To boldly go

We were engaged in frantic tidying recently. Olympic-standard sorting. This, for us, is a Really Big Thing. Normally we tend to belong to the Quentin Crisp school of domesticity. (QC famously never cleaned. "After four years," he quipped, "you don't notice the dust.")

However, as it's Mothering Sunday this weekend and we have various family members circling us like planes in a holding pattern, we decided it was time to do something about the clutter and junk. All was going well. Then Katie ventured into The Place.

I realise that's the second time I've used capital initials so far. But The Place deserves them. Every home, no matter how tidy, has a Place. The Place in your home is where all manner of things tend to gravitate. It might be a kitchen drawer, or a space on top of a wardrobe. But you'll have a Place. And you'll rarely enter The Place, less so will you ever tidy it up.

Our Place is between the stereo and one of its speakers. This Place lends itself to capturing randomly thrown items. Letters, expired bank cards, old cheque stubs, all sorts. Once things get into The Place, they never return.

I knew Katie had entered The Place. I was in another room, but I heard her sigh.

Katie: "Why do you keep all these receipts?"
Me: "You never known when you might want to take something back."
Katie: "But this one's for a haircut. Explain that to me, Einstein."
Me: "I have no words."
Katie: "There's a wallet in here. Hang on, it's got stuff in it."
Me: (getting excited) "Really?"
Katie: "More receipts. Mainly for meals out. In New York. There's one here for Rothmanns Steakhouse on East 54th in Manhattan."
Me: "Ooh. Nice filet mignon."
Katie: "Do I need to remind you that it was January 2007 when we last went to the States? Look, there's $17 here."
Me: "But that's good news. The exchange rate means we're much better off now than we would have been if I'd changed it into pounds in 2007. We're rich, I tell you, rich!"
Katie: "I didn't have to marry you, you know. I had other options."

Truth of the matter is, no-one else would have either of us. I like to think we're performing a service to humanity.

Just when you thought it was safe

Looking back, I suppose it was coming for a while.

January had been pretty tough, but I'd made my way though it. After the funeral I threw myself headlong into other things. The business of being busy. Work and sleep, the regular rhythm. Writing daft things down for a handful of strangers to read. Social stuff. Displacement and distraction.

Sure, I'd get reminders here and there. Odd things. There was a trailer for the latest series of ER running on TV through February - a doctor type character with a pained expression was explaining to someone that he'd lost his father a year ago and still hadn't got over it properly. It made me wonder, every time I saw it. Was I supposed to be like that?

It was still coming, though, sure as anything. This last couple of weeks had been unbelievably hectic at work. I'd been going in, working on two big projects simultaneously, with identical - and unmovable - deadlines. And I thought I was being the life and soul of the office, cracking jokes, firing out one-liners, being the busy bee in a hive of activity.

Last weekend I went to dinner at my brother's house with my mother. We all talked about various things. The future, mainly. But there were holes in the narrative like a Swiss cheese. Dad featured highly in the conversation, even when we weren't mentioning him. It occurred to me that it would have been his 72nd birthday on Thursday, and my parents' 50th wedding anniversary later this month.

Still, I seemed OK. Good days and less-than-good days. But something was coming. It was inevitable, sure as night follows day.

Yesterday was a whirlwind. One significant, and highly detailed, report delivered. The other project passed its key milestone. I was running around like a mad thing to get things done. In the midst of it I received some more bad family news. Yet still I kept on running.

Last night was a late one. I was driving home at about 9pm. The big projects were done and the pressure was off. I was on my own. There's a stretch of the A45 between Coventry and Birmingham that's unlit and at that time of night it was deserted. I was in my own little bubble. Then Paul McCartney's 'Maybe I'm Amazed' came on the radio.

The tears came. At first hesitant, then hot, salty, bitter. I can't explain this at all, but looking back I suppose all the signposts were there. It was no more than a minute, maybe even only 30 seconds. But when I reached the streetlights of Birmingham they had gone as quickly as they had arrived.

I slept like a baby last night and woke up refreshed this morning. It occurs to me that I haven't done that on a weeknight for some time. I'm certainly not sure that I'm over it. I don't think you're supposed to be - yet I have no frame of reference. Perhaps writing this down serves as therapy. Perhaps I'll re-read this in the morning and be embarrassed that I'm over-sharing.

Maybe I should stick to randomness.

Don't mention the Toblerone

There are just some things you don't expect to hear. Certain combinations of words that don't go together. So when the news on the radio covered the jailing of a Swiss Gigolo, my ears pricked up.

Yes. I realise the unfortunate use of words just then. Can we move on? Thanks.

