Leaves and stuff

Autumn.


I LOVE autumn. Why? Pleases refer to the list below:


i) It's cold. Cold enough for scarfs and hats, and gloves and warm wooly coats.
ii) It's also cold enough for hot chocolates and soups. (It's even cold enough to eat a Magnum really slowly because it doesn't start to melt as quickly, which is fun.) 
iii) Sometimes it's even cold enough for snow, but failing that... at least a biting frost.
iv) There's leaves, everywhere. 
v) These leaves are amazing colours: orange, yellow, green, brown, caramel, crimson, umber, amber, bambi (hang on...), lime, chocolate, gold.
vi) I get to wear a coat that makes me look like Paddington Bear
vii) It's closer to my birthday
vii) It's closer to Christmas
viii) Drinking red wine by a fire on which you propose to roast chestnuts and cook marshmallows until you realise it's electric. 
ix) Going for a walk on a freezing a brilliantly blue day is unbeatable.
x) Whilst on that walk you can kick through the fallen leave (see points ix and v for reference)
xi) If you're really lucky you can watch someone else kicking through the leaves and accidently kicking hidden dog poo
xii) If you're really unlucky that person isn't someone else, it's you.
xiii) The nights draw in and walking home as dusk falls whilst wrapped in your warm wears (see point i), watching the sky turn the same colours of the leaves feels secretly magical.
xiv) Hot Toddies at any time of the day are allowed, in fact they are encouraged.
xv) Everything feels fresh and new and crisp and clean, even though the leaves are actually dying and you keep treading in dog shit.
xvi) Conkers
xvii) Seeing hedgehogs with their prickly little backs and their squidgy faces.
xviii) Having the chimney sweep come around (I don't know why I've included this... I've never had this happen)
xix) Bonfires and peoples glowing faces when stood around them. 




They are the reasons I love autumn. It also smells nice, a little like frozen musty honey.. which sounds disgusting but it isn't. 
I think i'd going to go to the park now to watch some people kick through the leaves... and maybe get a little surprise. A poo surprise. 

Umbrellas

I live in England. In England it rains. A lot. So some clever man a long time ago (about 4,000 years) invented the umbrella. Initially the umbrella was used for protection against the sun... until someone FAR cleverer than the man who used it for protection again the sun, used it for protection against the rain. Clever.

I don't have an umbrella. I had one... until Sunday... and now I don't have one anymore... but someone one the 18.48 to Twickenham does. Why are umbrellas so easy to lose? There are hundreds of different designs (my favourite are the ones that look like frogs or bears or giraffes), that you can buy from a plethora of outlets. There are automatic ones, see through ones, expandable, single-sized, group-sized... even hat umbrellas... But every single person I have ever met has lost at least one umbrella. Maybe it's because they are seen as disposable that we regularly forget, lose, break or steal them. And don't say you've never stolen an umbrella... Everyone's stolen an umbrella. It's wet, it's dark, no one's looking and then: 'shwiip', in a flash you are the proud new owner of an umbrella. But you're not proud are you? Not just because you're a dirty thief, but also because even if it was bought legitimately, no one is ever proud of an umbrella. Does anyone EVER remember going into a bar after sheltering yourself from the rain with your brand new brolly and saying 'Oh look everyone, look at my brand new umbrella... isn't it marvelous'... No, because nobody does that. Umbrellas aren't marvelous, they aren't really anything accept useful. And I think that's a little sad. 

For something that has become absolutely indispensable when it rains and completely redundant when it doesn't, I think we ought to have a little more care. The umbrella. A solitary object, forlorn without its owner and positively smug when cradled in the hand of someone keeping dry. They may look like weird caped spiders when they are 'put up', but they should be respected for the service they provide for us. 

Maybe, just maybe, the next time you buy one you could keep an eye on it. Make sure that when you're on the tube or the bus you don't, just because it's suddenly sunny, leave it weeping rainy tears forgotten underneath your empty seat. Take it with you. Umbrellas, I think, like the sunshine too... after all it was their original purpose, you wouldn't want to deny them of that now, would you?

And, as an afterthought.... if you're the dirty thief who stole my umbrella, give it back... you dry bastard. 

Locks, Keys and Oily Puddles.

I read a book the other day -it's a great book- and within said book there was a chapter on keys. The book, which was good, suddenly got great. I was lying on my bed reading about plugs and staples (yes, really) and then suddenly the 'Key Chapter'.  -Just to help make things slightly clearer, this book is non fiction (no, it's not the B&Q catalogue), but it somehow manages to contain all the brilliance and excitement of novel -about keys no less. 


