Beer

The alarm clock had stopped at half past five. Groan, what was the real time then? I don't keep a phone by my bed as I don't want that thing near my head, emitting its dubious waves and killing or transmuting cells;the scientific evidence then later laid at my door if I should suffer any age and mobile-related ailment.

And anyway, I'm one of those who likes my 'off' time, rather more than my 'on' time. And no, I'm not talking menstruation. How crass. Typical of a no-holds-barred feminist. No, I'm definitely not that, not according to modern standards and campaigns, or even those of earlier i.e. of the bra-burning or marching placards.

I was referring to those who are really addicts who cannot bed down without a blue light, held aloft, and so deprive themselves of sleep and appear the next morning bug-eyed. Me, I bed down with a book, a book book, a real physical book, and that's it.

Anyhow, sleep had been had, that night, the night before it and the night before that, but this morning I fished my small bedside clock out of its resting place – the beside drawer – to read its hands as half past five, failing to notice there was no audible tick or movement, the former being why overnight it's consigned to a drawer, and thought, 'No, not yet. It's far too early.' Then for some reason I looked again and realised what you already know.

It was two hours out. Perfect.

I'm not, for once, exercising my sarcastic wit, for my body clock is set to that time, or thereabouts; sometimes it takes away a half hour of slumber.

Now, I didn't jump out of bed as you might expect or crawl out either, I just got up which I assume most human beings do. One leg followed another, then before I knew it I was standing.

The rest, as in the usual routine, occurred as it ought with no deviations, apart from, of course, replacing the clock's battery with another, and once again setting its hands ticking. As well as correcting the time it kept. The tick, however, in my noiseless bedroom seemed louder and more echo-like. Can different makes of batteries do that? Cause a clock to have a more forceful presence? Or, was it before run down and so diminished its output, in sound and motion? The latter seems more logical somehow, but is time, or the pieces that keep it, that rational? No matter. For it would most certainly be going in the drawer. Tonight and ever after.

It was a day, however, for clockwork. Where I couldn't like a Joan Aiken tale say: but today is Tuesday. It wasn't; it was a day (a Thursday) when things of this sort happen, as too are the occasional Wednesdays.

Wednesdays are for stationary humming refrigerated trucks, which can literally drive me nuts. Sat there, unmoving, as the goods are unloaded, outside my windows, and drowning out any other external sounds, like those you might wish to hear, and interfering with internal thoughts, which although perhaps not very interesting nevertheless need to be thought, and need relative quiet to form.

But Thursdays are regular – you know they're coming, the day of the week as well as the arrival of this delivery, the sounds of which will infiltrate for a good forty-five minutes. And I'm always in. I somehow haven't managed to time it that I'm ever out. Or maybe I'm in deliberately to moan. To curse 'them' aloud to my walls. And perhaps, perversely, feel good (about myself) for suffering it...

This truck reverses into the designated space, by the pub's kitchen back door, with an awful squawking, like a chicken being tightly held by the neck, and then the tinny rolling and clanking begins. The stainless steel kegs rolled as Humpty-Dumpty might have been rolled if he hadn't fallen, but handled roughly by beefy men in hard-wearing gloves, and sometimes support belts like those worn by competitors for The World's Strongest Man. Tough job, delivering beer, though less of a feat than that of lifting cars or successive boulders, or pulling cabs of trucks a measured distance.

Picture credit: Beer Tankards, 1885, Vincent van Gogh (source: WikiArt)

All posts published this year were penned during the last.

The Cry of the Crow

4:45 am and I was dragged up from sleep by the sharp repeated cry of a crow. A sound far more harsh than the night bark of a fox, and far more fretful.

The dream I'd been swathed in instantly disturbed and just as instantly forgotten as I broke through the surface to wakefulness, turning from my right side onto my back to lie still under the covers and listen, intent on trying to figure out, aurally, the cause for alarm and if there was any need to get up and see.

As it turned out, there was, for the cawing continued for some minutes, in the same unbroken vein, its pitch increasing and its tone more urgent, so that I soon abandoned any hope of returning to sleep, without rising from my bed.

I lifted the blind with its Magritte-style blue skies and clouds like a veil from the window to, instead of a young dawn with rose-red fingers, a muted canvas, against which the spring green of leaves, the beige brick of the buildings opposite and the elephant grey of the tarmac beneath intensified to different shades than when touched by golden rays, the throne of Dawn.

