Ticking the boxes

We're all going to Hell in a handbasket. And I think it might be my fault. I'm terribly sorry.

It started in the week of my birth. I can hardly claim to have known what I was doing at the time, being rather more interested in emptying my bowels in an extravagant fashion. But it turned out that I'd chosen the right time to be born. The British Cohort Study was underway, a study of everyone born in one particular week in 1970.

Originally this was just a case of midwives filling out a few extra forms to help the powers-that-be better understand a cross-section of their latest citizens. But five years later someone had the bright idea of contacting these families once more to see how their five-year-olds were getting on. Every few years after that there was a litany of tests, surveys and questionnaires.

Yes. I'm well aware that a survey and a questionnaire could be the same thing.

42 years later and the BCS is still ongoing. I've just completed the latest questionnaire-survey, actually. And that's when it occured to me that I've probably had a hand in ruining everything for everyone. You see, someone must be taking seriously my responses to all of this data-gathering. They're using it to plan things. They know in intimate detail how us 42-year-olds feel about politics, our general health requirements, the number of bedrooms we have in our houses and how many units of alcohol we consumed last week.

That's the sort of information you need when making decisions on behalf of everyone. Best to make sure it's all accurate, then, yes?

The problem is this. When I'm filling in a survey/questionnaire thing, I sometimes embellish things. I give the answers that I would like to give. When asked, "How many times have you visited a museum in the last 12 months?" I really want to be the sort of sophisticated person who can glibly tick the 'Four times or more' box.

I don't completely fabricate matters. There's no way I'm going to be able to convince anyone that I visit a gym three times a week. Or that I've never been inside a pub. But if the form asks me about my reading habits, its a regular diet of literary fiction all the way, rather than the truth (Twitter and camera instruction manuals, in case you were wondering).

We only have to hope that the thousands of other Cohorts are a little more diligent when giving their details. The people using all this data have to hope that some people are being brutally honest, otherwise they'll be opening loads of libraries and museums.

And we can't be having that, can we?

It's a start

I used to love beige food. Still do, as a matter of fact. But avoiding it for the last two weeks has had a profound effect.

Just to be clear, when I say 'beige' I am being literal. I'm referring to the colour. Chicken nuggets, crisps, pastries, pies, you name it, I would eat it. In fact, all the stuff my doctor told me I had to pretty much stop consuming - it all occupied the beige end of the spectrum.

Our fridge used to look like the paint job in a Barrett's show home.

Over the last fortnight I've been eating a rainbow. Mainly, it has to be said, the green end, but certainly there's been a variety. I don't think I've ever had quite so much fresh fruit and veg. I even recognised some of it. The red lentil and sweet potato curry the other night was a particular high point, although I should probably apologise to anyone who was near me the following morning.

I don't suppose I need to paint you a picture.

The new regime has forced us to adopt some new practices. We now both get up in the morning at the same time so that we can have a proper breakfast and also to carry out the extra prep required for lunches, etc. It's quite civilised - we're able to talk to each other in the morning, which beforehand we tended not to do. Apparently that's what married couples do all over the place. Who knew?

As a result of all this colourful cuisine I've lost nine pounds in two weeks. Which is nice. I'm not yet at the point where it's noticeable to others, or in fact to me, but hopefully that will come in due course.

There are still some challenges. Last night we went to a party, which meant party food. There were acres of beigeness. It was spectacular. In the good old days I would have wandered from room to room, grazing on Doritos, stuffing pork pies into my gaping maw. Instead, I had a couple of cucumber sandwiches and munched on lettuce and tomatoes.

This is where you'd expect me to say how refreshing it was, not to fill myself with junk food. No. I won't say that, because it was bloody horrible.

But my war against beige food must go on.

Never knowingly underweight

When your doctor replies to the question, "Should I do some exercise?" with the following answer, it's probably a sign:

"I wouldn't recommend it right now. You'd probably keel over there and then."

When you get to the stage where a person you don't really know - literally a step away from being a complete stranger - feels able to pat you on the stomach and say: "So when's it due?" that's almost certainly a sign. (I didn't smile back at her. She probably thought that being my size I could at least have had the good manners to be jolly.)

