Saturday 15th September

Alison was one of those who got away.   She left me, but I am not sure I would ever have left her; I was absolutely besotted with her and wrote far too much torrid poetry about her for years after she left. Long story – but she did a Shirley Valentine on me, and way before the film too.  1984 I think, on Crete she stayed behind with a Greek restaurant owner after our short romantic holiday there.  But as well as a broken heart she left me with a couple of cassette tapes.  One was Janis Ian – Between the Lines.  I had never even heard of Janis Ian, though she had been around since the early sixties.  This early seventies album I think led to a revival of interest in her, and she is still going strong and making music.

But the reason for the success of Between the Lines and why it is so adored by her fans is that it is such a confessional open and honest record.   Her voice sounds so wounded on these delicate songs of desolation and rejection that it just tugs at the heart strings.  We have all been there, ‘At Seventeen’ that nervous wallflower, the ugly ones who never get asked to dance.  I love all the songs, especially ‘In the Winter’ ‘Tea and Sympathy’ and ‘Lovers Lullaby’.  I played the tape to death for years and now it hardly plays, so I have just re-ordered it on CD and cannot wait to open that annoying cellophane wrapper and slip it into the CD player, and waltz round the room and envelop myself once again in my memories of Alison, Crete and my misery when she left.

For I find that those miserable memories are always the ones that mean the most.  To have known utter desolation, and to have recovered; ah, that is living.

Friday 14th September

I am afraid that instant coffee just doesn’t do it.  And as for those sachets of so-called Latte and Cappucino they sell nowadays, ‘just add hot water and stir’, yes, I have done that and now exactly what do I do with the gelatinous mess of baking powder, dried milk and some hint of coffee.  No, surely you don’t expect me to actually drink it do you?  I have in the past invested in a coffee machine and am sorely tempted to do so again.  However unless it is plumbed in, and very expensive you cannot achieve the pressure to properly steam heat the milk.  And then you have to clean  and de-scale it regularly.  I quite like the idea of those Nespresso machines, but I fear the milk steaming bits won’t really work.  And anyway do I really want my Latte to be that easy.  It tastes great after the morning rush-hour journey, strap-hanging and squeezed, a moment of sanity arrives in the shape of your first Latte of the day.  And this is my reward for getting up every day and slogging it to work.  And at my age too; I should really receive a medal.

But oh, when that Latte arrives and though it is almost too hot to drink you tentatively put your lips to the china (or corrugated cardboard) cup and take that first sip.  Heaven.  As the milky froth dissolves you are left with the slightly sharp hit of coffee breaking through all that softness.  I used to be addicted to sugar and have worked my way down from two to one to a half a spoon of sugar.  Then for a while I would sprinkle some vanilla flavoured icing sugar on the froth, but now I have at last achieved perfection and cut sugar out completely.  I now enjoy the pure unadulterated taste of coffee, and if I ever do stop working the thing I will miss most will be that first sip of Latte in the mornings.  Maybe then I will have to fork out a few hundred for a decent coffee machine at home.  At least I will have the time to clean it.

Thursday 13th September

There are misleading signs on the Underground and there are mis-directions. I know I took at least a couple of years to understand the complexity of the Underground, and though I like to think myself an expert I am sure there a few bits of it, like the Western reaches of the District Line that are still a mystery to me.  I can clearly remember wandering round and round Baker Street station in the mid-seventies completely lost as the signs were so misleading.  Sometimes this is by accident, arrows that appear to point to the end of the platform but are meant to indicate an exit partly hidden to the left.  Also the ever-improving platforms have so many signs and indicators hanging that signs are obscured and only hove into view if you walk down the platform.  These are all forgivable, and in a way add to the very nature of the tube; a secret language that Londoners know and visitors are perplexed by.

However we are now being subjected not just to misleading, but mis-directing signs.  During the Olympics quite a few stations became one-way entry or exit, supposedly for crowd control but one suspects an element of sadism was afoot.  But before the Olympics became an excuse there were still deliberate examples of sending people the wrong way.  At Kings Cross, one of the most complicated stations the indicator signs for different lines have had stickers placed over the arrows, pointing you in completely the wrong direction.  If you follow them you end up walking for ages down tunnels which bring you out a very short distance from where you started.  There is a perfectly good short link between the Victoria line and the Northern and Piccadilly, however this is now completely unsigned.  Only those who remember it still use it, and one has to ask why?  Why deliberately send people walking down endless corridors when a perfectly good short link exists.  Madness?  Sadism, or Stupidity?  You decide.

