Last night I put my foot through the bath. I simply stood up to get a towel and my foot just went straight through, sending water cascading through the bathrrom and down into the kitchen. There's now a big hole and two bits of bath - some kind of twin skin acrylic resin stuff. I still can't explain it - I'm not that heavy (about 12 stone). Maybe it's like a karate type thing where you focus all your power into one part of your body. Don't think I'll tell the insurance people about my copy of The Power of the Internal Martial Arts by Bruce Kumar Frantzis. In fact, I think I'll store it in the loft for a couple of weeks, until this Foot Through Bath incident is forgotten.
The Crown, Clerkenwell Green
Recently done up and sprinkled with fairy wine bar dust to appeal to the slick crowd that hangs out around Clerkenwell these days. Historic grime has been scraped off everything inside and it no longer has a selection of proper beers, but push button lagers and ciders possibly piped in from some super modern underground storage facility. Guinness is good, though, and it's warmish rather than that chest constricting extra cold stuff that lager drinkers seem to love.
Grocers shops
Where have all the little grocers shops gone? Twenty five years ago, most of Britain was overrun with little establishments run by hairless old men with specs who stocked only four or five products, covering the basic nutritional requirements. These minimalist general stores were as ubiquitous as McDonalds are today. And old fellows in shops always had stories to tell - of runaway steam trains and daring dawn raids on Jerry (or in some cases, dawn raids on the Boers).
The main item they always sold was jelly. They had several flavours, in a nice display. Jelly always comes in handy. They also had an extensive range of soups, covering all the flavours that matter - tomato, vegetable and exotic oxtail. Sometimes there were cornflakes too. As with many such pairings, one old gent was always nice and one was nasty. But you could never tell who was what. And I suppose now we never will.
The internet
Loads of computers joined together that enables you to buy all kinds of stuff like cameras, books, old guitars, holidays and life insurance while dwelling over pictures of Britney Spears.
Dig the new scene youthquake baby
Three teenagers enter Humana, a second hand clothes shop in Hammersmith. They are all decked out from head to toe in the new Urban Jessie look. The tallest one is called Simon. He is the alpha male of the group in a skinny, weedy, thick glasses, grandad suit weedy ponce vicar's son sort of way. Behind him comes an earnest, small dark haired studenty-looking girl (kind of late 90s Dora Carrington) and a jolly faced, plump bloke in coolnerd clothes that look make hime look like he's pilfered his Dad's wardrobe in 1979 (he is the Beta male, I suppose - still in testing). They all have outrageously posh accents.
Girl: Simon, like, you can do film at art school you know, yeah.
Simon: Hmmm. (he flicks through some shirts)
Girl: 'Cause, like, you know, you don't HAVE to go to film school to do film.
Simon: (while holding up a Godawful 70s kid's shirt) Yah, but art school isn't my thang, like, you know.
Tubby: (points at shirt) Oh wow, that's, like, SOOO AMY.
Simon ignores him. Then he picks out another one, with little checks. "That's like totally cool," he drawls. "Yeah, like cool!" says the Girl. She picks something - "Oh my God, that's, like, SORRY?!?"
Tubby: Yeah, totally, like, so 'summer holiday'. (He hasn't mastered the lingo. The other two ignore him).
Simon starts twisting the circular rail looking at the shirts - he's an Individual and is only looking at the stuff most people would laugh at. Tubby tries hard to be heard by being even more Valley-Girl-meets-Latymer-Upper, but he's getting nowhere, so just laughs at nothing. Then Simon picks out a shiny, big collared number.
"Oh my god that's, like, Totally Woolworths!!!", exclaims the Girl, and they all laugh.
The Alma, nr. Brick Lane, E1
Victoriana on walls, interesting real ales at the bar (Snowdrop and Pigswill), a Landlord who likes his own products and a peaceful haven away from the curried-artsy bustle of late 90s Brick Lane. For proper dinkers, lost tourists and Ripper fans.
'Where are you from?', asked Landlord.
'Lincolnshire', I said.
'My second wife was from Lincoln. Lovely lady.'
Feud Critics
The gambler who lives at the end of the road has got himself into a feud with the frowning old man who lives in a house opposite. Something to do with keeping his lights on at night. Frowning old man says it's anti-social then seems to suggest that if we'd all followed Enoch Powell's advice none of these sorts of issues would arise. The gambler - not usually lost for words - finds it hard to argue with this line of attack. Where do you begin? Instead he points to his shoes, which are new, and asks if I like them. The frowning old man frowns again.