So, the Key Chapter (the pun, I realise now, is actually a very good one). Keys: Curious, magical and always to be born in pairs. I don't mean you always have two keys, more elegant than that... without the lock there is no key. Without the key a lock becomes redundant. A lone key, minus lock, somehow still looks full of promise... a solitary lock, however, looks heavy and still, like it will sleep for a hundred years until it hears the distinctive 'chilink' of the key that once used to fit.  This chapter, so beautifully written, got me to thinking: What things do I like and why? Do I particularly like freshly cleaned glass jars along a window sill because of the glass, or the jar? -Or even, I hear you shout, the window sill -don't be ridiculous. If I like the bristles all splayed outwards on a used toothbrush, does that mean the next person does? I'm not sure, but I've tried to come up with a list of some of the things I like, and the reasonings why. Maybe, as you read this, you will realise we have the exact same likes, everyone who reads this, and we'll discover and worldwide phenomenon love for cold floor tiles. Maybe not. 

• Glass jars, freshly cleaned, along a window sill (bet you didn't see that one coming). 
• The backs of old picture frames. They've nearly always got something written on the back of them, which is usually interesting or at least in funny handwriting. Start checking.
• Small clumps of moss that have ended up, somehow, on grey concrete. Bright green on dull grey-very pretty. And they generally look like giant caterpillars. 
• Running my hands along privet hedges. I don't suppose the owners of the hedges are keen for passers by to do this but it feels nice, crunchy leaves and spikey branches.
• Oily puddles. Obvious. Magical.
• The miniature version of anything. I believe in fairies.
• The noise that happens when you have a full jar of water and you turn it upside down over the sink. Puh. 
• An old envelope with the scribbles of people I know on it. This feels somehow wrong to read, so I like it.
• Finding tiny bugs on plants. I imagine the leaves are like a fairground ride for them, all big and drooping. 
• Mixed sweets in a huge jar. Hmmm... maybe I just like jars.
• Having butterflies land on my nose. This has never happened.

Maybe it's the magic?

The oil rainbow that dances within a once murky puddle suggests more wonderment in the world. As you look down, the puddle inches from your converse trainers, the colours waltz. If you push your head slightly forward you can see your face, warped by ripples, covered in pinks and blues, the sky above you a merge of green and yellow. The street around you is normal. Do you have the urge to jump in? Dip one trainer into the puddle only to realise its depth is unlimited. Ankle follows foot, the other toe still on concrete... rainbow colours sweeping up your leg. Plunging further in, now both hips submerged, greens and vibrant pinks shooting up your torso and streaking onto your face. As your head is finally pulled under, your hands, the last thing to go, now purple and orange in glorious swathes across your fingers, wave goodbye to the dull street and delicately, just perfectly, disappear from view. The puddle, coming to a stand still once more, is calm. Another passer by walks along the street from which you have vanished, and ignores it completely. Rainbows gone, it is just another dank area of water, no magic, no possibility.   

Curious...

Beginnings and the things that follow.

This is the beginning of a blog. You will read it through, and then will come the end. 

Everything, as the tibetans say, is made of a beginning and an ending. Nothing that ever starts will continue to be forever. Even a black hole will cease, although by it’s own definition it is one continual end. Life, not to sound like a bore, is made up of these starts and finishes. It need not be a race, we are not in the one hundred meter sprint. We aren’t even in a 3000m cross country run… but after the start pistol has sounded there is only one definite that will follow. You may fall over a rock, you may slip on a slug, you may think you hear someone call your name and, whilst turning, smash your face into a tree. You may do all of these things, or none. But at some point the race will be over, whatever else happens. 

Now, this all sounds increasingly morbid. To clarify, this blog is not about death, not in its immediate sense. It’s not about The Art of Living and Dying, although that is a very interesting and recommended read. It’s about things when they begin and end, and what happens when they do. 

When you finish your ice cream the obvious consequence is to reach into the freezer and fill you bowl again to stop the ‘finish’ from happening. This can only be done for so long. You either come to the end of the tub, or realise the 2nd and 3rd trips to the corner shop were unnecessary, indulgent and greedy. You could just stop. Your ice cream would come to an end. There would be no more… but almost instantly something else would begin. It may be a thirst. Your teeth might ache. You may feel full. From the end becomes a beginning.  These beginnings can be huge and of massive significance, equally they can be so infinitesimally tiny they go almost unnoticed, but that inception, that moment of creation is there. They are the ones to watch out for. 