Swiss Gigolo, then? It's not something I'd really considered, to be honest. By all accounts, the gentleman in question was originally an investment banker, which made me feel a little better. We're on familiar territory if we're talking about Swiss investment bankers. Maybe all Swiss people start out as investment bankers? Perhaps it's the default position?

Apparently he used to be a specialist in mergers. Stop sniggering at the back, there.

But the words 'Swiss' and 'Gigolo' still don't fit together, as far as I'm concerned. It doesn't seem right. A bit like a Libyan tobogganist or an Icelandic bluesman. Although 'Blind Herring Magnusson' does have a certain ring to it, I suppose.

Somehow I can't imagine 'Midnight Cowboy' with fondue.

Signs of ageing

To the badlands of Solihull last night for my friend Mike's birthday shenanigans. Actually, although I say "badlands", I think most Silhillians (that's what Solihull inhabitants are called - it has nothing to do with Tolkien, honest) would consider running out of sun-dried tomato as hardship and privation.

The night went very well. We went to a place for food that seemed to have taken the whole concept of fusion cuisine to the next level. You've not lived until you've been presented with the option of Thai chicken, lamb rogan josh, sushi and pizza on the same plate. But funnily enough, it seemed to work well. I certainly pushed the concept of an all-you-can-eat buffet to the nth degree.

Then onto the Coach House for drinking and other levity. Normally the pub empties around 9:30-10ish as the bright young things go off to a club, leaving us old farts with plenty of room. This wasn't the case last night - perhaps the clientele were making the most of pub prices before going off and paying omigod money for drinks elsewhere. Anyway, it meant that the place was heaving. It was five-deep at the bar, and a trip to the bathroom meant serious consideration as you'd be a good ten minutes pushing your way through the crowd.

I'm happy to admit this isn't normally my favourite drinking environment. I like a lively atmosphere as much as the next person, but there's a limit on just how much humanity I want to deal with on a night out. However, there was a solution - we simply moved outdoors.

Looks like fun, doesn't it? We could move away from the worst excesses of the music being played by the DJ while still enjoying a great atmosphere. But there was one problem - this is England in March, don't forget, and it gets a little chilly on a clear night. OK, my Canadian readers may scoff a little, but some of us were insufficiently anaesthetised to shrug off the cold.

As we sat huddled around the patio heater, we watched the garden around us fill up. And this is when the advancing years of our social circle came to the surface. There were girls. Lots of girls, all dressed up for a night out. It seemed like a competition to see how much flesh could be put on display. How short the hemlines could get. How diaphanous the material of each garment could get.

And the conversation among my friends went like this:

"Look at her."
"I see her. In the blue minidress and heels. Wow."
"I know. She must be freezing."
"She'll catch her death. She'd be much better in sensible jeans and a woolly pullover."
"Just what I was thinking."

We are so old.

Lost albums of our time

Everyone else is doing it, so why don't I?

Make your band's album cover:

1. Go to Wikipedia. Hit “random”
or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first random Wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.

2. Go to Quotations Page and select "random quotations"
or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four or five words of the very last quote on the page is the title of your first album.

3. Go to Flickr and click on “explore the last seven days”
or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days
Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4. Use Photoshop (or similar) to put it all together.

Post the results and stand back in awe:

The Hotel Breakers were a seminal disco/symphonic/folk group based out of Droitwich in the late seventies. They never quite matched the majesty of their first big release, "He'll not sell much ice-cream going at that speed", a smash hit in the post-punk dancehalls of Worcestershire.

After an argument over the rules of croquet, the Hotel Breakers split up in the summer of 1982, citing recreational differences.

Random fact: the band took their name from their bass player's hotel habits. Apparently he would never hang up bath towels for re-use, causing a huge increase in unnecessary laundry and contributing directly to ecological disaster.

All the signs were there

All this talk of giving things up for Lent reminded me of a period of conspicuous consumption. It was the summer of 2005. A memorable time. The Vatican was choosing a new Pope. I'd sent my CV in, but wasn't hopeful. Live 8 was in the planning stages, part of the 'Mark Poverty History' campaign.

Make Poverty History? Who comes up with these names? I ask you.

To escape from the excitement (there was the Dutch referendum on the European Constitution; I told you these were crazy times), Katie and I decided to go on holiday to Spain. A friend of hers had a house in Gran Alacant which we rented for a fortnight. It was never going to be a culturally rich experience, more of a cheap fortnight with the sun on our backs.