Leeds United
After about two years of claiming "we are Leeds" whenever one of her little Gooner pals asked who she supported, my five year old daughter has now succumbed to the lure of glory. The double whammy of Arsenal's title-winning run and Leeds' relegation was too much for her. I have had to console myself with the idea that Arsenal are just her local village team.
"You can still support a big northern team as well, love."
"Who's a big northern team, Daddy?"
"Leeds."
"What about Manchester United?"
"No, the rules say you can't support both Man Utd and Arsenal."
"Shall I support Leeds as well then, Daddy?"
"Yes. Please."
Pleasure Gardens of the Imagination
A pub crawl around the sites of old wells and springs in Clerkenwell, accompanied by an illustrator, two architects, a mythological writer, a spiritualist, a geologist and a small town country solicitor. Outside the Coach and Horses one of the architects gets out some blue tape and we stick it to a grill in the road, under which we can hear the rushing River Fleet. The illustrator has blue nail varnish on her toes.
Compost in my rucksack
A hike through Clissold Park with the rucksack to buy compost at the garden shop. The fences have finally been taken up on the top fields of the park and been rolled up into little biscuit shapes. It's like a reference to the round hay bales I used to see dotted around the countryside as a kid. The middle aged bloke behind the counter starts telling me about Hull City's promotion and when he hears I'm a Leeds fan he talks about their downfall being down to the change from fast midfield running to a slow passing European style game. He looks like Ena Sharples' older brother.
"North, south, east or west - it doesn't matter where you plant stuff. If you want it to grow, it'll grow."
Local slugs
Looking south east, through the slats in the blind, I can see four policemen with black padded waistcoats - the kind of thing their mums would have put together if they'd starred as Mr Bumble in a school production of Oliver! - standing around outside a house. The occupant, a loud-voiced alcoholic lady of no fixed age, has wandered off in the direction of Blackstock Road. I go back to my work and rely on the keen eye of my wife, who sits by the window and keeps me updated on events.
An hour or so later there is a massive boom and the walls and windows shake. A Pickfords ("The Careful Movers") removal lorry has driven fast over the traffic calming ramps outside our house and sped off in the direction of Stoke Newington, smashing into the tarmac every fifty yards or so. This is the kind of noise that has sent an old bloke at the end of the road into such a rage that he has recently threatened to start supporting the BNP. When I asked what drove him to this he spat out a torrent of ideas based around housewives having too much time on their hands.
It's a cold/hot/cold/cold/hot weather day. We're all waiting for more rain. The slugs will be out to feast on the shoots in my herb garden, but tonight I'll be ready for them with some handily placed trays of Budwar beer. Two bottles for me, one for the slugs.
The Curious Life of Charles Foster Talgutt
"London is a metropolis of open pustules, running sores that blight the fair city's visage. A foul stench permates the surrounding areas, a disgusting wetness. How grand it would be to walk down the course of the evil Fleet river and not be waylayed by the rotten fluid ." (letter to the Royal Geographical Society- reproduced in In Perambulations along the watercourses of Our Great Metropolis, by CF Talgutt )
The rivers of London were mostly covered over in the space of 17 years by one man, Charles Foster ('CF') Talgutt, who hated running water ever since a rabies scare he experienced in India. Talgutt was a Victorian rennaisance man - A muscular Christian who liked the ladies, martial arts and visionary writings, who wrote bad potery and did mediocre watercolours. writer, poet, fighter and musician. He sailed a boat through Clissold Park, boxed Jem Mace, the Swaffham Gypsy, was a friend of Dickens, had affairs with actresses. One of his most strongly held views was that a man should not ejaculate during intercourse. Connected to his phobia about running water, perhaps. He did have a theory - that the semen went to a large storage container in the afterlife, which would come in handy when you eventually pegged it as all the other old duffers would be pretty much spermless by then. All those of afterlife ladies.
Talgutt died in 1926, aged 101, shortly before publication of his childrens story entitled The Adventures of Snuggly the Blanket Bear.