The spectacled eyes absorbed this - the subdued light and its strange effect - despite the continuous, and desperate, cry of the crow, which not once during this time had been espied. Anywhere. Not perched in a tree or on a roof, nor in the sky, in circling flight and bullied, nor on the ground, entangled in any rubbish strewn among the few parked cars. Nowhere in plain sight and yet it could be heard, plainly, its noise carried from wherever it was, above, same level or below.

Koww, koww, koww, eh-aw, eh-aw. What exactly was it trying to transmit with its overzealous squawking? A bad human or, as Ovid, the Roman poet thought, rain. The latter seemed more likely, given the dulled canvas and since nothing else – no other birds, a late-to-bed fox or a even a grey squirrel, and certainly no humans it being a Sunday - were in evidence. There was no other sound disrupting the quiet, nor any other faces peering from behind windows, scanning the area with an expression of irritation and concern.

Had the quiet persisted, undisturbed, and inconspicuous of birds, and had I still been examining the view at that hour, I might have been able to liken it to Avernus – a place without birds.

That, however, was not to be, for the voice of the crow, though unsighted in the act, made it seem, despite appearances, more jungle-like, a dense landscape of foliage and growing heat. The sun yet to burn back the cooler tones of day and then, with it, bring sweat and a light to daze. To blind the eyes. And bring on thirst to confound the mind further.

I lost myself, for a moment, in the mythic reality of it, as I stood there at the window, believing I was in topics, on a platform made from, made in and supported by trees, and even possibly sucking a pebble to assuage a dry parched throat; my drinking water long finished and the vessel it was drawn from turned upside down. Could some clean water hole be found? when there'd been no rains and the tributaries were dust. Brown cracked rivulets as if no water had ever run through them. Listening to that crow cry, my first thought of the day, had this been my true location, might have been: could this be, really be, the harbinger of rain?

Welcome rain. Monsoon rain. Rain to stand out in. With face upwards, mouth open and arms spread wide, as wide as they could possibly go, like the limbs of a tree; the palms cupped to catch drops.

Possible. Possible. Possibly. The fantasy slip-slipped away. Dust.

My curiosity settled, I drew the blind, with its Magritte-style blue skies and clouds, back down and returned to the still-warm cave of covers, where as soon as my body sank into the mattress and my head again rested on the dented pillow, the cry of the crow ceased. Its silence, and this peace, almost a danger in itself. Had the danger passed or had it come?

I succumbed to some sort of sleep. A sleep that was light but went on, so that I was quite perturbed when I did again awaken. To the same day, with no chariot of sun; or the cry of the crow, revived.

Picture credit: Crow, Ohara Koson (source: WikiArt).

All posts published this year were penned during the last.

H. of the Stumble

A while ago I realised, sometimes to my amusement and often to my dismay, I stumble more over words. The spoken word.

When this occurred, fatally you might say, I don't know, since it mostly happens in those moments where everything - talk and body language - is either improvised or governed by natural impulses, as well as at times when my self-awareness is heightened; but as those exchanges are rare it's not then there all the time since most of the minutes and hours that make up the day are spent in silence or in a one-way chat: either with myself or addressed to a screen.

A babble would imply a rush or a stream, words forced out in one breath with no beat between them; a stutter or stammer suggests words that are stuck, like a woman in labour alternately panting and pushing until baby's delivered; whereas tongue-tied expresses a knot or the tip sliced in two, the ends tied in a bow so that words are mispronounced, which, to correct, have to be sounded differently; and lost for words intimates the tongue's been intentionally removed, or numbed deliberately and may only be shocked back to feeling with an ice-cube.

No, these stumbles, these falls have nothing in common with the above. Nor any term (that I know of) that completely conveys the temporal disconnect between brain and mouth, much like an intermittent and poor signal. People in remote areas will undoubtedly understand what I'm talking about. Except the experienced technical hitch is not entirely that either; it's not just that pathway as there's also the inability to formulate recognisable words: those that would be instantly recognised by another when said, as well as the selection of them from the thesaurus in my head. Usually what happens is that two get conjoined and remain so when spoken, like Siamese twins who require medical invention to survive, or more appropriately in this case an explanation in the Oxford Dictionary.