When you can't find clothes that fit you easily, that's not necessarily a sign. But when you can't even find a belt that fits, that's a sign. It's a great big sign. A great big fat sign, if you like.

The doctor was very nice, by the way. He showed me lots of numbers on his screen. There was the cholesterol one which was high and needed to be lower. Then the vitamin D and calcium ones which were too low and needed to be higher. Very low, they were. I have the vitamin D of a cave-dwelling emo teenager and the calcium levels of an 80-year old, bizarrely. Heaven help me if I have a fall.

The doctor, after warning me against exercise until I lost some tonnage ("Your knees would outlast your heart") gave me some diet advice. And it went like this:

"All the things you like to have? Stop having them. And all the things you really don't like, you need to have more of them. If I see you in Greggs, you're a dead man."

Before you ask, I'm pretty much quoting him word for word.

He prescribed me some calcium tablets to be taken for the next year. I wonder if it's possible to overdose on them? Would you go all stiff-limbed and grin at everyone? Who knows.

So this is why, after a last calorie-laden blow-out on Saturday evening, Sunday found Katie and me in the supermarket, looking at green things. We bumped into a friend; I told him we were strangers to the vegetable aisle and he thought I was joking.

I was not joking.

I'll tell you something, though. Those people who say, often in a breezy, carefree manner, that you can eat healthily and pay no more than eating junk? They're talking arrant bollocks. I've got a weekly shopping bill some three times my normal amount as proof. I feel that some adjustments might be necessary for next week.

But we'll make the adjustments and go on. Because there was another set of scary numbers over the weekend. An 18, followed by a 1. 18 stone, 1 pound (or 253 pounds if you're American).

We've been here before, haven't we?

Not the same thing at all

My wife, the sainted Katie, She Who Must Be Obeyed, sometimes reads this blog. I suppose someone has to.

I often don't know about it until weeks afterwards. I'll have written something and then, when I've practically forgotten about it, she will ask questions. Of course, when I say "ask questions" what I mean is "deploy interrogation techniques that would put the Stasi to shame".

Potato, puh-taht-o.

A month or so ago I wrote about our experience when buying a bed. I know, I'm like Ernest Hemingway without the rum, aren't I? If you've not read it, I freely recommend it. It's a right riveting read, a roller-coaster from start to finish. In the posting, I complain how difficult it is to just go out and buy something. How tricky it is to simply part money without the salesperson trying to get more of your hard-earned out of you with additional sales, related items, extra charges, delivery, etc.

I think I made a well-reasoned point. Which is why I hope Katie doesn't read it. Because if she does, I'll be hoist upon my own petard. The moment I find out exactly what a petard is, I suppose.

You see, the truth is this. The day after we paid for the bed, I went and bought a camera. This was a planned purchase. I knew the make and model - I'd even reserved it from the shop beforehand. Both Katie and I knew exactly how much money was going to change hands.

So it was a little unfortunate when the well-meaning folk at the camera shop told me about this fantastic new deal they'd got on. How I could get an additional lens for Not Very Much At All. And of course, you need another lens, don't you? I might as well get a case, too. You're not going to go around without a case, are you Sir? It would be a shame if any damage happened to this camera, just because you didn't take this LowePro case that we just happen to have on offer? And what about a memory card? You can't do anything without a memory card, can you?

Stitched up. Like a kipper. I walked out of that shop, my wallet feeling like it had been violated. So if I moan about spending extra on getting a bed delivered, you must take it with a pinch of salt. Because at some point Katie will read about it, and an eyebrow will be raised.

Still, as long as I haven't spent all this money on a camera just to take pictures of the cat, all's OK, isn't it?

Oh dear.

High fidelity

Apparently, today is Record Store Day. "What's that?" I hear you ask.

Actually, I don't hear disembodied voices any more. Not since the Event. Anyway.

Record Store Day is supposed to help us celebrate the unique culture of our independent record stores. There are special vinyl and CD releases, promotional produtcts, the whole shebang. This is officially a Good Thing.

Why? Because when I was putting this post together I was trying to remember the last time I had been in an independent record store and my mind drew a blank. Then I tried to think about the last time I'd even seen an indie store. Nope, still struggling.

This is clearly a  market sector that needs our help.

