Better out than in…?
My Grandad used to burp a lot at the dinner table. He did it in quite ostentatious and unabashed fashion, rather like a town crier declaring some urgent news. He performed with full-throated vibrato and legato. It was a ribald coda to many a meal time, and whilst my Mother used to wince, Gran used to greet it with a quiet pride, as though it were almost tangible evidence of the sumptuousness of her sprouts. Or at the very least, a heartfelt compliment…
In a strange way, I viewed snoring in a similar vein. I thought it expressed some primal delight, in much the same way that my Grandad’s post prandial belch did. It was only when I married that it became evident that whilst I might have been wallowing blissfully in hoggish slumber, my wife wasn’t enjoying herself quite so much…
Lately, for no apparent reason, my snoring’s getting worse. I woke yesterday morning and rolled over to give my wife a peck. In my torpid state, it was a moment or two before I could deduce why I had a face-full of toes. It wasn’t evidence of some night of Kamasutric revelry. Oh no… My snoring had driven Mrs D down the other end of the bed during the night. The indignity of it…
But things are worse still. Not only is my snoring troubling my wife, who constantly elbows me in the ribs, ensuring I don’t get a decent night’s sleep either, my allegedly thunderous snoring is now waking the baby too… So it’s a perfect storm of collective insomnia. And whilst my snoring is shaking the bed, in our fatigued and fractious state, that’s about all that is… Much to the chagrin of the youthful and vivacious Mrs D…
To be honest, what with my unappealing nocturnal grunt-wheezing, and demand outstripping supply in the carnality stakes, I’m starting to feel a bit of a flop in the bedroom. The problem is, these days, having barely slept, having the cares of work weighing heavy and a dozen other concerns to boot, when I get into my bed, I really just want to sleep in it. Not only that, I feel I’m losing that spark of easy and seductive repartee that used to make me such a fatal swordsman in my years as a London buck…
My pillow talk these days is infected by the sort of pedestrian domestic concerns I never had when I was 25. Before I go to sleep, I invariably find myself chuntering a closing valedictory on the day’s woes. It’s like a reflexive unclenching of the anxiety muscle. I just can’t help it. My wife turns in earlier than I do, so not only do I normally disturb her as I struggle out of my clothes in the dark, I then apparently affect her with alarm and despondency by muttering about the VAT… Allegedly, it kills the moment. I can see how it might…
Interior: DM’s bedroom. Night:
DM climbs soundlessly into bed:
Mrs D (drowsily and seductively): “Hi darling…”
DM: “How long have those chipolatas been in the fridge?”
Mrs D: “What..?”
DM: “We’d better eat those chipolatas tomorrow. Before they go off…”
Mrs D: Pause.
DM: Pause.
Mrs D: “I think they’re the only chipolatas likely to go off in this house tonight. Goodnight…”
[That was just for illustrative purposes. And I can see my error now. In retrospect…]
But it is often said that sustaining the first flush of passion as one ploughs one’s comfy connubial furrow (or *ahem* doesn’t, as the case may be..) is tough. And I suppose it is, in a certain way. But only if you expect the rest of your married life to be like a first date repeated ad infinitum. Let’s face it, life’s not really like that. Just for starters, there’s no way I could get into those trousers now…
But married couples do fret endlessly about the glister of lust wearing thin… I think it’s just a matter of expectation management, to be honest. I mean, this is real life, with bills and dirty nappies, with busted boilers and parking tickets. Under these vexatious circumstances, the fact that familiarity alone doesn’t breed profound contempt is an absolute miracle.
I also think that people by and large live in a fantasy world conjured up by magazines and movies. They get married on a white beach in some Far flung flea pit and think the whole performance of the conjugal contract is going to be just as fantastical and fairytale. Well, it’s unlikely to be. And actually, that’s what draws you together. Closer than you were on your first date. Closer than you were on your honeymoon. And closer than people on the pages of Hello magazine…
But people just don’t get it. I mean, I was in Boots the other day, and I caught site of the condoms. Mint flavour condoms. I mean, come on, what do you want, a shag or an After Eight? I’m not saying start developing ‘crotch flavour’ or ‘sweaty jeans on a summer day flavour’, but come on, let’s disentangle the airbrushed, gold-plated, silicone enhanced, pine-scented fantasy from reality, eh? Let’s drop the lifestyle and come to terms with life.
