managed to read, but which are, I am assured, jolly worthy. Anyway this lady is called Yasmin Levy, and hangs out in Jerusalem. I'd have gone to see her in Manchester last week, but for the fact that I was engaged in a life-or death marital struggle at the time. But the woman is gorgeous, and does the world music thing like there's no tomorrow. Besides, she's an Israeli, and thus can do no wrong in my opinion, rather like Yossi Benayoun in his Liverpool shirt.
The joys of political incorrectness...
Somehow the brisk and bracing weather has had a stimulating effect on my political incorrectness glands.
Last week I went back to my old stamping ground of Hamburg, where they have just followed us in introducing a smoking ban. Being reasonably sensible people they have left all sorts of loopholes - I asked a couple of my friends who run pubs how it was affecting them, and they said it wasn't much, because they had separate smoking rooms, which I don't think is allowed over here. Another pub has reconstituted itself as an official smokers' club, members only (but I suspect membership criteria are not that rigid). But then maybe the Germans are only interested in ensuring that non-smokers can have a smoke-free environment if they want, rather than calling down the wrath of God on sinners.
Meanwhile, as the Independent reported, the first person to fall officially foul of the law was ex-Chancellor Helmut Schmidt. Schmidt (whom God preserve) is 89, smokes approximately the same number per day, and has for years made it clear that anyone inviting him and/or his wife had jolly well better provide ashtrays. A big Hamburg theatre invited the old couple (she is only a couple of months younger) to a premiere, extended the proper courtesies to a respected elder statesman, got grassed up by some arsehole, and so the old chap is facing charges.
This is the really insidious thing about the smoking ban. My new local in Lancaster after my move is utterly delightful. The place is run by a female Al Murray called Joanne. The first night I went in there it was karaoke night, fortunately for me, who has been described as "the deaf man's Pavarotti". I stepped up to the mike to sing "Delilah", telling the audience that they could throw knickers if they liked. "I'm not wearing any, luv," came back quick as a flash. Later in the evening, noticing it was past midnight, I asked Gordon what time the pub closed. "You'd better ask Joanne, she's the licensee," he replied. "What time does the pub shut, Joanne?" I asked. "It shuts when I shut it, luv."
The licence is actually till 1 a.m., but it basically shuts when Joanne wants to go to bed. There's a sign up saying "no children after 8 p.m." but I've seen them running around at half past twelve. But the smoking ban is rigidly observed. No-one is going to complain about late hours, as everyone who's there after hours has a direct interest in being there. But any arsehole can raise a complaint about someone smoking. Even Joanne daren't smoke in the pub.
Fuck them. Fuck them from a great height. Meanwhile Dawn Primarolo is saying that middle-class people are still drinking more than they should and "it's got to change". Now, I am not always aware of what I do when I'm pissed. But I'm pretty sure I never married Dawn Primarolo. That alone would give her any locus standi in how much I drink, or anything else I do within the law of the land. The woman I am married to, though in her heart her views don't differ much from Dawn's, expresses it a bit more tactfully.
But fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck them. Can I be arsed to go to all the trouble and expense of taking up smoking just to spite them?
The other pain in the fundament, following my recent house-move, is rubbish disposal. Obviously, a move generates huge volumes of stuff that needs chucking away. Chucking anything away, however, is now as difficult as a master's degree in nuclear physics. Last time the bin men came, my wife was told she'd put the wrong bins out in the wrong order (and probably with the wrong stuff in them) and so they couldn't take them. They did, however, give her a closely printed card with detailed instructions, which I have been trying to make head or tail of ever since. And woe betide you if you put any paper in with the cans, or glass with the plastic, or if you don't wash the insides of horrible plastic bags thoroughly, or anything like that. So I have been driving stuff to the local dump, knowing that no-one is actually supervising and so you can get away with chucking out almost anything. Can't people tick a box on a form, maybe involving an extra £50 on one's council tax, saying I CAN'T BE ARSED WITH ALL THIS, and just bunging it all in the wheelie like we used to? But even the mere suggestion that I might want to would make me the equivalent of a Nazi war criminal in some people's eyes.
Again, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck them.
And don't get me started on mucking Fuslims......
