Disgressed

I gave Elizabeth a lift into Sutton today: she and a friend were going to see Ghost Town.? By St Philomena’s, there was an immobile traffic jam.

“I wonder what the problem is?” I said “Last minute rush to the party shop for masks and costumes?”

“What is Halloween about, actually?”

“It’s the day before All Saints Day,” I said, “I think the idea is that the ghosts and things are having a last fling before being driven out. Or perhaps they’ve already? been driven out, and that’s why they’re all over the place. Something like that. Some people say it’s a survival of an old Druid festival, but that doesn’t seem very likely to me. Y’know, when I was a boy, people didn’t make much fuss about it, really.? We knew when it was, but nobody really did much about it.”

“You carved pumpkins and things though.”

“No, I’d never heard of that. In fact, I don’t think I’d ever seen a pumpkin until I was grown up.”

“Really?”

“I don’t think so. I don’t think you could have bought one then. People did have Halloween parties sometimes, but not as a matter of course.”

The truth is I find it a bit difficult to remember precisely how important Halloween was in my youthful mind; not remotely comparable to Bonfire Night, of course.? I remember when I was about 10 that we tried to persuade Mr Dobbinson to tell the school ghost story.

“No, look,” he said, “Last time I told that story I had little Jimmy’s golden-haired mother on the phone the next day saying I’d made him have nightmares and widdle in his bed.? I’m sorry, worthy pupils, but I’m not doing that again.”

But he did. This was the story of Grey Matron; to my shame I remember hardly any of it. None of my contemporaries was really scared of Grey Matron, but Mr Dobbinson did tell the tale in a splendidly gothic style, and once he’d settled down, considerable relish. The end of the story was along these lines:

“Worthy pupils, you may have observed in the churchyard a raggedly shaped pile of earth with what seem to be stunted trees growing through it. Do not attempt to climb the railings or venture near. Those are not trees, but the lithified fingernails which have never stopped growing.”

We were still in the same place; the jam wasn’t moving.

“I think we’d probably be better turning off and going the back way.” suggested Elizabeth.

“You mean – by the old churchyard…?”

She sighed in that way you do when the older generation is being particularly tiresome.

Pumpkin carving by Sarah.

This is Friday 24th, not 13th, but there seemed to be a lot of actual and potential mishaps going on this morning. First, as I was about to step on to the long down escalator at London Bridge, a young woman dropped her free paper in front of me and immediately crouched down to try to pick it up.

I mean, picture the scene: you’re striding forward on the short flat section of a moving staircase that descends about thirty feet just in front of you; the ravening hordes are pushing up behind you, and then someone suddenly crouches down right in front of your speeding calves.? There was an excellent chance that she and I would end up at the core of a human katamari bouncing all the way to the bottom. And all for the sake of a free paper – there were about fifty lying discarded at the bottom of the escalator.? It was alright: I wobbled a bit, she stood up, I trampled over her paper, and all was well.

The trains were full (fancy that). The new Jubilee line trains are actually somewhat lower and rounder than older models, so if you’re standing near the side, you have to bend over a bit. If you’re the last person shoving on, you have to sort of stick your face in the neck of the person in front in order to fit in so that there’s room for the door to just slide shut behind you. I and the woman next to me had done this, but as often happens, the doors reopened – and she straightened up! I barely had time to wonder whether I could say something audible with my face pressed into the person in front when the doors closed again. She was caught a good solid wham in the temple; but at least it spun her round and shoved her back inside, so that she didn’t then get the other door smacking into the other side of her head.

She seemed basically OK, but it can’t have been a great way to start the day.

And then, clambering up the stairs to the outer world, which were slick with macerated free newspapers and dirty rain (‘It’s going to be a beautiful day today – make the most of it” – Radio 4.? OK, it has improved since then) and,? a man in a brown suit turned to continue his loud conversation about the cheap and robust qualities of Slovenian au pairs and abruptly slipped and ended up full length on the claggy metal steps.

I think he probably deserved it, though.

We have an albino squirrel in the garden. I’ve seen it charging around in typical squirrel style on three occasions recently: it seems very confident and not at all bothered by me looking at it through the patio doors and attempting to take an unblurred picture (Hey! Keep still!).