But, you know what, I will concede that it doesn’t hurt to try to sustain a little mystery, a little respect and a little romance. I’m now making a positive effort not to call Mrs D, “Mummy”, for instance.
But just occasionally, the gorgeous cloak of romance does inevitably slip from the regal shoulder, dislodged by a perfidious belch at the dinner table. It’s entirely out of my hands, of course, being a sort of gastric legacy from my Grandfather. Perhaps over indulgence plays a part too, but Mrs D is an excellent cook, and I dare say she knows it’s just my way of saying thank you…
Thank you Mummy… I mean, Mrs D. And I promise I’ll serve something up soon…
Could I interest you in a little toad in the hole, perhaps..?
The Mother of All Battles…
Sanctions never stopped this mummy’s boy…
It’s 17.00 on the eve of Mothers’ Day. The Garage Forecourt Flower Index is in steep decline, and many of the remaining blooms are battered and bruised – a conspicuous omen for the perceptive gentleman, and for new fathers in particular… Be advised, just because your wife is not your mother, she’s still a mother. Don’t get caught out…
Club Class…
I had a dream last night. It was one of those blissful ones, where you feel infused with consummate inner contentment and don’t want to wake up. No, not that sort of dream… I was on a fat wage and flying home from the Middle East with a spring in my step and a light winter tan: I was riding the Gravy Express, and it was never going to hit the buffers…
I was back in the bosom Business Class being served champagne by tender and solicitous air stewardesses. I like air stewardesses. They’re forthright and stitched-up tight (that wasn’t supposed to rhyme, but I’m going with it). And they bring you food. And serve you drink. You’re their entire world, but they won’t let you shag them. They’ll bestow pretzels or lavish smoked almonds upon you, but there’s no chance of a high altitude knee-trembler in the galley… They’re attentive, obedient but entirely unavailable – which makes them all the more alluring. Like saucy aunties or Mme. Marinette the French supply teacher…
“Kleenex?”
Anyway, back inside the gilded precincts of the dream, I’d been priority boarded and, drink in hand, was reclining magisterially in my capacious seat. The vexed and sweating proles were filing past with their hand-luggage as I agonised over the menu for the forthcoming four-course silver service supper. They felt my pain… As they reluctantly shuffled toward Steerage, their expressions were in turns envious and septic. I couldn’t hold their gaze. Not because I was crushed by bourgeois guilt, but because I was trying to find the button to call the strewardess for a refill of champers. On Royal Jordanian you had to drink champagne, firstly because it was free and would be rude not to, and more importantly because Muslims can’t mix a drink. It’s like asking Stevie Wonder to paint a rainbow.
My reverie ended abruptly as I struggled to downshift into second to get up a hill on the A259. An eleven year old 1.6 Astra just doesn’t have the torque of an Airbus 340. Since the battery had died last week there was no inflight entertainment either, as the radio now offered nothing but, “safe mode” and wouldn’t turn on. The only vocal accompaniment was the kids shrieking in the back like searing white noise. (They ought to have employed my children at Abu Ghraib…)
The car pre-dated the iPod and the CD, so it was with a little mental heel-click of delight, that I remembered that I was packing an old Tescos bag full of a Maxell C90 cassettes in the passenger foot well. I’d acquired them last week for one pound at the local carboot. (If you ever want to feel better about yourself and your life chances, by the way, go to a carboot sale: regard the children dressed like Latvian prostitutes, admire the vendors, gaping over a trestle with tongues lolling like offal in a butcher’s bucket, savour the aroma of mechanically recovered patties searing on a filthy grill… You soon feel pretty upwardly mobile, I can tell you.)