Which is odd, because I think I spent about 30% of my waking hours between the age of 13 and 19 in record shops. I loved them, really loved them. I had the nonchalant finger-flick down to a fine art. You know, the action used when riffling through a shelf of vinyl albums or CD jewel cases, digging through the dross to uncover the treasure.For a couple of years I  even had a Saturday job in a record store. And while it wasn't an independent, it was still the coolest job a teenager could have.

But that was long ago. These days we don't  tend to buy music in the same way. There's very little thought involved in the wqhole process. Music is a commodity, there to be downloaded as a series of ones and zeroes at the click of a mouse. It was so much different back then.The first single I ever went out and bought was this:



I heard it on the radio as a young teenager. I fell in love with it but then had to wait until the weekend before going to my record store. Somehow, clicking a link doesn't seem to have the same emotional involvement.

Still love it now, to be honest. Brother number 1 played me the orchestral version once when I was driving us through Wales. We very nearly had an accident.

Record stores perform another vital task. They are places for blokes to go when their wives/girlfriends/significant others are shopping for clothes. We can go and do the riffle through CDs of impenetrable guitar music while she's off looking at 27 near-identical tops. These places save marriages, of this I am certain.

I can vouch for this. A few weeks ago Katie was on the retail trail so I wandered into a record store. I picked up a couple of CDs from artists I'd never really listened to before, but sort of felt I needed to discover. Taking them to the counter, the cool long-haired guy behind the till smiled and nodded approvingly at my purchases. I walked out of that shop 20 feet tall.

You just can't get that from iTunes.

This thing that I wrote

Could you help me out a little, please?

Last year I wrote a novel. I know, I haven't mentioned it for a while. Think yourself lucky. You thought you'd got away, didn't you? The novel - or rather the first draft of it - has been sitting on a memory stick since I finished it at the end of November and I haven't gone back to edit it.

Why? Because.editing is hard work and I'm lazy. Creating stuff is fun. Going back and making it slightly-less-crappy is difficult. There will always be something else more attractive to do. Like sitting on my sofa, drinking tea, for instance. I need a sizeable kick up the backside.

So this is what I'm going to do. Below is an (unedited) exerpt from the book. Have a read. Let me know what you think - in the comment box, Facebook, Twitter or your social network of choice. Because, after all is said and done, I'm a tart, and feedback flicks my switches, presses by buttons and turns my dials to 11. There's an image for you. Anyway, here goes for nothing:

oOo

Ken Hamilton was a clockwise man and proud of it. Asking him to drive in the other direction would have been like making him betray his very soul.

He checked the time on his watch; still six minutes until he needed to get going. Good, he thought. I’m ahead of schedule. Can’t mess up the timetable, especially not with Inspectors out on the route today.

Hamilton considered himself at the very peak of his profession. He was, he thought, similar in many ways to an airline pilot given the keys to a 747, only in his case he was in the driving seat of a National Express West Midlands Metro-Cammel Turboliner double-decker bus. But it wasn’t the vehicle that was significant – it was the route.

The number 11 bus route following Birmingham’s Outer Circle was, he would tell people, the longest scheduled urban bus service in Europe. He wasn’t entirely sure if that was true. More often than not, a listener’s eyes would get that strange faraway look whenever he started to talk about it. He was rarely challenged by people when he made claims like that.

He used to tell the very same people that he was just like his namesake, Lewis Hamilton. “He too drives his own single-seater around circuits all day.” By this point in the conversation the other party would rarely take him up on this claim. The other seventy seats on the bus surely should count for something. And the clockwise 11C bus route was hardly the same as Monza. Normally though, he’d get comments like, “Is that the time?” or “Excuse me, I think I’ve just seen my wife carrying a week’s supply of humus,” or some such.

Ken had been on the 11C for fifteen years and had resisted all attempts by the management to move him onto other routes. The 11C was the gig for him. He was a man with a passion. He knew every inch of the 27 miles, every one of the 68 stops, every turn, every junction and every sleeping policeman. It was a pity the passengers got in the way somewhat, but he supposed they were a necessary evil. And he was not going anti-clockwise, no matter what.