There used to be a white squirrel in the park near us, but that was six or seven years ago, I think, and I believe they don’t generally live that long. This one certainly doesn’t look like a very old and decrepit specimen. Perhaps an albino variety is becoming established locally; they would probably get fed prefentially by human beings, although their visibility to predators would be an offsetting factor. This one was pure snowy white – the camera does not lie in this case – and impossible to overlook (even when it kept still, which wasn’t often).

We had a squirrel or squirrels in our roof last year (definitely not white ones); the pest man, after fruitless attempts to poison it (or them) took the simpler course of just blocking up the holes they got in by. You could tell they were indignant about this: one of them stood on the side of the house about eight feet up and hissed at us. (Our house is pebble-dashed, which provides more than enough in the way of handholds for them to run over the walls as though they were horizontal).

Somehow a pure white squirrel seems much more welcome than the usual greyish brownish kind. It’s not getting into the roof if I can help it, though.

I’ve heard from Lawrence Toms, the manufacturer of sheep-poo paper mentioned in an earlier post.? I remember having an uneasy feeling that there was more going on in the comments to that post than I quite understood, and it turns out to be quite a nice story.

Lawrence, naturally enough, tracks online references to his business, and therefore had a look at the post. Imagine his surprise and pleasure when he saw that at the top of the page was a picture of his old friend Pedr Fawkes,? now living in Thailand where he runs a pub/restaurant. Clearly this was Pedr’s blog: what could be more natural than that he should notice and comment on his old mate’s enterprise?? Lawrence weighed in with a couple of comments.

Except of course, it wasn’t Pedr Fawkes at all, but me – apparently there is a resemblance. But, amazingly enough, Lawrence’s comments were then discovered by the real Pedr Fawkes (presumably in a moment of idle Googling, or something of the sort), who responded with a comment of his own. And apparently the two friends have been exchanging emails ever since.

Best wishes to both and thanks to Lawrence for letting me know the background.? It seems Friends Reunited has nothing on us…

So, a new culinary delight enters the world. Elizabeth’s sense of humour is rather sly, and a favourite tactic of hers is to say, deadpan, “Oh yeah, I’ve done that”, or similar, of things ranging from the fairly believable to the utterly absurd. The other evening we were talking about cooking, I think, and she said.

“Oh yeah, I do that. Only what I do is stuff courgettes with peas. It’s great.”

The idea obviously appealed, because she reverted to it a day or so later, wondering why we didn’t stuff courgettes with peas – or actually, you could like, take the skin off a pea and stuff it with a tiny amount of courgette? Why don’t we do that?

“Perhaps you like to stuff courgettes for us one evening,” I suggested, “As a treat?”

“No; you wouldn’t eat it.”
“Oh, I would!” I replied, “Of course we would”
“We would if you ate it,” said Katharine more cautiously.
“Oh no, I wouldn’t eat it. You see, that’s what I’ve learnt from watching cooking programmes. The chef never eats the food. You just make it up, and sling it out. That’s how it works.”

Anyway, as I was wondering what vegetables to do yesterday, I noticed we had a nice courgette. So I cut it in quarters, removed the middle bits with a corer, brushed the sections with olive oil and roasted them for about half an hour. Then I stuffed them with peas.

The result looked quite good, I think, but when you cut the courgette the peas just fall out. Probably a more solid alternative would use pur?ed peas, or some sort of stiff sauce.

But Elizabeth liked them. And we all ate them.

I went to the Marsden with Katharine today for her last dose of chemotherapy. The last three, taxotere rather than FEC, haven’t, on the whole,? been too bad, though there is a cumulative effect. Now there will be a short period of recovery before she has a further operation to remove the margins of the original tumour, then another short period of recovery and then radiotherapy (and after that, several years of hormone treatment).

So still a way to go, but finishing chemotherapy is a landmark.

Looking through some ancient papers in the attic, I discovered a secret world from my schooldays: a mighty empire with strange cultures and beings, with advanced technology and hyperspace bridges; but most of all, with architecture and civil engineering. These were the Travvers, who colonised and destroyed many of my A-level essays and translations. On the left is a small sketch of one, or rather, the colossal statue they erected in their spawling Imperial capital.

