Cocktails and Records

I am currently attempting to sort out some financial matters and need to obtain a certified copy of a document. The instructions on how to do this stress that the copy needs to be certified ‘by a professional person (e.g. a banker, lawyer or doctor).’

Fantastic!

Isn’t it lovely that social workers, sales assistants, builders, IT people, photographers, nurses, administrators, graphic designers, plumbers etc. etc. are all considered too untrustworthy and downright dodgy to be able to verify a photocopy, yet a banker or lawyer is.

At least someone still believes in them.

Spotted over the past five days:

1. A young man roller-skating down a main street near our house, loaf of bread in one hand, shopping bag of groceries in the other.
2. A young woman roller-skating down Bethnal Green High Street clutching a briefcase.
3. A middle aged man inspecting the different ranges of compost available at our local Homebase – yes, on roller-skates.

Although I proudly passed my level 1 roller-skating certificate at age 9 (ripping round the rink to our local roller-skating classic ‘(Are You Ready) Do the Bus-stop’ by the Fatback Band without crashing even once), I cannot possibly conceive roller-skating down a busy London street with both hands full not expecting to die.

So what’s going on? Are we in the midst of some kind of roller-skating revival at the moment? Is this the new, trendy alternative to bicycles? Do people just like dicing with death? And more importantly, are any of you closet roller-skaters?

Me and the medical profession don’t generally get along. I blame this entirely on all the arrogant, boozy, snorting and downright weird student doctors, opticians, dentists and psychologists that I was unfortunate enough to know at university. Ever since then, I’ve been suspicious of any medical practitioner who for example, leaves the room or even looks in a desk drawer during my consultation – I just know that they’re anxiously looking through crib notes because they can’t remember the proper name or symptoms of the particular problem I’m describing.*

My least favourite routine medical examination is having my eyes tested. Now I’ve worn glasses since I was 10, I have had a lot of eye tests in my time and I should be used to the procedure. It is not embarrassing, intrusive or even boring. People have phobias of dentists, no one has issues with opticians.

No, the problem is that it is an exam, a series of questions which you need to get right or else you are stuck with the wrong prescription –  which will ruin your eyes, give you terrible, terrible headaches and destroy your life for ever more. Well, that’s what’s going through my head anyway.

So for me, the eye test is pure nerves driven adversarial combat.

Before the test even begins, I am on the defensive. In that semi-dark room with my glasses off, I am in a state of pitiful weakness - I can’t even see the eye chart, let alone the letters on it. Secondly, I am wearing the weirdo test goggles which make you look a mad Victorian spectacle inventor.

Then the grilling starts:

‘Can you read the fifth line of letters on the chart in front of you?’

Of course I bloody well can’t, you’ve got my glasses and you’re making me look through this stupid thing which clearly doesn’t have any proper lenses in it.

‘Aha, didn’t think you could! But don’t worry, let’s put some lenses in. Now which one of these two images looks clearer? Number one or two?’

Ok, starting off easy. Number one is definitely clearer.

‘How about this one?’

Two. I think…

‘And this?’

One, or…. maybe two, actually. Yes, two.

‘And this. One or two?’

Errr… they seem similar. Maybe number two…

‘Are you sure?’

So it’s not two then? Mild panic.

‘How about this? Which is better? One or two?’

Two? No, what did I say last time? Is it one? Can you show me them again?

‘Yes, of course. One, two, one.’

They look the same. How can that be right?!

‘Ok, let’s go back to the first chart I showed you. Can you read the fifth line of letters now?’

Yes, but what’s that second row of tiny, tiny letters I can now see underneath? Should I be able to read that? Who can read that? Superman?

Thank God it’s over for another two years.

* This is based on an anecdote from a final year med student I knew in 1994 who, when complaining to his lecturer that it was all very well cramming for exams but how would he remember it in the surgery, was informed me that he should keep a set of medical encyclopaedias in the anteroom to his office that he could sneak out and read under the pretext of washing his hands. The lecturer probably thought that this was a particularly hilarious joke.

Amongst the usual ads for pizza delivery services, cab companies and bargains from Lidl, we received the following flyer through the letter box this evening:

Do you ever have the feeling that everything is going wrong in your life?