Wednesday 12th September

But John Lewis hasn’t gone anywhere I hear you shout.  Oh yes it has.  It has gone downmarket, down the dinosaur way, down the trash bin that is Selfridges and Debenhams.  It started with those central escalators and open Atrium, then they carved out half the basement for the Food Hall, and now the shop is completely ruined as the Cosmetics and Beauty section had trebled in size and relegated gifts and stationery to the basement, and reduced it to about a quarter of its former size.  I know that stores must change to meet changing demand, but honestly who buys this shit.  The perfumes and lotions and potions and so-called Beauty treatments.  Oh, of course I forgot, young women buy it, spending an ever disproportionate amount of their wages on trying to look beautiful.  And for what end?  So that guys will look at them and want to shag them, so they will get married and pregnant, and have kids and not be able to ever afford that rubbish again.

I know I am an old curmudgeon, but the very reason I used to shop at John Lewis was its unchanging-ness.  The fact that when you wanted a birthday card you knew exactly which door to go into and on autopilot could avoid everything else and rely on an excellent selection, and quick service.  Now like all the other stores you have to hunt for and then give up and ask an assistant and then queue up at the very few tills.  I did complain, the response. ‘I know, we get loads of complaints every day, all our old customers hate it.’

But that won’t stop those marketers and PR people who design these shops to look just like every other store everywhere else.  But in my book, they have thrown the baby out with the bathwater, so come back John Lewis – I miss you

Tuesday 11th September

The yanks just don’t get it, do they? Do you not feel it strange that the country which epitomises sporting excellence, and was second only to China in the Olympics, was way down the list n the Paralympics.  And maybe that is partly because of their wretchedly poor TV coverage.   NBC, which had the American franchise showed absolutely no live coverage of the games at all, and only four, yes that’s right four, hour long highlight programmes of the Paralympics. (No doubt heavily interspersed with Ads)

At times I was frustrated  by Channel Four’s coverage; the perpetual advert breaks, the monotony of just two main presenters, and like most others though I love Clare Balding, her effusiveness after each and every race was a bit much to take.  I am sure the BBC would have done it better, but at least it was live and on the whole time.  I have always thought there should be one channel, on BBC undoubtedly, that should simply cover live events on a continual basis.  A sort of rolling 24 hour breaking news.

But four hours out of eleven days of incredible competition and athletic achievement is just pathetic and the Americans ought to be ashamed of themselves.  The bosses at NBC probably thought that no-one would want to watch a bunch of cripples running around, when Hollywood is so full of perfect bodies. What even we in Britain have just realised is that even those maimed bodies are perfect too.  Everyone is normal, and extraordinary at the same time.  And as the rest of the world moves on to a different and more inclusive and caring agenda, led yet again by Europe, America is still stuck head in the sand ignoring the brave new world.

Monday 10th September

Of course one shouldn’t complain, especially after the summer we have had, but it really was such a hot weekend.  And everyone’s mood was changed; everywhere you went people seemed relaxed and care-free.  Maybe the summer of Sport, the Olympics and now the Paralympics have had something to do with it.  At last the British are feeling happy about themselves.  For a few years now we have had the Financial Crisis of All Crises, and every day the news just gets worse, economic statistics heaped on our heads night after night.  And even if it is going to get even tougher, and the cuts will deepen and unemployment may get worse, and there isn’t much hope on the horizon, something has happened over this summer to the way we see ourselves.  For too long we were no-hopers, also-rans, a bit ineffective in the world.  And suddenly despite all our worst fears we have pulled it off with possibly the best Olympic and Paralympic Games ever.  There were no disasters, no strikes, no unfinished buildings, no rain stopped play, no cancelled events, no drug-cheats, hardly even any disappointing performances.  Everything actually went well, in fact everything went brilliantly, spectacularly so.

In an earlier blog, sometime in May I believe I suggested that there might be an October election, that the Conservatives might see an improvement in their prospects, and along with the improved mood of the country, they might just go for it.  Thankfully the mood of optimism has not translated into renewed confidence in the Government.  But I wouldn’t rule it out for early next year.   At the moment along with everyone else it is just too hot to contemplate.