Last week I went back to my old stamping ground of Hamburg, where they have just followed us in introducing a smoking ban. Being reasonably sensible people they have left all sorts of loopholes - I asked a couple of my friends who run pubs how it was affecting them, and they said it wasn't much, because they had separate smoking rooms, which I don't think is allowed over here. Another pub has reconstituted itself as an official smokers' club, members only (but I suspect membership criteria are not that rigid). But then maybe the Germans are only interested in ensuring that non-smokers can have a smoke-free environment if they want, rather than calling down the wrath of God on sinners.
Meanwhile, as the Independent reported, the first person to fall officially foul of the law was ex-Chancellor Helmut Schmidt. Schmidt (whom God preserve) is 89, smokes approximately the same number per day, and has for years made it clear that anyone inviting him and/or his wife had jolly well better provide ashtrays. A big Hamburg theatre invited the old couple (she is only a couple of months younger) to a premiere, extended the proper courtesies to a respected elder statesman, got grassed up by some arsehole, and so the old chap is facing charges.
This is the really insidious thing about the smoking ban. My new local in Lancaster after my move is utterly delightful. The place is run by a female Al Murray called Joanne. The first night I went in there it was karaoke night, fortunately for me, who has been described as "the deaf man's Pavarotti". I stepped up to the mike to sing "Delilah", telling the audience that they could throw knickers if they liked. "I'm not wearing any, luv," came back quick as a flash. Later in the evening, noticing it was past midnight, I asked Gordon what time the pub closed. "You'd better ask Joanne, she's the licensee," he replied. "What time does the pub shut, Joanne?" I asked. "It shuts when I shut it, luv."
The licence is actually till 1 a.m., but it basically shuts when Joanne wants to go to bed. There's a sign up saying "no children after 8 p.m." but I've seen them running around at half past twelve. But the smoking ban is rigidly observed. No-one is going to complain about late hours, as everyone who's there after hours has a direct interest in being there. But any arsehole can raise a complaint about someone smoking. Even Joanne daren't smoke in the pub.
Fuck them. Fuck them from a great height. Meanwhile Dawn Primarolo is saying that middle-class people are still drinking more than they should and "it's got to change". Now, I am not always aware of what I do when I'm pissed. But I'm pretty sure I never married Dawn Primarolo. That alone would give her any locus standi in how much I drink, or anything else I do within the law of the land. The woman I am married to, though in her heart her views don't differ much from Dawn's, expresses it a bit more tactfully.
But fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck them. Can I be arsed to go to all the trouble and expense of taking up smoking just to spite them?
The other pain in the fundament, following my recent house-move, is rubbish disposal. Obviously, a move generates huge volumes of stuff that needs chucking away. Chucking anything away, however, is now as difficult as a master's degree in nuclear physics. Last time the bin men came, my wife was told she'd put the wrong bins out in the wrong order (and probably with the wrong stuff in them) and so they couldn't take them. They did, however, give her a closely printed card with detailed instructions, which I have been trying to make head or tail of ever since. And woe betide you if you put any paper in with the cans, or glass with the plastic, or if you don't wash the insides of horrible plastic bags thoroughly, or anything like that. So I have been driving stuff to the local dump, knowing that no-one is actually supervising and so you can get away with chucking out almost anything. Can't people tick a box on a form, maybe involving an extra £50 on one's council tax, saying I CAN'T BE ARSED WITH ALL THIS, and just bunging it all in the wheelie like we used to? But even the mere suggestion that I might want to would make me the equivalent of a Nazi war criminal in some people's eyes.
Again, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck them.
And don't get me started on mucking Fuslims......
Saturday, 2 February 2008
Women! (reprise)
I mentioned a couple of posts ago how women who have landed a man tend to turn their brains off rather. Splendid example today. Iron Buddha and I were planning to go down to London in midweek, me to see various friends, sons, etc., she to meet up with a lot of Chinese people to celebrate Chinese New Year. Chinese New Year being on the 7th, she told me they'd be meeting up on the evening before. So I arranged we'd go down on the 5th.
On Thursday evening she told me, without warning, that the get-together was in fact on Sunday 3rd, so could we go down on Saturday (today) instead? (That is how good the Chinese are at forward planning. World War III will be a piece of piss.) No, I said, I've got to see my lawyer on Monday about this damned financial dispute with Queen Bitch. So, I told her, I'll get you a train ticket to London, and come myself a few days later. I had to do some fancy footwork in making arrangements with the friend we'd be staying with, but all was done and dusted.