On the fence
Walking through Clissold Park this morning, pushing the pram, I noticed one of the deer had its antlers caught in the wire fence. The more it struggled to break free the more it got tangled up. I got a passing cyclist to give me a leg-up then scaled the 10 foot high fence and prepared to drop down the other side. Suddenly the deer freed itself and I was left hanging, no longer an animal welfare have-a-go-hero but all of a sudden a trespasser likely to incur a Hackney Council fine. I managed to flip myself back over and luckily my fall was broken by the cyclist who was still anxiously watching my progress. He picked himself up, gave me a weak smile (obviously thinking "inept tosser") and pedalled off. I collected the pram and my son and strode off to the north.
Collapsing old buildings
The little print shop next to The Gunners pub has collapsed. For several days workmen* had been gutting the building and digging down into its foundations, presumably in a madcap attempt to burrow into the public bar of The Gunners and steal some valuable signed photos of '71 double-winning skipper Frank McClintock. Blackstock Road was closed for a couple of days so the buses had to come down our road. On Monday morning, as I tried to confront the usual nappy shit, Weetabix globules and The Tweenies at full volume, some people looked down into our sitting room from the no. 19 bus and collectively let out a sigh of relief that they weren't me.
* I use this term loosely - it was actually just a few blokes with digging equipment which they were obviously using for the first time.
The pipes of poo?
The big ploughed trackways are still there in the park, makeshift wooden fencing on each side. It appears they are connecting two major poo pipelines in the N16 area. This morning two blokes had a suction tube down a large manhole, presumably sucking up liquid shit then transporting to a part of the country that's suffering from a runny faeces deficit.
Is this Spring?
Yesterday - 7th January - I saw the first ladybird of Spring. It landed on the screen of my Imac while I was checking the latest Premiership table. Then the phone rang. It was a woman from the Alliance and Leicester asking if I'd like a loan. They're pissed off with me because I recently paid off the balance on my credit card and are trying strong-arm tactics to get me back on the high interest bandwagon. After I'd told her to get lost I went back to play with my new insect friend. But the ladybird had gone.
It rained all day today. Various little streams have appeared in the roads, all pouring down the Hackney Brook valley at different points. The two biggest run down Green Lanes and diagonally North-East through Clissold Park towards Grazebrook Road. I was splashing about in one of them when a car horn hooted and a woman leaned out of the window, fag in mouth, looking at me. I walked over to the car.
- Are you lost?
- What?
- What?
Then she stared past me, up at the block of flats accross the road, and blew smoke on my waterproof.
Procrastination techniques
I'm trying to finish an outline for a new travel book, which might be about the Vikings in some way. This planning stage is the hardest thing about writing. Anyway, today I spent about 20 minutes messing about with the cut and paste function, then put on 'Straight Outta Boone County' (Cowboy Songs, Home Songs, Western Songs, Mountain Songs) and have so far spent the rest of my time attempting to recreate 1940s style vocal harmonies, every now and then popping downstairs to put on some more coffee. Pretending To Be A Country And Western Singer is a classic procrastination technique for a writer.
Due to my dodgy eye (detached retina) I'm having problems reading the type on screen. Full stops now appear as commas.
Fox Rodent Hybrid Nut Fiends
A mother is walking through the park with a small boy following behind, dribbling a football. A squirrel runs across their path.
"I used to see red squirrels when I was little," says mum. The boy isn't listening. He's doing commentaries to himself as he jogs along.
" There were lots of them at my Auntie Jo's house," she says. The boy kicks the ball against the fence and makes a crowd noise. His mum sighs.
"They're mostly grey squirrels now."
Aled Up
The sound of Aled Jones singing fills the streets of Highbury Vale. Perhaps a fan of squeaky chorister recordings has moved in to the area. Or it's the Welsh songbird himself (possibly showing off to a new girlfriend in his bedsit). Either way, it's bad news.
Sportsjackets in the Strand
Seeing as I was barred from using Stoke Newington library due to by inability to let go of their copy of 'Water Nymphs and Fairies', I decide to venture into town and browse around for stuff in the huge new Waterstones in Picadilly that used to be Simpsons department store. We went along for their closing down sale. Every tweedy sports jacket in the country had been rounded up here before being taken off to the countryside to be shot and burned on huge pyres. My Dad, who likes sportsjackets and has been wearing them since 1957, caressed them longingly but decided not to buy. I asked a sales assistant if they had anything about the masons and underground rivers. Sorry sir, this is a clothes shop. Come back in a few months time when Waterstones will ve here,