Sunday 9th September

Digging the grave is Cockney Rhyming Slang for having a shave, although whether it is true original Cockney or the modern version of ‘Mockney’ I am not sure.  But quite apt it is.  This daily ritual is for most men very methodical, often performed first thing in the morning while still half asleep, in fact most of us could actually do it in our sleep.  Apart from a couple of years in the seventies when first a moustache and then a full beard made their appearance I have been digging the grave for over forty years now.  At first in one’s teens you cannot wait to shave, but can easily go two or three days without needing to.  ‘Put some milk on it and the cat will lick it off.’  Was the oft-heard jibe.  But then it got to once a day, and if you were really stupid, a second one in the early evening only encouraged the bloody thing to grow even faster.

And every morning as the blade makes it vertical swipes through the shave gel you look at yourself, but you never really notice how much older you are getting as each day you inexorably you approach your death.   But that is what is happening as you are methodically and repeatedly digging the grave.

Saturday 8th September

Just as the Beatles were getting fractious and beginning to fall apart, John so full of drugs and Yoko, and Paul desperately trying to find ways to both re-invent and actually keep the band together, George, always the quiet one, started to come into his own.  He not only discovered Indian Music and Religion, but also started to write much better songs, at least the equal of John and Paul.  And for whatever reason those two were also prepared to allow him more than the one token song he used to get on the early albums.  And almost the best song he wrote as a Beatle was ‘Here Comes the Sun’.

And now, almost every time I open the bedroom curtains and peer myopically out, if the sun is shining, the words of that song come back to my mind.  ‘And I say it’s alright’.  ‘It feels years since it’s been here’. ‘Little Darling’.  ‘Sun sun sun, here it comes.’   And there isn’t much more to it than that.  One of the simplest and yet most affectingly honest songs ever written.  And yet it expresses perfectly that lovely feeling when you realise it is going to be a sunny day again.

So, after a very mixed summer, with months of rain and not many decent days, enjoy this weekend while you still can, because – Here comes the Sun.

Friday 7th September

Sitting here in a Prêt, just off Baker Street, I am surrounded by busy bloggers, i-pad browsers and mobile doodlers, and I am suddenly struck by how much the world has changed in such a short time.   A few years ago there were far fewer such establishments; it is only a recent phenomenon, the rise of Starbucks, Costa, Nero and Prêt.  A few years ago there were a few greasy spoon style cafes, Italian sandwich bars and small establishments where you could get tea or instant coffee in a white mug.  No-one would have dreamed of drinking out of cardboard.   And you had to wait while the woman behind the counter refilled the large metal tea-pot with hot water, giving it a desultory stir, before casually pouring out your tea.  Now it is highly mechanized, the training for a barrista being almost as long as that for a barrister.

But back then people talked to each other, now we are all isolated little islands of technology, with our ears wired to music or news podcasts or watching some TV re-run on i-player.  And I am one of them, as I type frantically, grabbing these few minutes of my busy day, I do not want to waste a moment, so I too have my headphones in, listening to some singer I am currently besotted with while I try to make this blog at least partly entertaining.  And none of us are in the slightest aware of anyone else, all so busy with our messages, our e-mails, our music,our texts, our…..well, whatever we are absorbed in, because it aint each other anymore.

Thursday 6th September

Well, no real surprises there, were there?  Oh, just one or two.  After Jeremy Hunt’s turgid time over Murdoch and the BSky bid, he was rewarded by being given Health.  At least Rupert will now know when a hospital is being closed before the staff and patients are told.  But the downside is we will have to see his stupid grinning face for a few years to come.  One would have thought it was a perfect opportunity to have quietly dropped him, but then maybe that would have been too much an admission of guilt.

But for sheer gall one had to admire Michael Fallon (another highly slappable face) on Newsnight when he defended the demotion and reduction of women in the Cabinet, by declaring that there were now more women in Government overall, and there never had been as many women appointed by a Conservative Prime Minister before.  Hey Michael, the last Tory PM was in the last century.  He is rapidly becoming (Michael Gove excepted) the most annoying apologist for this Government.  And it was the twin demotions of Baroness Warsi and Justine Greening that really defined this reshuffle.  Warsi could be annoying, but often because she was so good and clever and witty, even when she was defending the indefensible.  Besides she was working class and a northerner and Asian, so by demoting her Cameron is sending out the right message to the type of voters he will need to win the next election.  And as for poor Justine Greening, I am afraid that Boris is quite right on this occasion.  Watch out, ‘U’ turn ahead.  The wording has subtly changed, last night Fallon repeatedly said that no third runway at Heathrow would be ‘built’ during this parliament.  So that’s okay then, one can be planned and agreed, but as long as the tarmac is still not spread out on the ground they won’t have broken their promise.

If they think the voters of West London are that stupid they must all think like Clegg.