This morning we got up and she spent hours fannying about with various articles of clothing. After a long period of time waiting at the front door fully clothed to take her to the station, she finally emerged. Once we were in the car on the way to the station, she asked: "I haven't got my passport. Does that matter?" I mentioned that it wasn't a bad idea to have some sort of ID, but it wasn't life or death. "Have you got all the details I wrote down for you about how to get to our friend's place, and the mobile number of the guy you have to get the keys off?" "No," she said, wide-eyed. "Well, how the hell do you expect to get there, then?" I promised to write down the directions for her again from memory, and call her later to give her the mobile number. We got to the station and I did all this. Then "I've forgotten my wallet and don't have any money or credit card!" Fortunately we had fifteen minutes, just enough for me to run to the bank and get some cash out.
My younger son has learning difficulties, but has been travelling on his own since age 13. He wouldn't have left the house without papers, money or clear instructions on where to go. And it's not as if she's had a pampered upbringing. This is a lass who was working construction sites at age 11 because she bloody well had to, and was single and making her own way in the world for 10 years until I came along. Since she's been here she's done fuck all except cause trouble. If I didn't love the silly woman I don't know what would happen.
On Thursday evening she told me, without warning, that the get-together was in fact on Sunday 3rd, so could we go down on Saturday (today) instead? (That is how good the Chinese are at forward planning. World War III will be a piece of piss.) No, I said, I've got to see my lawyer on Monday about this damned financial dispute with Queen Bitch. So, I told her, I'll get you a train ticket to London, and come myself a few days later. I had to do some fancy footwork in making arrangements with the friend we'd be staying with, but all was done and dusted.
This morning we got up and she spent hours fannying about with various articles of clothing. After a long period of time waiting at the front door fully clothed to take her to the station, she finally emerged. Once we were in the car on the way to the station, she asked: "I haven't got my passport. Does that matter?" I mentioned that it wasn't a bad idea to have some sort of ID, but it wasn't life or death. "Have you got all the details I wrote down for you about how to get to our friend's place, and the mobile number of the guy you have to get the keys off?" "No," she said, wide-eyed. "Well, how the hell do you expect to get there, then?" I promised to write down the directions for her again from memory, and call her later to give her the mobile number. We got to the station and I did all this. Then "I've forgotten my wallet and don't have any money or credit card!" Fortunately we had fifteen minutes, just enough for me to run to the bank and get some cash out.
My younger son has learning difficulties, but has been travelling on his own since age 13. He wouldn't have left the house without papers, money or clear instructions on where to go. And it's not as if she's had a pampered upbringing. This is a lass who was working construction sites at age 11 because she bloody well had to, and was single and making her own way in the world for 10 years until I came along. Since she's been here she's done fuck all except cause trouble. If I didn't love the silly woman I don't know what would happen.
Friday, 1 February 2008
A Holiday in Hell
Apologies to readers (both of them) for recent absence from bloggery. The last three weeks have been utter hell, with more of the same to come. Moving house is purgatory at the best of times, and these weren’t the best. It started with pretty near the worst week of my life. Doesn’t quite make it to Number One – the seven days in August 2000 between being told I had cancer of the oesophagus and being told I hadn’t will take quite a bit of knocking off that perch – but it’s right up there. This was to be the week of the great house move, and for once I thought I’d got it organised quite neatly. Secure the new house from Monday 7th, arrange to move out of the old one on Thursday 10th, giving us three clear days to shift our stuff; arrange for our furniture to be delivered from Germany on the 16th; in the meantime, as we would be without a bed in the interim, bought one to be delivered on Friday 11th, having arranged accommodation with a friend for the night of the 10th. The whole thing required a few thousand squid, so I applied for funds to be transferred through my German bankers on 18th December. All bases covered, you might think.
Except that the money wasn’t there. No doubt the various bankers involved had “borrowed” it for a few days, to put it on the horses or something, and no doubt they’d all taken a couple of weeks off over Christmas like everyone else, but anyway it wasn’t there when I needed it. The estate agents for the new place were as nice as pie, but totally inflexible: no money, no keys, not even allowed to transport stuff to the house to await full occupation. (I suppose they’d have got sacked if anyone up the corporate hierarchy had found out they’d broken procedure.) Anyway, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday on the phone from 9 till 5, trying to find out where this damn money was, while the Iron Buddha did as much packing as she could. Trouble was, the domestic atmosphere deteriorated markedly during this period.