I'm scaling a hill or mountain -metaphorically speaking for I would never do that in real life, well, only out of necessity, not for pleasure or adventure- and there are too many footholds to choose from, so that as a foot is suspended mid-air the rest of me slips and slides, just a little bit, until I find the firmest and nearest placing, while dust rises and small stones tumble downwards.

Movements quick: a grab, a toe drag; that's what it's like the art of small talk sometimes, all the time studying another's face to see how it settles. Comprehended, puzzlement or brushed aside? Knowing that what you've said is not wrong but it's not right. Because it sounds like gibberish to your ears.

The equivalent to it, I imagine, is a mini-stroke, except in this instance you're aware it's happening while those you're addressing remain unaware. Then, in those moments, I feel foolish. Blathering idiot, I'm thinking, whilst looking to see if it's been noticed. The words are just not there when I want them to be, or where I want them to be either.

And like a mini-stroke, you don't when or where it will strike, or whether you'll trip up or just fall, fall, fall, and be quite unable to pull anything coherent or appropriate from your usual hat of words. Mostly it happens face-to-face, though it has also been known to occur on the phone when I don't know with whom I'm speaking or if I'm nervous for example about making and taking a call.

But it's the loss of words that bothers me. The not knowing what to say; the right, the correct way to respond, at a pace that's both suitable and socially expected. But then I seem to have lost too knowing when to be quiet and when to chime in. When to attempt a throwaway (and often silly) remark, or an anecdote which would put me on an even par with other speakers. Similar to how when your calf muscles go into spasm you can still talk, though there's a good chance your sentences might be interspersed with oh, oh, oh (to match your winces), and therefore add very little, in the way of effect or sense, to the conversation.

Picture credit: Stig of the Dump, Edward Ardizzone (source: Folio Society News & Blogs)

All posts published this year were penned during the last.

Turned Detective

I think I've left quite enough passage of time to write (and expose) the following, though all I have to back it up is my word, my own detective work and a hunch that the information I'd found was dead on target. Nothing was ever corroborated, verbally or in writing, nor was the information forthcoming when I met the person to whom I would report to should I be successful, and I didn't press that person because well, it was a weird situation and I didn't really want to have that conversation: to have what I thought confirmed, nor to have to spell out, in person, my reluctance to be further involved.

Now, I'm not a investigative journalist nor an undercover reporter but this to me, then as of now, had the hallmarks of an exposure piece like that shown on Panorama or Dispatches. I'm not sure what I would have found had I gone deeper, or if I'd have liked it, though I think it's safe to say I would have found it seedy and felt uncomfortable about facilitating these services.

Maybe you, however, will think I'm prudish...perhaps I am.

Maybe I'm too distrustful and moralistic. Judge for yourselves.

*

Lesson 1 – Be careful answering ads that are (deliberately?) vague in detail

June, last year, I answer an ad for a part-time post as an admin assistant/receptionist/PA where salary and duties were listed, but no mention was made about the nature of the business other than that it was a start-up. A week later I receive a reply from the director inviting me to an interview where I was advised I would learn more about what she does and what she was looking for.

Lesson 2 – Turn detective and chase clues

In none of the subsequent emails exchanged agreeing (and confirming) date, time, venue and contact numbers etc. was any company information divulged: no company name and first name basis only. I even had to probe for the office address where we were due to meet – I had the postcode which only gave a rough location. I had no real suspicions at that point, and had planned to be more open-minded; entering into it less prepared than usual. But that instinct to want to know never dies and so I attempted to google businesses registered to the shared office building. No match. Next I googled the contact number I'd been given and bingo!

A cleaning company offering nude (and clothed) services. Oh God, it could only happen to me! Do I pull out? No, it was too late (and rude) to do so, plus I admit I was curious. Do I go and let on, ask outright? Could my internet-gathered intelligence be wrong? Please let it be wrong. Please let it wrong. All these thoughts flashed through and yet I already knew I was spot on. Still my mind said: go along. But how to play it, how to react?