I was not, to begin with, much of a doodler, but once started the habit grew on me. Rough work and old papers began to get covered in small pictures and geometric shapes. One favourite of mine was to draw small stylised buildings resting on the writing as though standing on uneven ground, or inserted between letters. I liked to try to construct regular or symmetrical buildings which fitted the irregular spaces in the text.? At some point it became clear to me that these buildings, which began to be linked across the text by roadways and bridges, were inhabited, and indeed constructed, by minute two-dimensional creatures – I had read and enjoyed Flatland, Abbot’s classic account of a two-dimensional world. The creatures who lived on different pages enjoyed slightly different levels of technology and favoured somewhat different styles of architecture: eventually they came into contact and began competing: one civilisation which enjoyed the unfair advantage of living at the edge of the Universe (which made it impossible for them to be attacked in the rear) eventually absorbed almost all of the others, sprawling across dozens of A4 pages. Their capital alone eventually covered six sides of A4 completely, obscuring everything which was originally written there.

Here you can see a view of the first page of the Imperial capital. I’m afraid that apart from the colossal statue the architecture is poor; the bottom half of the page consists of slums, buildings crammed into the text anyhow with little thought for their shape. Towards the top and the left an administrative district on an old-fashioned pattern can be seen, and there are cramped but more agreeable dwellings to the top right.

The details of the world of the Travvers (I meant the name to sound like ‘travellers’ and sound vaguely reminiscent of travailler) developed slowly in my mind, but I remember it all vividly. The Travvers were flat? two-dimensional beings too small to be seen. In their world there is a weak gravitational force operating towards the bottom of the page, so that an unsupported Travver would fall, but too slowly for there to be any danger of injury. Ink lines, such as those in the writing on most pages, provide solid ledges on which they can stand and climb.

However, there is a wind, or current, which inexplicably blows upwards diagonally from the bottom left corner of each page. This is not enough to counter gravity unless artificially funnelled: but tiny organisms grow in the flow, and these are the Travvers’ principal source of food, easily trawled if you have access to the unblocked current.

Each page wraps over to the other side of the paper at the top and bottom, and also at the outer edge. The inner edge wraps to the surface of the next page in the folder, so that the world consists of a long chain of pages.

Text is a natural phenomenon which appears by itself, like forest trees: the Travvers are able to scrape off lines for re-use in building. To begin with, only straight lengths of no more than half a centimetre were possible, with very limited strength, but as technology develops in each culture, the Travvers are able to bind together ever-greater lengths and stronger lines: they also develop the craft of curved lines, at first only under tension, and later with in-built shaping. The most sophisticated of the cultures eventually reach a point where they can erect very large structures of virtually any shape they wish. The quality of their architecture does not necessarily improve as a result; some of the earlier structures are among the most attractive.

Often Travver towns sprawl unattractively; some are constructed almost entirely around the edges of the text. Here is an unusual example where a strong local culture of urban planning has produced a town with a distinct triangular shape. Towers and trabeated buildings are actually the most characteristic forms of the middle period of Travver development.

The typical bodily form of the Travvers is the one shown in the colossal statue they created at the beginning of the Universe, though in places there are other races or species, some with fewer limbs and one snake-like variety. All warfare is essentially a matter of siegecraft: if one culture can completely invest another by surrounding them with roads or walls (the distinction is nugatory so far as the Travvers are concerned, as is the distinction between a park and a very large room), they take control, since the surrounded buildings have no access to the natural stream of food.

Anyway, enough random details. The real problem for me at the time was that not only were the travvers colonising and destroying my essays and exercises, they were beginning to engross altogether too much of my attention.? My lack of concentration began to show: you can still make out in places underneath the sprawling architecture the angry red marks which document poor Mr Bratcher’s growing incredulity at the stupidity of the mistakes I was making with French accents and grammar. Of course the Travvers did not get hold of the page until it was finished with academically, and fortunately no teacher ever discovered what was going on.