It wasn’t as if he had any personal enmity against the 11A drivers. Ken had spoken to one once for a few minutes before realising, and in fairness he’d seemed almost reasonable. But anti-clockwise was retrograde, against the natural order of things. Some things happen for a reason. On one occasion he’d absent-mindedly missed the terminus at the end of his shift. He couldn’t face driving against the flow of the route, so he’d simple completed another circuit.

The Inspectors hadn’t liked that one bit. What did they know, the philistines?

He glanced at his watch once more. Still three minutes before I can get going once more. He looked out of his window, at the nefarious delights of Acocks Green Laser Quest. This is the life. I am master of all I survey.

BANG BANG BANG BANG!

Oh, this was really too much. Someone was trying to get on. Really, he thought, it’s the passengers that make this job so difficult. Always wanting to get somewhere, that mad dash from A to B. In Ken Hamilton’s mind there was a lot to be said for starting out from A and ending up back there once again, a mere hour and a half later.

BANG BANG BANG BANG!

For God’s sake. This was completely unnecessary. It was putting him off his Daily Express. He had half a mind to drive off, but that would mean arriving at the next stop ahead of the timetable. He wasn’t having that.

With a hiss of hydraulics, the passenger door folded open and made further argument academic. Ken stared madly – he hadn’t even touched the controls. “What’s going on?” he asked out loud.

“Please don’t be concerned, Mr Hamilton,” said the figure, stepping lightly onto the bus. “I am sorry to have inconvenienced you. I need to take you somewhere.”

“What? I’m in the middle of my shift. Don’t be daft. Now, unless you have correct change or a pass I’m going to have to ask you to leave.” He thought it a little odd that he couldn’t make out any features. The youth of today, always in hoodies or some such clothing. Strange, I can’t actually make him out at all. It’s like the light just skips over him. Must get my eyes checked out. He blinked.

“Mr Hamilton, please step out of the cab and follow me. You will understand.”

“I understand,” said the driver. An alarm sounded briefly as he opened the door to his compartment, then silenced as he slammed it shut once more behind him. “Where are we going?”

“I cannot tell you at the moment. But the journey is necessary.”

“We’re not going to have to go anti-clockwise, are we?”

“Probably best that you don’t worry about it, Mr Hamilton.”

I think I get it now

I think I've made my position on parenthood quite clear. If I wanted to be constantly anxious, sleepless and financially ruined, I'd have a crack habit instead. I know that children are supposed to be a source of constant joy. So they say, at least. But I'm ever so slightly cynical - the 'they' in question only ever seem to be existing parents.

I can't help thinking that they want the misery to be shared amongst others.

I'm fully aware that my position in this respect goes against common sense. The species needs to continue, after all.  But last time I checked, we seemed to be doing a pretty good job. Some might say that my view is contrary to nature. I normally ask these people how they square Mother Nature with being able to make such comments on a website with a complete stranger hundreds of miles away. That tends to do the trick.

I'm not anti-child, though. It's just the whole concept of babies I find completely alien. You essentially give up the fun things and have to be responsible for this little person that is completely, 100% dependent upon you. Katie and I can barely look after ourselves. Put an infant into the mix and quite frankly it'd be a recipe for disaster.

Babies are, effectively, machines for making a terrifying amount of poo. It's what they do. When you're six weeks old, that's pretty much all you're going to have on the CV. Pastimes? Pooing. Oh, and crying. And while I've been in several situations where bodily fluids and yelling were on the agenda, it's not something I'm keen on choosing as a lifestyle choice.

Another thing - babies are just exhausting. I've written about this before. It's just relentless. The effort you have to put in is immense. I wouldn't mind, but you don't even get much in the way of conversation on the weighty matters of the day.

And yet. And yet.

Yesterday I spent a little time with my niece, who is about a month off her second birthday. It was a sunny afternoon in the garden. She had her white sun hat on, and went "Uh-oh" every time it slipped off.  She laughed and giggled at her Aunt and Uncle, flashing ocean-blue eyes at us both. Running after a tennis ball was the funniest thing in the world. Seriously, if I could get adults to laugh that easily I'd have a career in stand up.

So here's the thing. I'm still not sold on parenthood. But I learned something. If you can manage to keep a baby alive for a year or so, it turns into a toddler.

And toddlers are the best thing in the universe.