Don’t hesitate to call the most acclaimed medium. God gifted and well known for his competence and efficiency. For immediate help in looking for love, family reunions, un-betwitchment, love between man and woman, to make yourself loved by someone, relationships, sexual problems, courtcases, strange illnesses, bad luck, bad spells and black magic. Stop unwanted relationships and bad dreams. Enhance your career prospects and make your business a centre for customer attraction. No matter the problem, the solution is in sight once you consult.

100% guarantee. You will get results in 6 days.

So don’t suffer in silence, call today for an appointment.

Desperate times call for desperate measures I guess.

I was standing on the pavement this lunchtime, waiting for the lights to change and immersed in my own thoughts when I gradually became aware that the man standing next to me was shooting peculiar looks in my direction. I think I had vaguely patted my hair down and checked to see that I hadn’t tucked my skirt into my tights before I realised what the problem was.

I seemed to have Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonders dreadful paean to racial harmony ‘Ebony and Ivory’ in my head. Worse, I seemed to be singing/humming it out loud. No wonder he was looking at me strangely.

I don’t know where it came from, how it got into my head or what my sub-conscious could possibly have been thinking but there was no denying that this dreadful song was emitting from my mouth. I smiled sweetly at the man in question as the lights changed and scuttled off embarrassed.

If this is proof of work stress, then we can only be thankful that I don’t work in international relations.

‘Our first memory is a key that unlocks the adult persona’ says the article about earliest memories in the current issue of The Economist’s ‘lifestyle’ magazine Intelligent Life.

The piece goes on to detail the first memories of a random bunch of people – comedian Bill Bailey, racing driver Stirling Moss, Mike Skinner (i.e. The Streets), poet Blake Morrison   etc. Of course, all of them have have very meaninful first memories.

Rent-a-philosopher Alain de Botton’s earliest memory is of a dream where the rails that he is leaning on give way, forcing him to tumble into the water. The memory ‘captures my life-long anxiety about how things are going to turn out… I have become a writer in a semi-conscious attempt to increase the number of psychological railings around me. Books are my safety-nets.’

Professor Susan Greenfield, now a neuroscientist, claims that one of her earliest memories was realising that different people had different perceptions of the colour red.  Explorer Ranulph Fiennes remembers having to find his way home from school one day in South Africa by himself, a distance of 5 miles.

Yeah right, these are people’s first memories! They all sound suspiciously convenient don’t you think?

Here’s my first memory:

I am sitting in the back of the car with our old English sheep dog, Dougal. We live in Melbourne and Dad is driving us up into the Dandenongs, a nearbye mountain range, to take Dougal to the kennels because we are going away on holidays. I don’t seem to feel sad about this though – I am enjoying watching the tops of the tall trees whizz by and ‘Those Were the Days’ by Mary Hopkin is playing on the car radio and I rather like it.

What does this say about me? Well, I don’t own a dog, I don’t drive, I don’t own a copy of ‘Those Were the Days’ and I don’t make whimiscal car adverts with annoying soundtracks, but umm… I still like looking at views out of windows whilst listening to music. Sadly, I’ve yet to make a career out of this.

I was trying to look busy while waiting for a work thing to start last week, and found myself pouring over those pages in my diary that list international public holidays. As you do.

I wonder if that nasty rumour that Australia has more long weekends than any other country is true I asked myself?

No, is the short answer.

Here is the public holiday tally for some random countries:

Australia – 9
Brazil – 14
Canada – 11
Czech Republic – 13
Italy – 12
France – 12
Japan – 15
South Africa – 13
South Korea – 13
UK – 9
US – 10

So I think that we can all agree that, quite frankly, both the UK and Australia are hard done by when it comes to bank holidays* and could do with some more. Perhaps an annual ‘Snow Day’ or ‘Get Drunk in the Park Day’ would be appropriate. Any other ideas?

In the short term, we could all just get jobs at the Australian High Commission in London and Edinburgh. Here the staff enjoy public holidays from both countries (including Canberra Day for heavens sakes – why not take Melbourne Cup Day as well while you’re at it folks!).

Pfttt…

*To be fair though, I have to point out that  at least Australia and Britain have vaguely generous annual leave allowances – unlike say, stingey old Japan and the US.

I had last Friday off work, and due to milkman failure*, found myself at home with no milk and no eggs. Obviously the only solution to this was an immediate visit to our local cafe: L Rodi.

Rodi’s is one of those classic and increasingly rare London caffs that has been safely stuck in a timewarp since at least the 1950s. It still proudly clings to its formica tables, handwritten menus, steaming silver tea boiler,  elderly crockery and referring to toast in the singular.  