Lesson 3 - Conceal (don't reveal) what you know

The interview date arrived. At the venue, after I'd loitered outside and felt decidedly dodgy doing so – the director was unlisted on the intercom and I didn't know what floor she was on – I called her, she came down and led me to an upstairs broom cupboard: basically a space big enough for a table and two chairs, and from there the interview proceeded as you would expect. The nature of the business was confirmed as cleaning and that they wanted to expand geographically as well as possibly introduce further services: carpet and window cleaning (I almost choked on suppressed laughter), but it was left at that, apart from the fact that the workforce was all female (and freelance) visiting male clients and there was a lone working policy. I waited, with bated breath, but nothing further came. Perhaps I should have pressed...but maybe she, like me, was sussing me out.

Lesson 4 - Don't think it's over till it's over

Naturally (well this is me we're talking about) the inevitable occurred: an offer was made. I declined, excusing myself with a half-truth to maintain my cover. Until now.

Picture credit: Collage for Nude with White Flower, 1994, Roy Lichtenstein (souce: WikiArt)

All posts published this year were penned during the last.

Devil's Horns

Don't ever try to fashion ear muffs from a plain headband with black devil's horns and two pairs of balled-up socks skewered on each end because they'll be lousy. You'll still hear everything you were, in desperation, trying to drown out as well as be unable to find a comfortable sleeping position. The band will dig into your scalp, the socks won't cover your lug-holes or stay there, and the horns will rub against the headboard. In a very short time you'll rip them off, sling them across the floor, with eyes shut, and say a prayer asking your ears to adjust to the racket and for sleep, in God's name, to come.

The racket, in my case, was the loud strains of Come On Eileen and Diana Ross' I'm Coming Out. The tracks I most loathe, which even if I was up and in a party mood I'd sit out or leave the venue. So in the pre-dawn hours they were most unwelcome. Eileen, don't go; Diana, stay home. And turn it down!

Why hasn't the cheesy music moved on? The very same were being played when I was going to teenage discos, and were not then, for me, the ultimate of a good night, though others gyrating around me obviously disagreed.

Now, Bon Jovi's Livin' On A Prayer, that's a track. But not at 2am. Outside your window. In a rousing chorus, fingers in the air, rock-style. And not when it's done to death, or might very well end up being the cause of one.

The Derby came to town. Yes, it certainly did. A little excess – in spirit – is to be expected.

But this is pretty much standard fare if you breathe and share the same air as a pub, particularly one whose market is predominantly 18-30. Still, we all need something to gripe about, and this is mine. One of them. And it has given me, along with some nights of poor sleep, some funny incidents to remark upon, as well as tested my tolerance, which we all need to do from time to time.

Earlier that same evening, I witnessed from behind flimsy curtains, aside from the usual clowning about (and that's just the staff!), two paunchy and balding suited men who were (I estimated from up high) over thirty telling some tall tale (again I presume) to another equally suited slightly-the-worse-for-wear man, whereupon whenever they reached a bridge or chorus performed a almost perfectly timed side-by-side dance routine: a spin then sidestep, step behind, step behind. They really should learn how to spot, I remember thinking, it would help their balance enormously. If I'd been prepared I could have held up a board with their score.

So really, I should complain less because instances like this gives me material, as well as a feeling of superiority which I dislike but can't ignore, though this, I think, has more to do with height: the number of feet (from the ground) from which I observe, as then those below seem diminutive whilst I preside, in my own domain, above, where everything, of course, appears to me to be of normal scale. Not that this is a reliable measure of (my) intelligence, because what kind of fool tries to make ear muffs from devil's horns and socks? In my defence, noise you can't control makes you either flip out or resort to any ingenious method you can think of, or concoct at an ungodly hour.

That experiment, as you know, wasn't successful. But nor have I since then invested in ear plugs, because, in the past, upon waking up having put in squashed and squeezed and rolled foam plugs (and then lost them in the course of the night) all my sinuses have been snuffly. Why that should be I don't know, yet it only happens if I block up my ears. Instead I tend to take to my bed when the garden's been cleared, and only on special extended licence occasions wait it out.

The experiment of living almost on top of a pub is much harder to deem success or failure, since without it my untutored studies of human behaviour would be less rich; there'd be less pickings. Yes, I'm often inconvenienced and hear and see more than I wish to see or know about, but I wonder, when again the thought of moving occurs to me, if somewhere quieter I'd be bored. Devil's horns wherever they are worn exercise the mind.

Picture credit: The Little Devil, 2008, Marina Pallares (source: WikiArt).

All posts published this year were penned during the last.