Somebody Liked My Poetry!

I've joined this writing group at Blackheath Library. Writing is a solitary activity, and I like to put it off: put it off until it's too late. A writing group provides some social discipline. I have to do something to show them. My pride then provides the necessary discipline of doing it early enough to allow for some editing and polishing. At least, that's the theory, and so far it seems to be working. Plus, they're a nice bunch.

This group was brought into being under the auspices of Spread the Word, a London-wide writers' support network. Spread the Word (which I shall call StW from now on) invited us to its 'Write Next Door' Showcase in Stratford, so that we could experience reading our work, and listening to others' work. These were groups from all over east London (StW thinks Blackheath is in east London, a good example of the literary confused with the literal). Blackheath is, of course,in 'Safeaslunun'. But, since, as it turned out, it was represented by a Scottish, an American, and a Yorkshire accent, that hardly mattered.

I read a prose piece which I think has some potential to make a proper story, but was, nonetheless, self-contained and short. So, if it was any good, an audience might think it was, at least, well written, or raised questions in their minds which a longer piece might go on to resolve. That was my idea, anyway. And, if you're going to write, you have to run it up the flagpole, see if anyone salutes: no point otherwise. If you're really, really keen to write, and you're no good at it, best to find out as soon as possible.

Actually, if I'm no good at it, I don't think I'll find out at StW, because they're very supportive. I think they think that people should be allowed to hang around till they've got good at it, however long that takes. Anyway, I shouldn't think they've got a critical firepower sufficient to get through my self-esteem defence system.

This was a proper, stand-up-at-a-microphone-in-the-lights event, so we really had to take it seriously. I got to do my stuff in the first half, so I could have a beer in the interval. I was enjoying this beer in the bar, hoping adulatory groups would swarm around me, asking for autographs, but no such luck. There wasn't even a shy middle-aged lady trying to touch the hem of my garment. Oh, well!

But there was one bit of fulsome praise: a middle-aged chap came up to me (he may just have been going to the bar, and I was standing beside the only gap) and, as our eyes met, he said "I really enjoyed your poem". My poem? By no stretch of the imagination … No, wait a minute, this is praise being handed out here. My imagination couldn't stretch to seeing my piece as poetry, but maybe his could. I nodded non-committally. Then he said "I'm a bit political myself", and I realised he was praising one of the other performers. It wasn't his imagination that was being stretched, it was his eyesight.

I remembered the piece he was talking about. I stood up to deliver my piece, the other chap (it was, at least, a chap) sat down. I only limp slightly, he walked with the aid of a stick. My white hair is faded red, his was faded brown or black. I've got a beard and he doesn't. I've got a Scottish accent and he doesn't! I could go on, but I'm sure you get the picture.

I bit my index-finger knuckle and spluttered "you bastard, if you're talking to me, can't you find something good to say about my piece? You people are all the same. You come here, you don't pay attention: then you casually demolish a fragile, fledgling ego. YOU MAKE ME SICK! If this is what Spread the Word calls a supportive environment, then they've got a lot to learn. PISS OFF!" No, I didn't: that might have made the evening a lot more interesting, but, in fact I said, in carefully-measured tones, "I think you mean that chap over there".

"Oh," he said, "I'm so sorry, so I do. How silly of me." And that was that.

I wonder if he said it again, this time to the right audience? It would be a shame if he didn't, wouldn't it? Every little helps, and there's no testimonial like an unsolicited one. And it was deserved: I enjoyed the poem as well.

All I got, later, from another performer, was: "you've got a nice voice for that sort of thing". Since we're trying to be writers, that is surely the faintest of faint praise, is it not?

A Christmas Thought

The great Tom Lehrer penned this (or something like this)

The Age of Women

I should know better at my age. But we're all stupid from time-to-time. This particular stupidity was just the other day: I asked a woman her age. I don't know what came over me; I should have known better. Dammit, I do know better! But I can't deny it. I did, I did it.

It was a very relaxing conversation about children, and the age of children. Most of the other women were really too young to have children at all, although one or two of them, surprisingly, had several, older than I would have thought possible. But she was clearly old enough. And she wouldn't say what age her children were. "I never tell people my children's ages," she said, with an air of finality: there was not going to be any negotiation. Everybody knew that this was an attempt to disguise her own age. Well, more than an attempt: it did disguise her age. The others, all young women, did the 'whatever' thing and moved on; they weren't very interested. But I was.

Some seductive demon rerouted the path to my tongue, bypassing all my critical faculties: judgment, experience, good sense, all shorted out. I could feel it rising in my gorge. And I couldn't stop it. I almost managed that humming thing that can frustrate the demons at the last gasp. But I failed.

And out it came: "So, em, what, em , age, em, em, are you, em, then?" I heard myself say. As soon as it’s out of my mouth, I know what she’s going to say next (we all know what she’s going to say next, don’t we?). Oh, no! Run for it! The wrath of God is but small bier compared to the galactic carnage I've just unleashed on myself. Her eyes glinted. I swear it: no cliché, they actually glinted. I squirmed (no cliché either).

You've probably heard of transactional analysis, a way of analyzing human interchanges. Best known for a simple (and very entertaining) book called "The Games People Play", which was a popular Christmas gift a couple of decades back. We were now playing a game called 'Cat and Mouse'. It is useful to understand what game you're in, and which role has been chosen for you. It lets you get your mind back in gear. I knew I was the mouse. She knew she was the cat. It was all going to end badly, at least for me. I could delay the inevitable, but only by being, in her judgment, sufficiently entertaining. I had ceded entire control of the conversation to her. And she was about to enjoy herself.