I can’t really blame her; we were facing actual homelessness, and the area in which a major cock-up had occurred was undoubtedly one for which I had the responsibility. It wasn’t really my fault, except that I should have made allowances for any degree of bankers’ incompetence and done the transfer about a month earlier, but I have no excuses: at an atavistic level, a man who can’t even put a roof over his woman’s head is a failure by any standard. All this burst out in a fearsome row on the Tuesday evening, where my shortcomings were read out to me in no uncertain terms. This resulted in my storming out of the house in despair, getting into the car, and heading for Scotland. I have not found it possible to maintain my alcohol reduction programme during this level of stress, and perhaps we had better draw a veil over my blood alcohol level when I hit the M6 around midnight.
However, no harm befell me or any other road user, thank God; and halfway to the border wiser counsels prevailed, and I decided to retrace my steps and return to Lancaster. Around Carnforth I was doing no more than 80 when my clutch blew out and I could do no more than to glide over to the hard shoulder and slow gently to a halt. And that, as far as my Saab 93 went, was that. It was 1.30 a.m. The full-scale storm of earlier in the evening had burnt itself out, rather like my clutch, and it had stopped raining, but the wind was about Gale Force 8. This being the middle of the night on January 9th in North Lancashire, I presumably need not play Eeyore and point out that it was neither Hot, Close or Stuffy. Just-between-ourselves-and-don’t-tell-anybody, it was Cold.
I should, everyone told me, have picked up one of the roadside phones and sought help. But I had no number for the RAC with me, and, besides, I have long since lost faith in the possibility that any public telephone will actually work. There was also the points a) that my brain was no longer in working order after the bombardments set out above and b) that I had no wish to be discovered in the neighbourhood of my car by anyone who might be furnished with a breathalyser. Anyway, I walked four miles, and had almost reached Lancaster when the Highways Agency, who had already spotted my defunct car and put two and two together, picked me up. They wouldn’t actually take me home, but gave me a lift to a hotel where a cab could be obtained, and promised to bring my car to my address in the morning. Couldn’t have been nicer.
On the Wednesday, having got to bed at five, I got up to discover that I still had no access to any money, and that the Highways Agency had not brought my car as they had promised. So the previous days’ slog of trying to chase up banks who couldn’t care less was at least varied by the task of trying to find out what the hell had become of the car. (I should at this point credit the Iron Buddha for bringing me a penitent cup of morning tea and swearing never to go for me like that again; unfortunately, I am writing this in retrospect and in the knowledge that the oath lasted two and a half days.)
By the time I had located the car it was 5.30 p.m. They had taken it to a recovery place instead, enabling them to charge a fortune for me to get it back. I rang the RAC. They said they could go and pick it up, but according to their rules I had to be there when they did so. Ah, I said, thinking of my transportless state, well, can you pick me up and give me a lift there? No, according to the rules they couldn’t. Well, the buses in this sort of area would have stopped running by then, and failing fifty quid’s worth of taxi, there was no way I could do it. I told them to commit an anatomical impossibility and went to the pub. Next day, Thursday, I could see myself having to empty the flat and become homeless by 9.30 a.m., and find shelter for a gobby wife and about fifty-three plastic bags, while simultaneously sorting the damned car out.
My “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” moment came on my early awakening next morning when I saw it was lashing down with rain. What better conditions to complete a major logistic operation with no car? Fortunately the wife had done well in organising a man with a van, and I had done well in organising a massively supportive brother-in-law, so both we and our stuff had a place to stay. As on every day this week, I had remained sober so long as there was stuff to be done, but once that was no longer possible, had got massively rat-arsed. I had just started doing this when word came through that my money had arrived. Sadly, it was quarter to six and the estate agents were closed, but at least the end was putatively in sight.
Spent the rest of the evening in one of the best pubs I’ve found in Lancaster, full of disappointed and articulate middle-aged men so I felt right at home, before going on to the brother-in-law’s and a good night’s sleep.