In the end I removed all the affected pages from my working file, in effect quarantining the creatures in the cardboard file which I discovered in the attic today. This largely stopped the threat, though small villages and primitive cultures wouldcrop up in my live papers now and then.? But the Imperial Travvers had one final technological trick up their sleeve.? They discovered how to split paper through the repeated construction of lines, and this enabled them to detach parts of their own space – that is, of the A4 lined pages in the folder – and send them off as unguided colonies. The final refinement was a long sliver of paper at least a foot long: one end remained attached to the home universe while the other was free to roam among the books in my desk, allowing the Travvers to make random visits to other passing universes.

But there, somehow, just at the moment of greatest danger,? it all ended; the obsession somehow passed before the mighty space-bridge could come into serious use and spread doodles over all my books.? Looking now at all the pages covered obsessively with tiny buildings and bridges, I have to wonder about my mental state in those days; at the same time I can see places where the pages cry out for a new development or a rationalisation of the road interchanges…

These days a new dilemma presents itself to me every evening I go to Victoria station. Having got to know which platform the train will be on, I am able to go through the barrier before the train is announced and stand in exactly the right place on the platform. A few other inititates are able to do this, but the great majority wait on the concourse and then attempt to surge through the barriers and along the platform once the train is actually announced. By then, it’s either already there are pulling in to the platform. The result is that I am first (at worst, third) on to an empty train. Instead of desperately looking for the last available seat, I now face the problem: where to sit?

For small people, this is probably a relatively straightforward matter, but for me the key factor is where I am likely to get a decent amount of room. The obvious choice here is one of the rows at the end where three seats face two: if I take the one at the end there is nothing in front of me and I can actually stretch my legs out a bit. The leg thing is a bit of a gamble, of course: if a petite woman sits opposite you, it’s not really a problem, but all too often it’s a large man who doesn’t even sit up properly, but sticks one knee actually between yours. What really annoys me is those people who plonk down opposite you even when the train is virtually empty. Alternating to provide leg room for as long as possible is surely one of those unspoken rules, like not taking the adjacent urinal until all the others are occupied (trust me on this one, ladies). The reason they do it, I presume, is that they want to have the window to look out of or the wall to lean against: it’s only in window seats that it seems to happen.

Anyway, if I take the end seat of three, my legs are OK, until the train gets packed out, of course. And there’s the rub. Being on the end of the first row of three is the most exposed position, and if the train is at all full, a quite incredible number of people will bash your shoulder with sharp-cornered bags as they shove past. It usually seems as if everyone on the train is passing by you before filtering into other carriages. Some of those bags are quite serious, too: I once had a loose leather strap from some woman’s bag, complete with nasty metal hook on the end, flung into my face like a lash.

You can reduce this problem by taking the end of a row of three at the end of the carriage, instead of one near the doors. This will reduce (but not eliminate) the hazard of people shoving past: however, you will instead come up against the man (and I’m afraid it is always a man – female commuters appear to be at least as selfish and ruthless, but they practice better Custody of the Legs) who sits diagonally in the seat at the end of the facing row of two, and stretches his legs out so as to deny you the space in front of you. These people, I believe, think this is alright exactly because they are at the end of the carriage and therefore no-one will need to get past (an unwarranted assumption, since some people take pleasure in using the connecting doors, but there we are). These chaps typically have several bags, including a large sports bag (again, they probably assume it will be fine to stack these up against the connecting doors – hah!). One of them, with a particularly good set of bags, settled himself opposite me only the other day, and? it emerged that the complex process of taking out and putting on a pair of glasses required him to kick me in the shins, not once, but three times.

The net result of all this is that if the train looks likely to be packed out, it may be a better choice to go for a window seat, preferably on a row of two. The row of two is preferable because the shortfall of space which occurs when two people sit on inadequate seating is less than what typically occurs with three. Again, small people have an advantage here: but if, like me, you require full lateral occupancy, and the same is true of the person in the window seat, there really isn’t room for an adult human being in the middle seat. Nevertheless, when the crowding factor multiplied by the local idiocy factor reaches a certain level, someone will go for it (usually someone with bags). This person will tread on your feet, shove your face aside with an elbow, and contrive to insert their backside into the middle seat. Typically, they will hold their arms pushed forward in front of them from the shoulder, partly because they have to, but also as an implicit suggestion that you move up a bit.