I ordered my eggs, toasts and coffee, sat back under an ancient swinging sign urging me to enjoy the fresh taste of 7-Up, and opened my book. Of course, I didn’t get much further than the first page. Because, captivated by the regular morning flow of the cafe, I found myself sadly identifying yet another job I could never do. My appalling memory and it’s apparent ‘one-in/one-out’ policy, automatically precludes me from any job with an ordering system like this:

‘Hello love, how are you?’
‘Fine thanks. I’ll have my usual’
[shouts to cook out the back: 'one black coffee, two white toasts, just a bit of marmite']
[muffled positive response, as next customer comes in]
‘Mornin’ John, the usual?’
‘Yep, thanks’.
‘And the usual for Del?’
‘Yes, but not for Stan. He’s a bit hungover.’
‘Right-o’
[shouts out the back: 'John and Del's usual, bacon butty for Stan']
‘Morning love, the usual? Go and sit yourself down’
[shouts: full English, no beans, 3 eggs, brown bread]

And so on and so forth.

Now if I worked there, heaven knows what John, Del, Stan and Steve would be having for their breakfasts - because unless ‘the usual’ is a random varient of the available menu, they certainly wouldn’t be getting it with me behind the counter.

* already! I take back everything I wrote last week.

It’s 7.30pm and I’m standing on the corner waiting to cross Tottenham Court Road.  A group of middle-aged Americans are hovering around nearby. They have the slightly befuddled air that implies that they are tourists. They are looking for somewhere to eat.

‘How about there? That place looks ok.’ says one pointing at a building just down the road.

‘That place with the doormen? It seems really expensive.’

‘Maybe it’s a club! One of those English gentlemen’s clubs I was reading about in the guidebook! Some of them are meant to be beautiful inside, with roaring fires, antique furniture and that kind of thing’ says one of the women excitedly. ‘I’d love to see inside one of those clubs. Do you think we could just go in for a drink or do you have to be a member?’

‘I’d like to see an old-time gentlemen’s club too.  It would be so English. Let’s ask if we can go in.’

‘Hey, we can pretend to be like Sherlock Holmes!’ another jokes.

It is indeed a ‘gentlemen’s club’. It is Spearmint Rino, London’s premiere lap-dancing venue. It probably doesn’t contain any well-meaning detectives solving mysteries by the light of a roaring fire.

Should I be a good citizen and tell them this? Or are they the type of visitor that I’ve heard about at talks by the city’s tourism promotion organisation, Visit London, who has been here many times and is looking for ‘something different’. Surely the picture of the semi-naked woman by the door will give them the information they need to make an informed choice anyway.

It does. Just before the lights change and I’m forced to cross the road, I have time to see their, at first shocked, then crestfallen faces as they approach the club and discover the truth.

‘Maybe we should just go to that Pizza Hut we saw before…’ I hear one of the women say glumly as I step out into the street.

I still feel their disappointment.

I know that living in a city can be a pretty efficient way of removing any semblance of civility from your life, but even this recent exchange on the morning tube managed to surprise me.

As usual I am sitting engrossed in my book pretending to ignore everything going on around me, including in this case, a minor scuffle taking place by the tube doors. From the mêlée a male voice suddenly pipes up saying ‘Please don’t push me.’

‘You’re too slow’ is the curt response he receives from a woman striding my way.

‘I’m sorry, but I’ve got a bad leg’ he replies apologetically, collapsing into a seat near the door.

I discreetly lower my book and take a peep. The woman is a middle-aged, well dressed and clearly off to work in some kind of office. In other circumstances, I might describe her as kindly looking. But not now. Definitely not now.

‘So?’ she snaps ‘You’re too slow. I had to actually get on you know.’

‘I have a bad leg…’ he protests quietly. He looks as though he is around my age and not the sort of person who usually enjoys getting into scraps with middle-aged women on public transport. He also has a bad leg.

Is she going to recognise this and apologise? Like hell she is. ‘Well, you shouldn’t be on the tube then. People like you shouldn’t be allowed on.’

He, like the rest of quietly listening carriage, is clearly flabbergasted by this. But he just sighs and says matter-of-factly ‘Please have some compassion.’

This is a mistake.

She yells across the carriage at him ‘I have no compassion!‘

There is no answer to this. He goes silent and pulls out a book. The rest of us rustle our papers, shuffle our feet and avoid looking at the woman with no compassion.