Next morning the horrors continued. We went to the estate agents to do the financial biz, when I remembered we were having a bed delivered that day, the only one we had until the rest of the furniture was delivered from Germany in five days time. The buggers wouldn’t of course let us into the house till the finances were all in place, which would be around lunchtime, so I rang the bed company to find out what time the bed would be delivered. Any time between now (around 10) and 1 p.m. , they told me. I got my arse in a taxi and went to the house, sans keys, getting a where-the-hell-are-you call on my mobile en route from the bed company. Just a moment, I told them, and arrived just in time to take delivery of a bed in bits, which had to be stood against the outer wall. Fortunately, within the hour, I got the nod from the estate agents that the money had come through, and they brought the key round. So we were in, only mildly disconcerted by the fact that an alarm instantly went off which nobody had told us about. As we had as yet nothing but a bed, we decided, on invitation, to stay another night at the brother-in-law’s.
So far so good. Unfortunately the stress had proved too much for the Iron Buddha and she unleashed the row from hell, with all dirty linen waved all over the room. After an uncomfortable night on the sofa, I really thought this was the end. Besides, I had mislaid my medication in the horror, and woke up feeling like I had about six hours to live unless I found it, a feeling which may even have been soundly based. Driving back with all our crap to the new place from my brother-in-law’s, I had to pull in to let a wailing fire-engine pass. “Bet that’s our house burning down,” I said to the IB.
But it was all sorted in the end, leaving me feeling as if I’d survived the siege of Stalingrad. (I’ve always believed in reading a really harrowing book during really harrowing times, to remind me that, however bad it gets, it could always be worse. I read Robert Conquest’s “The Great Terror” while waiting for my cancer tests seven years ago. During this move I completed Antony Beevor’s two books on Stalingrad and the fall of Berlin.)
And hanging over me the whole time was the upcoming court case against the Queen Bitch, which I hadn’t had time to pay a minute’s active attention to – and even once the move was completed, how the f**k am I supposed to find the relevant financial papers in all this mess?
Except that the money wasn’t there. No doubt the various bankers involved had “borrowed” it for a few days, to put it on the horses or something, and no doubt they’d all taken a couple of weeks off over Christmas like everyone else, but anyway it wasn’t there when I needed it. The estate agents for the new place were as nice as pie, but totally inflexible: no money, no keys, not even allowed to transport stuff to the house to await full occupation. (I suppose they’d have got sacked if anyone up the corporate hierarchy had found out they’d broken procedure.) Anyway, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday on the phone from 9 till 5, trying to find out where this damn money was, while the Iron Buddha did as much packing as she could. Trouble was, the domestic atmosphere deteriorated markedly during this period.
I can’t really blame her; we were facing actual homelessness, and the area in which a major cock-up had occurred was undoubtedly one for which I had the responsibility. It wasn’t really my fault, except that I should have made allowances for any degree of bankers’ incompetence and done the transfer about a month earlier, but I have no excuses: at an atavistic level, a man who can’t even put a roof over his woman’s head is a failure by any standard. All this burst out in a fearsome row on the Tuesday evening, where my shortcomings were read out to me in no uncertain terms. This resulted in my storming out of the house in despair, getting into the car, and heading for Scotland. I have not found it possible to maintain my alcohol reduction programme during this level of stress, and perhaps we had better draw a veil over my blood alcohol level when I hit the M6 around midnight.
However, no harm befell me or any other road user, thank God; and halfway to the border wiser counsels prevailed, and I decided to retrace my steps and return to Lancaster. Around Carnforth I was doing no more than 80 when my clutch blew out and I could do no more than to glide over to the hard shoulder and slow gently to a halt. And that, as far as my Saab 93 went, was that. It was 1.30 a.m. The full-scale storm of earlier in the evening had burnt itself out, rather like my clutch, and it had stopped raining, but the wind was about Gale Force 8. This being the middle of the night on January 9th in North Lancashire, I presumably need not play Eeyore and point out that it was neither Hot, Close or Stuffy. Just-between-ourselves-and-don’t-tell-anybody, it was Cold.