You’ve written a letter (on paper, your internet is broken and you’ve remember you, at some point in your schooling, were taught how to use a pen), you sign off, place your pen to one side and fold the paper. You get your envelope and place your missive within it. Lick, stick. You get a stamp, cursing the ridiculous new stamp system the Post Office has put in place; IS this a large letter or not? What actually specifies a ‘large letter’? Idiots, you think. You uncertainly make the call, it’s not large, it’s medium… and the fools haven’t got a medium letter stamp (or a small for that matter), so a regular one will have to do. Stamp affixed you walk, letter in hand, to the post box at the end of your road. It boarded up. You still have a letter and no means of posting it. The next post box is 10 minutes away… it’s a nice day, you decide to walk for the fresh air. It’s glorious outside and you have a letter to post, what’s ten minutes? The walk takes you through a series of little streets and back roads. You see a cat, it sees you. You both stop. What you want for it to do is either talk or display the skills of a super ninja cat. It does neither, just looks at you, blinks and pads off. You keep walking and the post box is within your sight. It’s not boarded up. It open like a smiley red mouth wanting to eat your letter. You post. ‘Thuth’ it sounds as it falls on the pile of letters already on their journey. You turn and walk home.

On that journey were hundreds, if not thousands, of beginnings and endings. You probably noticed three, maybe four. What would have happened if you choose to take a different road? Began on a different path… Would you end up at a different post box? Would you have ‘ended’ your search for a post box all together? What if you’d stopped at just finishing your letter… and the ‘start’ of actually posting it had never happened? So many moments of conception and conclusion that were never realised.  

I guess when it comes down to it, sometimes, there’s choice. It’s that choice that makes things interesting. What do I choose to start and what do I choose to finish? Will I follow the cat? Will I then enter the Matrix?

Everything that starts will finish. Everything. It’s the moments along the way to watch out for. Unless it’s ice cream, and then I’d say just enjoy the lot, although maybe that's just as true for life. 

Transport

I, for the most part, like London Transport.


I can imagine an instant recoil as you read those words. Like and London Transport without the 'I fucking don't' in the middle.


I don't travel on tubes, and maybe this is part of the reason. You won't see me on a tube for Love nor Money, or for 'ease of journey'... and don't understand why you lot do it either. Tiny carriages packed full of sweaty, angry commuters, all breathing into one another's faces... and then the tube -the size of a Hornby model train- stutters to a halt in a tunnel. Oh Yes Please. I'd love that. I would love to be stuck 25ft underground with no means of escape with a group of nauseating humans all despising each other for stealing precious, albeit boiling, oxygen. Sweat leaking from every place I didn't think possible as the 40 degrees heat rises rapidly... Only to be told ABSOLTULEY NOTHING by the 'driver' at the front of the tube, who is probably just a Debenhams shop mannequin. I'm getting sweaty palmed just typing about it (which is ironic as that is making it harder to type).


I have no idea whether tube journeys give TFL a good or a bad name... although I'll presume it's bad as I don't hear much good about them. Does it depend on which colour line you travel on I wonder? Or it is an all round bad service. Could there be anything done to improve it? Now, as a non tube-traveller, I surely shouldn't be allowed to answer that question, but this is my blog so I'm ruddy well going to.


What could be done to improve the tube (besides removing it all together) ?

• i) Having the tube carriages, and everything within them, painted the same colour as the line it's on. For instance the District Line would be Grass Green on the outside. The internal would be Apple Green and the seats- Minty Green

• ia) Further to point i) all tube lines would now have food services running in them but the food served would be the same colour as the line : Central line -Strawberries, Circle line - mash, Picadilly -Bluberries, Northern -Marmite or licorice, Bakerloo -chocolate, Jubilee -tin foil... It's a great idea.

• ii) Having morris dancers in each carriage to cheer people up when the tube gets stuck. It wouldn't become annoying.

• iii) The picadilly line, which is the deepest, wouldn't have any tubes running through it at all. Only tunnels full of water. You would get to work on a giant flume.

• iv) At night times the carriages would have mirror balls.

• v) The circle line would have all its stops removed. And would go around much faster. A bit like Alton Towers.

You see the possibilities are endless.


