September

I've taken to walking at lunchtime, even though there's nowhere interesting to go in an hour and not much else to see apart from other offices and office workers. It's like Clonesville, but at least the weather is good; the slightest covering of cloud and a strong, fresh breeze.

In Ealing, West London, there are two great recreation parks separated by a crossroad in a quiet residential street. They are two of the largest, and oldest, municipal parks I'd known anywhere in suburbia. I used to work nearby and most lunch hours would complete a figure of eight around both parks by the perimeter paths, a walk which would take almost exactly the whole hour. It was a fine walk, especially if the weather was good.

A short time later, an old work-mate joined the firm. He was Polish and he came to England, via France, at a time when Poland was under communism. His command of English was really good though he still had an accent which added charm to his words and gave the simplest of statements an air of gravitas and wisdom. And he was slightly older than me, possibly by as much as ten years.

Our paths crossed in the park one day. It was mid-Summer. I'd made some remark about how good it would be to holiday in Britain, if the weather was as good as it was that day.
I remember he said immediately how, in England, in September and, sometimes, October, it could be good, also.

I wasn't aware of this at the time, in fact I was a bit dubious. I was young enough still to associate September as the month for going back to school at the end of a long Summer break. But in passing years I found my Polish friend was right. September is a fine month, also. In fact, I'm not certain it isn't my favourite month of the year.

tick-tock

For about a couple of years between my late teens and mid twenties I never carried a watch. I don't remember whether my old watch broke or was lost but I didn't have enough enthusiasm to shop for a replacement. Then I found I could get along fine without one. Generally, I'd work out the time to the nearest hour intuitively, and if on rarer occasions I needed more accurate time I'd simply seek out a clock or the kindness of strangers.

The reason I think of this now is because I've just read an article in response to old news that using technology makes you stupid. The article refutes the claim though I wasn't convinced, and I wonder how my life would be without media technology (gratuitous use thereof, obviously. I'm not suggesting that if ever I should face a life-threatening situation where safety required the assistance of technology, I should decline it on principle). It's safe to say, I think, that certain tasks seemed more meaningful before technology saved time and labour. And made us stupid because now any fool can do it, can't they?

These days I'm a watch wearing conformist, but every once in a while, I try to tell, not guess, the time of day intuitively. Rarely am I out by more than half an hour, more frequently correct within a quarter of an hour. I ask you, how accurate do we need to be?

old fart-lek

Following what seemed at the time like an interminable series of illnesses and injuries I’m glad to be back on track, running. It might be early days but I’m pleased to be able to say I run again, and this time I have the dog as my jogging buddy. Though it might not feel it at the time when I’m bowling along, afterwards, having run, and retaining the confidence that you really can run, it gives me a great sense of being and achievement; it’s liberating, both physically and mentally. Thinking about it, I do get it when I’m actually running, providing the humidity and the sun aren’t too high. Fleet of foot, the wind in the hair (some chance), that kind of thing. Superb.

To ease myself back in I’ve adopted my own interpretation of Fartlek which I’ll probably call old fart-lek. Basically, this is a Swedish training method and simply translates as Speed-Play. In practice in involves breaking up a long run into a series of shorter ones varying in effort, anything from, say, walking fast to sprinting flat out. The pace and duration of each leg designed to suit the individual and to allow for brief periods of stress followed by recovery while continuously moving. I’m sure there’s more to the science than I’ve explained but it’s a fun way, and a good way, to run. Blinding.

Running with the dog can be a bit comical. A comfortable pace for me is a tad too quick for the dog to walk normally but way too slow for her to trot, so we begin with her walking increasingly fast in a similar way to a cartoon dog, her legs speeding up to a blur until the lead gets tight and she has to give in and break into a casual trot whereby, soon after, the lead gets yanked in the opposite direction and I, with arm stretched out of its socket, get pulled along the road. When we get to the cross-country part, I’ll let her off the lead but this has its funny moments too. A narrow cut in a field of tall grass means we must go single-file but who goes first is a bone of contention. With dog out front, she seems gradually to slow down so I’m constantly worried she’ll just stop to smell something over ripe on the path and I’ll go arse over tit over a sniffing dog. However, if I get in front I feel her wet snout nudging the back of my calves all the way as if she’s telling me to get a bloody shift on, dawg, or move over. But mostly it’s the open lane, with me hacking up sputum owing to a juvenile tonsillectomy, and her panting due to an absence of sweat glands and making it sound like I’m running alongside Thomas the tank engine. Excellent.

I guess that’s f-fa-f-fa-f-fart-lek, folks!

why milkmen whistle

In my world I find myself troubled by the lack of recreational whistling these days. I arrived at this, as always, through a circuitous route beginning with the song, The Milkman of Human Kindness, inexplicably coming to mind, and continuing around and around in my head for days. This song, performed on TOGWT, was the first time I’d noticed Billy Bragg and the lasting impression was how well the loneliness of the performance matched the pathos of the song. I think it was the use of electric guitar that helped in this: most one-man performers, I thought then, used an acoustic, the electric was for bands.