Anyway, knowing what she was going to say next (you do all know what she's going to say next, don't you?), I thrashed round for clues. I expect you know this too, but there's an old adage, purveyed among males from generation to generation to cope with this situation: 'face goes at forty, hands go at fifty'. It's a very rough guide, but it has stood me in good stead for many years. I peered hopefully round her eyes and mouth. I tried to examine her hands. I should have paid attention earlier: it was too late now, the hands were clenched as demurely as she could muster, and her head was doing that 'Miss Piggy' thing that tightens everything up.

Then she pounces: "What age do you think I am, then?" she asks, menacingly. Oh, God! Here it is: the moment I've brought on myself. My only chance is to tell her what she wants to hear. I have to find a number sufficiently high for her to think I'm trying to be honest, yet sufficiently low to enable her to justify the cost, in time and money, of all that cosmetic glabber that she drizzles over herself continuously.

"Oh", I say, nonchalantly, "I'm not very good at that sort of thing." I know I'm not going to get away with this, but we have to play all the moves.

"Never mind", she says, with measured calm, "I just want to know what you think." And she does: she does want to know what I think. But I haven't yet managed to figure out what she wants me to think. I struggle to recall previous contacts, and possible conclusions. I maintain an outward 'we who are about to die, salute you' kind of calm, and solid eye contact: fear just makes it worse.

Then my racing brain unearths a memory of being quite close, face-to-face. I plump for a number, and examine it for 'what she wants to hear' quality against this memory. And it passes.

"Forty." I say, with ringing confidence, although I don't feel any confidence at all. All I know at this stage is that she's between twenty and sixty, probably between thirty and fifty. And I've split the difference.

"That's about right." she says: no further information. Did I go too high or too low? As I survey the smoking ruin of this conversation, I realise I'm never going to find out.

Which is why I'm so bad at this sort of thing.

A Ragged-Trousered Philanthropist

I was on my way home.  As I came into the lobby and pressed for the lift to attend me, a man came striding out of the stairwell, and strode past me to the front door.  He seemed intent on ignoring me.  Well, you can't have that, can you?  I mean, maybe he wasn't supposed to be there: he has to have some sense that people recognise each other around here, and might remember him later.  "Good evening," I said, loudly.  He looked at me a little startled, and strode on. 

"Oh, well," I thought, looking after him, "a little-friendly wouldn't hurt".

Then I noticed his trousers.  They were hanging below his bottom.  Just so you're clear, this revealed his underpants, and nothing else.  In particular, it didn't reveal the back-end of a pair of braces.  So how were they being held up?  Just as I was contemplating a rugby-tackle-style test of their security, the lift arrived.  I got in, thus depriving myself of any practical evidence to support my theorising.

Theorising on the nature of trouser-levitating technology: what else is there to do in a lift, apart from admiring one's self in the mirror thoughtfully provided for that purpose?  And theorising based on almost no evidence at all is a common activity of mine, as any of my friends will be quick to tell you.

"Perhaps," I thought, "he had been caught 'in flagrante', and was actually clutching his trousers in front of him, maintaining full-frontal dignity during flight".  Then I realised that the underpants would probably not be present at all in those circumstances, certainly not fully raised.  And there would likely have been someone in pursuit.  Perhaps he had been expressing some extreme criticism outside someone's door, and was now in flight.  But that was ditto for the pants.

Then it struck me that it was jolly cold outside.  I would have been most unhappy to, if you'll pardon the word, expose those parts of myself to those sorts of temperatures.  I resolved this difficulty by recalling that he was young.  So there was some evidence: the temperature, and his youth.  I deduced that this was a stupid fashion statement.  It is a reasonable deduction that a young person would be willing to freeze their bottom off if they thought they looked 'good'.  They could have had a 'dungaree-style' halter front, hung round his neck.  It was philanthropy: he was just giving us a good laugh.

The lift had reached my floor.  And I had reached my answer.

Life is a Zero-sum Game

An evening supping ale in front of a wood fire, a good meal, and then off to bed would have most people marking a plus in their diary.  But not when some careless parker (I can think of a different spelling for that) knocks over the companion's motor bike.  "Can you help me pick it up?" says the phone. 

"Well," I say, " just give me time to rub out this plus, and I'll be up on my big white charger and round, as the Americans say, 'momentarily'."

"Oh," she says, "have you been down the pub?" 

"Only because the Sun came up this morning" I retort: I know how to keep my dignity.

She tells me she can get the RAC, who can apparently be contracted to pick up motorbikes whenever they fall over.  But chaps of my age and upbringing need to give the old white c. an outing now-and-again: especially after they've been down the pub.

"It'll be quicker if I come round: five minutes."  And round I go, and up the bike is picked.

Of course, it's been damaged: lights, mirrors, clutch lever, gear change pedal.  So the dreaded RAC is still going to be summoned to tarnish the whiteness of my charger.  I consider the possibility of running repairs, but it is apparent to me that 'an evening supping ale in front of, etc., etc.', and running repairs on sick motorbikes don't go together.  I have also, actually, discovered that 'an evening supping ale in front of, etc., etc.', and picking up sick motorbikes don't go together too well either.

She arranges for the RAC to waft the sick bike off to its garage first thing in the morning, apparently something else they can be contracted to do.  I am acutely aware that the white charger is running on empty.

"Let's do that," I say, grandly, as though I had decided it.

"So," I think, "'evening supping ale, etc., etc.' – plus; careless bastard knocks over motorbike – minus; opportunity for white c. outing – plus; motorbike broken – minus; RAC contracted to waft bike, etc., - plus.  That means we're ahead, so let's quit."

So I do.  But on the way home, I fall over in the churchyard.  "Oh well," I think, looking up at the church, "Life's a zero-sum game".