I should, everyone told me, have picked up one of the roadside phones and sought help. But I had no number for the RAC with me, and, besides, I have long since lost faith in the possibility that any public telephone will actually work. There was also the points a) that my brain was no longer in working order after the bombardments set out above and b) that I had no wish to be discovered in the neighbourhood of my car by anyone who might be furnished with a breathalyser. Anyway, I walked four miles, and had almost reached Lancaster when the Highways Agency, who had already spotted my defunct car and put two and two together, picked me up. They wouldn’t actually take me home, but gave me a lift to a hotel where a cab could be obtained, and promised to bring my car to my address in the morning. Couldn’t have been nicer.
On the Wednesday, having got to bed at five, I got up to discover that I still had no access to any money, and that the Highways Agency had not brought my car as they had promised. So the previous days’ slog of trying to chase up banks who couldn’t care less was at least varied by the task of trying to find out what the hell had become of the car. (I should at this point credit the Iron Buddha for bringing me a penitent cup of morning tea and swearing never to go for me like that again; unfortunately, I am writing this in retrospect and in the knowledge that the oath lasted two and a half days.)
By the time I had located the car it was 5.30 p.m. They had taken it to a recovery place instead, enabling them to charge a fortune for me to get it back. I rang the RAC. They said they could go and pick it up, but according to their rules I had to be there when they did so. Ah, I said, thinking of my transportless state, well, can you pick me up and give me a lift there? No, according to the rules they couldn’t. Well, the buses in this sort of area would have stopped running by then, and failing fifty quid’s worth of taxi, there was no way I could do it. I told them to commit an anatomical impossibility and went to the pub. Next day, Thursday, I could see myself having to empty the flat and become homeless by 9.30 a.m., and find shelter for a gobby wife and about fifty-three plastic bags, while simultaneously sorting the damned car out.
My “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” moment came on my early awakening next morning when I saw it was lashing down with rain. What better conditions to complete a major logistic operation with no car? Fortunately the wife had done well in organising a man with a van, and I had done well in organising a massively supportive brother-in-law, so both we and our stuff had a place to stay. As on every day this week, I had remained sober so long as there was stuff to be done, but once that was no longer possible, had got massively rat-arsed. I had just started doing this when word came through that my money had arrived. Sadly, it was quarter to six and the estate agents were closed, but at least the end was putatively in sight.
Spent the rest of the evening in one of the best pubs I’ve found in Lancaster, full of disappointed and articulate middle-aged men so I felt right at home, before going on to the brother-in-law’s and a good night’s sleep.
Next morning the horrors continued. We went to the estate agents to do the financial biz, when I remembered we were having a bed delivered that day, the only one we had until the rest of the furniture was delivered from Germany in five days time. The buggers wouldn’t of course let us into the house till the finances were all in place, which would be around lunchtime, so I rang the bed company to find out what time the bed would be delivered. Any time between now (around 10) and 1 p.m. , they told me. I got my arse in a taxi and went to the house, sans keys, getting a where-the-hell-are-you call on my mobile en route from the bed company. Just a moment, I told them, and arrived just in time to take delivery of a bed in bits, which had to be stood against the outer wall. Fortunately, within the hour, I got the nod from the estate agents that the money had come through, and they brought the key round. So we were in, only mildly disconcerted by the fact that an alarm instantly went off which nobody had told us about. As we had as yet nothing but a bed, we decided, on invitation, to stay another night at the brother-in-law’s.
So far so good. Unfortunately the stress had proved too much for the Iron Buddha and she unleashed the row from hell, with all dirty linen waved all over the room. After an uncomfortable night on the sofa, I really thought this was the end. Besides, I had mislaid my medication in the horror, and woke up feeling like I had about six hours to live unless I found it, a feeling which may even have been soundly based. Driving back with all our crap to the new place from my brother-in-law’s, I had to pull in to let a wailing fire-engine pass. “Bet that’s our house burning down,” I said to the IB.
But it was all sorted in the end, leaving me feeling as if I’d survived the siege of Stalingrad. (I’ve always believed in reading a really harrowing book during really harrowing times, to remind me that, however bad it gets, it could always be worse. I read Robert Conquest’s “The Great Terror” while waiting for my cancer tests seven years ago. During this move I completed Antony Beevor’s two books on Stalingrad and the fall of Berlin.)
And hanging over me the whole time was the upcoming court case against the Queen Bitch, which I hadn’t had time to pay a minute’s active attention to – and even once the move was completed, how the f**k am I supposed to find the relevant financial papers in all this mess?
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