The very long serving milkman we had when I was a lad could have easily been nominated for the milkman of human kindness had such an honour existed. A youthful presence, though probably 30-ish, well-filled out yet short on being fat, with an open, round face, and hair my mum would have described as having been cut with a knife and fork. He carried a withered leather satchel on his front from which he often produced a flip-flap wallet which looked homemade of cardboard and criss-crossed elastic ribbon, and which, by magic and slight of hand, flip-flapped and entrapped your ten-bob or quid note beneath the elastic ribbons. And then he whistled. That’s the point, the whole point. You can get milk from the grocers around the corner, but you can’t get an early morning whistler come all weathers.

On his first day on the job, on our round, he came around our corner with an almighty crash. He asked my mum if she had a broom he could borrow. And a cardboard box for the broken glass. I miss the low sound of bottles hitting the doorstep and the high sound of bottles returning to the crate. He called you Sunshine, or Missus, or Squire, and he left an extra pint.

Billy Bragg had to appear a second time on TOGWT before I got him. The song, Levi Stubbs Tears. The circular working of the lyrics is wonderful, the story unfolds and eventually answers the intriguing question arising from the opening line. But most of all, he isn’t alone. The horn coming at the end simply sold it for me. I suppose he could have whistled it, like Lennon on Jealous Guy, or Redding on Dock of the Bay. I’m glad he didn’t. He went for the horn.

the coin-operated horse

I've put this image up for Steve. It's me, probably around four years old, riding on a coin-operated horse. I don't know where it was taken: the coin-operated horse I had in mind, when I commented on a photo of Steve's wife as a little girl riding a rocking horse, was out front of a beach shop in Newquay, Cornwall. This wasn't it; it's an entirely different one. I really must have had a thing about mechanical horses.

Riding the horse, and wanting to ride them when I saw them, is one of the few memories I have from pre-school years. It may be the only one. I have to be careful not to dwell on this memory too long in case it gets corrupted. Memories are delicate things, and I don't really know how pristine this one actually is. I'll put it away now.

brian sewell, national jewel

I've been catching up on Brian Sewell in the London Evening Standard.

In many a twilight hour, I would be sent forth, ''round the corner'', on my little bicycle by Dad to collect an Evening Standard from the news vendor. Then he switched preference to the Evening News; I don't know why...

hi-ho

Spring is here and I'm bored with working inside. This time, last year, I was free to dedicate 100% of my hours on the allotment if I so wished; now I have to work.

It doesn't help that I can't seem to get the measure of the brief for the job I'm currently involved in. One day you can't do too little, the next too much is not nearly enough. It's the business-political aspect I never get; I'd much rather set-to to do the best job I can, regardless. Still, I quietly remind myself of the mantra: nothing lasts forever. There's light approaching clearly from the end of the tunnel. All I need do is steady myself on the footplate and keep shovelling in the coal...

perspectives

Illustration friday's topic this week is Perspective. Here's a strip I did for Moleskine Exchange. The height of a tree is inversely proportional to the distance the observer is from the top. This is exactly the same law that governs time travel: the closer the observer is to their youth, the longer things are. I was reminded of this when I remembered reading Brave New World at college; I must have been eighteen. Yet I knew before I was sixteen I hadn't started reading anything significant. At the time, I clearly remember I was sure I had wasted half my life to illiteracy yet now I realise it was barely two years....

The Three Trees: an allegory of the three worlds?

(I don't know)

click for a bigger view

I am not a happy bunny

The telephone rang. A charming woman's voice told me the oil painting class won't be happening this term. There wasn't enough interest.

I'm especially put out as I have knives and canvasses ready and waiting.

But I find I'm still happy. I enrolled for life drawing as well.

public library

I am difficult to impress. It is something I've hated about myself for as long as I remember. It has caused me to seem an ungrateful boy at Christmas and, later in life, to be misinterpreted as 'cool', aloof, dull, miserable, and on occasion antisocial. I'm pretty sure I'm none of these things for most of the time.

You should never read an autobiography of someone you don't know from a bar of soap. I borrowed Roger Scruton's, Gentle Regrets from the newly revamped town library expecting it to be as stimulating and enlightening as the Lovelock book I had just finished. I suppose it didn't cost me anything. Well, no more than I would have to pay for the service even if I didn't use it. But I did wonder why I was spending time on it when I'd also borrowed Steinbeck's East of Eden. It felt like a moment when you take a seat on a bus and the stranger next to you starts telling you his life story - yes, exactly like that! - and it's irrelevant and meaningless, and you just want to look out the window and enjoy the familiar and real meaning of the journey.

At this point, you could simply change seats or stand, but that would appear rude so you get off before your stop because waiting for the next bus, even in the cold and rain, is better than this. With a book, a book from the library, you simply return it early. God, I do love the public library!
~

I borrowed a third book that day. (Three seems to be a natural number.) It was John Humphrys' Beyond Words: How Language Reveals the Way We Live Now. It was well written and convincing but I found I agreed far too easily and was bored with the cause before chapter three was over. Never mind, I was heading for the library anyway...