And it delivered. The weather was hot. I got heroic sunburn. We drank red wine at about 3 Euros per litre while watching the sun go down over the Costa Blanca. We even managed to travel further afield after I agreed to hire a car. Although the rental company actually delivered something that looked more like an automotive toad:

600cc of throbbing power. Just what you need to haul two overweight Brits up winding mountainous roads.

In the evenings, when we weren't back at the house damaging our internal organs with I Can't Believe It's Not Vinegar, we would wander down to the local town square. That sounds rather nice doesn't it? Quaint. You'd expect flower baskets, religious festivals, paella a-plenty, wouldn't you? But of course, this is the Costas, so it was not exactly Spanish in tooth and claw.

The square had a number of different establishments. First, there was the Dick Turpin pub. Dick Turpin doesn't feature that heavily in Spanish folklore, so you can guess the theme. Sky Sports on the telly, microwaved chips in baskets, all the John Smiths and Stella you could drink. We tended not to frequent the Dick Turpin.

Then there was an Indian restaurant. We ate there, once, when the air-conditioning broke down. We were eating hot, spicy food in a mediterrannean summer. I think I needed an ice-bath after that meal.

There was the one bar we did frequent, which was actually owned and run by a Spanish chap and his elderly mother. It was un-named, a little grubby perhaps, but had more character than Dick Turpin could steal at gunpoint. There was no shared language, other than "cerveza grande", but we would happily sit out for hours and consume Mahou at a prodigious rate.

In the opposite corner was one final place, which was normally closed. But one night, the door was unlocked and the shutters were up. It looked like another bar, but strangely all the customers appeared to be Nordic in appearance. It had no external signs, no hoarding, nothing. Katie and I shrugged at each other and decided to give it a try.

It turned out that this new bar was aimed squarely at the Finnish ex-pat market. A bit niche, perhaps, but you had to admire their focus. They seemed friendly enough, and the barman spoke English with a faint mid-Atlantic accent. I'd had enough beer so I asked for a gin and tonic. I know, I'm like a latter-day David Niven, aren't I?

Still smiling, and without breaking eye contact, the barman poured a generous measure. It was only then that I noticed the gin was coming from a bottle with no label. This was an unexpected development. I think I had several.

I don't know if the unbranded gin had an effect. But what I will say is that later that evening, I awoke to find a helicopter in the bedroom, hovering over the bed. Not a big helicopter, but a helicopter nevertheless. I wasn't sure if that was normal. And when I went to the bathroom, the far wall started receding. As I ran towards it, it kept on moving. Eventually it appeared as if we had a bathroom 12 feet across and half a mile long. I wouldn't have minded, but annoyingly the toilet was on the far wall.

We didn't go back to the Finnish bar.

Happy Fat Tuesday

Or Mardi Gras, or whatever they call it in your neck of the woods. Shrove Tuesday is the name it gets here. Well, Pancake Day actually, but that's marketing for you.

What exactly is a Shrove, by the way? It sounds vaguely Biblical, which I suppose is appropriate:

And he came down from the mountain and he shrove them in twain whence they stood. And there was rejoicing. For they were unbecoming. And in need of being shroven.

Actually, it does sound like a past tense verb, now you come to mention it:

Mother: Bernard, what are you doing alone in your room? Why is the door locked?
Bernard: Nothing mum, just shriving.
Mother: You shrove all day yesterday and ended up with blurred vision. Get yourself out in the fresh air.

Ah. I've just had a look at Wikipedia and it turns out that to shrive means to obtain absolution for one's sins by way of confession and penance. I think I was possibly heading in the wrong direction with my example.

Anyway. Tomorrow is the first day of Lent, which normally means having to give something up for forty days. I have a bit of a problem with this. OK, you may say, nobody claims it should be easy. That's probably the main idea of it. You know, penance, suffering, the whole hardship and hairshirtedness thing.

It's not as if I couldn't do with giving a few things up. This blog started off as a weight-loss journal, after all. How I look back on those happy days of continually reducing tonnage with fondness. So we've established that my problem isn't exactly finding bad habits to give up.

The issue, for me, is that it's all-or-nothing, black-and-white, binary in nature. You give something up completely, no half measures. For instance, I could say: "I shall be giving up booze for Lent. Well, during the week. I might have a cheeky snifter or two on a Saturday night. And maybe the odd cleansing ale on a Friday if it's been one of of those weeks." But it's not going to work, Lent-wise. My mother, who actually still goes to Mass (on behalf of the rest of us, I suspect) wouldn't approve.

And you don't want to cross my mother. Trust me on this.

So I'm a little stuck. I need some ideas of things I can be absolutist about giving up. Anyone care to share?