Bus journeys, to me, are far more pleasant. The jolly bus driver at the front who waves 'hullo' as you hop on board, the old man in the flat cap sitting beside you who tells you about his beautiful wife at home who he's taking some flowers to, the wandering scenery of lush trees and acres of foliage... Ok so that's all crap. The bus drivers a grumpy sod who wishes you were on the tube instead of making his day hell, the man in the flap cap stinks and keeps staring at you and there's kids at the back of the bus listening to Kphat, or whatever the hell he's called, at full volume . But it's not the tube. I can see trees, and sky, and every now and then I can see someone on the street smiling. And I think that's nice.


So I guess that's why I like London Transport. You can't really go wrong with a bus. If it breaks down -jump on another, if it's hot and humid -open the window. For all the reasons I hate the tube, I love the bus. And I think you should too. Unless you're agoraphobic.

WOM (or W.O.M)

When I was younger I went camping. 


(Don't worry there's more to this story.) 


Probably over ninety percent of my holidays were camping holidays around europe (well, England and France... let's not get above our stations). Each year,  once or (if we were unlucky) twice, we'd stuff everything we possibly could into our little grey car. We took it all: duvets, fold-up table, chairs, buckets and spades, knives, forks, portable campfire -in the guise of a calor gas canister, shower rack, sometimes the cat... but none of the good stuff. The TV, stayed at home. The toys, stayed at home. The videos (including the prohibited Young Ones video), stayed at home. Anything that was of any use to someone who wasn't interested in picking mushrooms that, after consumption, always ended with diarrhea, seemed to stay at home. As a result whilst we were on our camping trips there was the necessity to seek out our own fun(ghi). (HAHAHA)


We, my brother and I, were given money for the whole holiday. The money had been saved from household chores like bedroom cleaning and car washing or stealing it from our sleeping grandma's handbag. On top of the saved funds, our parents contributed... on the understanding that it would be distributed throughout the holiday and not in one massive, treasure chest-like, chunk. That's right, I was essentially given 'per diems' as a reward for  putting up with sleeping in a mouldy tent and having to wee in a bucket at 2am.


I think I was given, daily, something like £2 which, at the time, was marvellous. I would ration it and try and save it so that on the last Friday of the last week I would get myself Something Good. 'Something Good' was undefinable. One holiday it was a figurine of a rock with lots of mini rocks on top with the sign: 'Rock Concert' on it, the next holiday a fluorescent fly swatter which also transformed into a frisbee. The possibilities for that £10 (I'd always managed to spend four pounds on candy floss and Push Pops), were endless. Not only were they endless, they were mine - no one was allowed to comment on my purchases before they were made (I think a crack pipe would have been an exception. Maybe). I would show them off afterwards and there might have been the odd comment, but that £10 felt like the beginnings of my own assertions at being a grown up. And then came the WOM.


I don't remember where we were (the WOM has made me erase all traces from memory), but, as always, Friday had arrived and I was searching for my 'Something Good'. My 'this will make me happy and cool AND ironically witty at the same time' (- like the Rock Concert, although at 10 I didn't know what irony or wit was. I still don't). There was so much to choose from: bucket and spades (obviously not), little plastic men who, if you threw them at a wall would stick to it (a high possibility), body boards (too expensive), furry worms that were tied to invisible cords so they looked to be moving on their own... So many choices. I knew I had to separate the wheat from the chaff, find a brilliant 'Something Good' And then... I came across it. I had found my 'Something Good Amazing'. I had found the thing I would take back home that would remove the need for the TV, for the Videos, for the cat. I had arrived. I bought it and bounded back to the mouldy tent. 
Me: "Here, look! This is what I've bought. Isn't it amazing?"
Dad: "That's a WOM".
Me: "I know! it's incredible. Look at what it....Hang on, what's a WOM"
Dad: "That is"
Me: "No.. I mean... what does WOM mean?"
Dad: "Waste. Of. Money"
Me: "But...Oh..."
My dad saw my 'Something Amazing' for what it really was: a waste of money. I was hurt, and angry and wouldn't be told. I stomped off with it and was grumpy for the rest of the holiday. It was me and the 'Something Amazing' now. In it together. To conquer the world.


What I had actually purchased was a bright orange balloon filled with sand. On the front of it was a smiley face and scribble lines for hair. If you squeezed it the face would distort and it seemed like you were sharing a joke. It also felt nice. 
In the car on the way home I squeezed it too hard. It burst and sand went everywhere. I started to cry.

 Beware the WOM.

Escargots, Schnecken, Lumache

Snails.