I don’t think so, matey. The person in the window seat can’t move up because they’re already against the wall. And I’m not going to move up, because if I do, those bags which are thudding into my shoulder every few seconds will be hitting me squarely in the face. I’m not giving you a millimetre, and if that means I have to spend the next hour with my thigh pressed against yours more enthusiastically than I should wish it to be, I’m afraid I’m going to grit my teeth and do it.

It’s not an easy decision I face as I step forward, then, and I only have a couple of seconds atmost to make it: otherwise, the latecomers will surge in behind, around and – if they’ve got the weight and the traction – over me.

I’ve decided to do Nanowrimo this year. You may be surprised to hear that. You may think it?s a bit perverse. You may not have a clue what I’m talking about, for that matter.

Nanowrimo is National Novel Writing Month (the Nation in question being the good ol’ US of A of course, though actually the institution is international, to the extent that the anglophone internet is international).? Participants sign up on the site and attempt to write a novel of 50,000 words (a bit on the short side as novels go) during November.? And that?s it, really ? no prizes for succeeding except the right to a little sign on your page on the site.

I?ve always felt a bit ambivalent about this idea. It treats writing a novel as though it were running a marathon, which misses the point in a characteristically transatlantic way. It?s like the trainer who once told me about his surprise on first seeing the Mona Lisa? – ?It?s really not that big at all.? ? we?re homing in on the wrong parameters, aren?t we?

Still, blethering on for a long time is something I feel I have the skills for. And I understand the dimensions of the task, having typed out not one, but two atrocious novels, each much longer than 50,000 words, in my youth. So literature aside, what the hell?

So back to the perversity. How on earth can I find the time? I haven?t been updating here very often lately, and over at Conscious Entities, where 200 to 500 people turn up every day hoping for something to read, I?ve also been slacking.

Let?s see. 50,000 words in 30 days is 1667 every day, which many ?Wrimo participants take as their target.? The problem with that is that it?s 1667 words every day. If you miss a day, you start falling behind and before you can catch up you need to do today?s 1667. So my strategy is to clear the weekends and aim for 2,500 words every weekday. It?s a rounder number, and if I fall behind I?ve got Saturday and Sunday when I might just find an hour or so to do something about it.

Given that I?m going to need an hour or two every weekday, the obvious solution is to do it on the train. If only my Elonex One were up to the job, I?d be away, but as you know my faith in that machine is severely limited. We?ll just have to see.

The other thing is that I intend to take the relatively uncommon step of blogging my words as I write, so that anyone who?s interested can read along, encourage me, and sneer at my eventual capitulation on about day five. I haven?t quite decided whether to do it here, or perhaps set up something new for the purpose.

I?ve been heartened, I may say, by the reaction over at Monkeyfilter, where three other stalwart Mofites so far have agreed to take it on this year. Take a bow, Capt. Renault, Polychrome, and Alnedra.

Sarah went to the annual Hall’s Green extravaganza last weekend. This involves staying over from Friday evening to Sunday afternoon in the Hall’s Green site (near Sevenoaks down an impossibly small single-track lane).A great deal of fun stuff goes on; raft building, pantomimes, etc; but the main point is producing the small concert which is performed for parents on Sunday afternoon (see video, if it works). Were there midnight feasts?”Well,” said Sarah, “people were very excited and were making a lot of noise. So they came in and said, well, we only want you to have fun, but first we just need 20 minutes of quiet while we sort things out. So if you can stay quiet for twenty minutes, we won’t bother you any more and you can make as much noise as you like all night.? We were going to start playing cards and gambling with our sweets once the twenty minutes was up.”

“So you all stayed quiet for twenty minutes?”

“Well, I was a bit suspicious, because I thought twenty minutes being quiet in bed when you’re very tired is enough to go to sleep, really. But everyone else was keen to get to the gambling.”

“And what happened?”

“We all went to sleep.”

(This is her, by the way)