A couple of days ago a good friend of mine, we'll call her 'Chief', trod on a snail. Crushed to death instantly. She was, and I believe still is, full of remorse. We've all done it... it's dark, it's been raining, we need to go to the shed/garage/underground blitz bunker and we aren't looking, and can't really see, what's beneath our feet. We stroll to the bottom of the garden: 'Tra la la la la, Oh my hasn't it been raining hard? That'll do the begonias no end of good. Maybe I can replant them in the... crunch. Oh.' Immediately you know what's happened. There is no question that you've trodden on something else. You know you have just killed a snail. What the first thing you do? Check the sole of your shoe (if, indeed, you were wearing shoes. If not, worse luck), and look around on the ground for more so as not to maim the rest of the family and feel a bit bad; but do you feel remorse?  
There are many things that snails are, and high on the priority list of most people they are not. I would imagine you, like me, are more careful on that particular journey to the shed/garage/tanning salon at the bottom of the garden following your recent snail trample, but the next night, in the pitch dark after a heavy rainfall, snails have eluded your memory completely until: 'Tra la la la la Well Marvin, I really must say, what you just did in there was something I haven't seen done since I was holidaying in Thai...crunch. Oh'. 


So why do some people feel a real sense of sadness when that underfoot termination occurs? Maybe it is a sense of care for all things living? Maybe a responsibility? Maybe, as Chief suggested, it's because the slimey buggers are actually ingenious and carry their mobile home with them wherever they go. Unlike slugs (which I bet you wouldn't know you'd even stood on, except for the momentary skid on your tread, which could've quite easily, you tell yourself, been a soggy leaf or a sodden plastic bag), snails cart their little coiled houses for their whole lives. They also race against other snails. This, obviously, makes them infinitely cooler. When I was younger I used to race snails up the window until one day, because they were so slow, I forgot about them. About three days later I returned to find one snail shell empty (dead) on the window sill and the other shell still stuck to the window. When I went to remove it I found there was no snail inside only a crusty residue which had been baked in the heat the day before (also dead).


I guess there isn't much we can do in terms of snail death. We can be more careful, keep our eyes open, try to remember there will always be a few lazying around after dark in the rain, but what's the point if the French continue to insist on eating them bathed in garlic. Snails, sadly, just aren't one of the nations favourite animal, which I find sad because I like them immensely (although this is probably only propelled by guilt due to the incineration incident), so maybe for me (and my guilt), next time you see a snail give it a little high five for being cool (this will have to be an imaginary high five as they don't have hands, and the force of a human hand would surely crush them to death) and then go about your business. It may just make the snails life a little bit brighter. 


That's right, a post about snails. I never said it would be interesting. 

My Lady Nicotine

Of late I have been questioning my smoking.

One of my favourite books is My Lady Nicotine by J.M. Barrie (Yes, the very same: Hand eating crocodiles, flying fairies, Lillys made from tigers, boys not growing up but being able to fly... you know the one). Nicotine is a wonderful book. Splendid. In fact I urge you to go out and buy a  copy... except you can't because it's out of print. I'll lend you my copy... except i won't because it's a first edition. Anyway. The book is glorious. It depicts the tales of a man who is reminiscing about his bachelor days as a smoker. It's witty and became an instant favourite when I stumbled across at a shop in The Lanes, Brighton (that makes my life sounds far more exciting than it actually is... just to confirm, I travelled there by coach). 

For the central character, who we will call J for that is the only description Barrie gives us, everything tobacco is romanticised now that he is a non-smoker. I find myself doing this too... and I still smoke. When he talks about smoking his briar (pipe for the likes of you and me), I imagine myself sitting on a big leather armchair, slippers gently tipping off my toes, pipe tucked loosely between my lips...I'm imagining being a man also, obviously. I feel a connection with him and want to jump into the book and sit on his house boat smoking the 'Arcadia Mixture' with he and his fellows. Because he is no longer allowed to smoke, his spouse forbids it, his memories are nostalgic and full of warmth for his past situation.

Recently I have been *considering* (very gently, mind) giving up the filthy/delightful weed (please delete as applicable), but every time I think of this book I want to stuff a load of cigarettes in my mouth and laugh heartily with my chums at our adventures. 

What is it that keeps me smoking? I very much doubt it is My Lady Nicotine... but certainly the ideas the book presents are desirable to me. Maybe I should buy an armchair, and a pipe and grow a moustache or maybe I should give up smoking. Sadly I think the former would be much easier. Even the moustache. 

First Post

There are many things a first post should be. Long is not one of them.