Anyway, I knew that somewhere in the bag of cassettes was The Best of Hall and Oates. In fact, if I’m honest, that’s why I bought it. ‘You can’t beat a bit of Hall and Oates to transport you into an invigorating day-glo world of up-tempo soul-rock fusion’, as I always say. I bade Mrs D root around in the bag for the choice melodies and she half-heartedly produced the tape. Quickly verifying the title, which was scrawled haphazardly in green biro, I slammed it into the cassette deck whilst shifting ostentatiously into third and flooring it.
“I Can’t Go For That (No Can Do)”
Someone had taped over Hall and Oates…
I’d forgotten about Wigfield… Not that I particularly wanted to be reminded.
We ground resignedly up the hill with “Saturday Night” blaring relentlessly from our tinny speakers. A dolly mixture hit me on the back of the head. I shifted back into second.
Economy Class…
Here’s one I made earlier…
Three black jelly-babies and an admirer…
16 Princes Gate…
Having heard about Mrs Disappointed’s agonies trying to track down our daughter’s latest Christmas list, I was musing on what we’re going to do with the ton of pink mermaids, purple ponies and capacious doll’s houses that have already been discarded since last Yuletide. Having had a boy now, there’s not much scope for hand-me-downs… Or is there? On closer inspection, I think last year’s expensive pink doll’s house has, with a few modifications, potential to be a future favourite for the little lad – lick of white paint, bit of cotton wool billowing from the window, a black jelly baby on a string dangling off the roof: voila! Iranian Embassy siege!
Agent Bodie…
Yesterday it was, “Lewis who?” Today, after years of obscurity, he’s the most celebrated actor in Britain. Only trouble is, he’s dead. Life’s cruel isn’t it…?
Rest in Peace, Lewis Collins…
Finding Nemo…
It’s a handsome fish, the mullet, I mused, as I gawped through the reinforced glass at the Hastings Aquarium. Well proportioned, classic piscine looks, nice even silvery colour. Your sort of quintessential fish, really. There was a fish that had everything going for it, but it had been entirely overshadowed – by a haircut. The world was a confusing and unjust place, I thought, as I propelled a pram full of new born baby boy.
The aquarium usually just made me hungry, but today something was amiss. Fish are supposed to be relaxing, but looking at all that busy seafood, hoovering up gravel and wafting about their tank in urgent circles, I began to feel a strange pang of anxiety. I caught a glimpse of myself in the glass as a turtle paddled by. I looked like a bemused gurnard.
I moved on to the reptiles. It was no better. Looking at the coiled African rock python I could only think of it slithering up my trouser leg, following the musky scent of a succulent, alopecias rodent laying dormant in its frowsty gusset…
“Look! Nemo, Daddy!” said my five year old daughter, pointing excitedly at a clown fish. Now there was a fish with good press. All the kids loved the clown fish. Just because it was gaudy orange and had a swim-on part in a movie. I bet they didn’t even realise they were talking Latin. Stupid kids… Not my five year old, you understand. She did know she was talking Latin. I’d explained at length. She didn’t know what Latin was, but that would come. In time… I said I thought the mullet was better. And less of a show-off. I felt a curious connection with the unassuming mullet…
Where was all this insidious anxiety coming from? Well, I’ll tell you. I blame my son. He’s only 14 days old, but I hold him responsible. Looking at that little feller, I keep wondering whether I’m fit. Not that sort of fit. I’m definitely not fit – I haven’t done any exercise for about two months. No, I mean, you know, fit to be respected, looked up to… What’s he going to think of the old man when he’s older?
I hate to say it, but I didn’t feel this pressure when my daughter was born. Curious really. I mean, I suppose I felt subconsciously that my wife was the prime role model. Saying that out loud makes me wince a bit, but that’s the truth, frankly. Now, suddenly I feel someone’s thrown me the ball… God, why did I use that metaphor? Hang on. That’s the whole bloody problem, isn’t it? I think that’s it. I feel a brooding sense that as the boy grows, I’m going to have to pretend to like sport. And, in particular, bloody football…
Strangely, I did rather like team sports at school. Especially rugby, but that was because I was good at it and could always run off on my own and grab the glory. Or palm people in the face. That was quite nice too. And the shorts. Properly short, with a drawstring and pockets. The perfect trouser, in my opinion. Especially if you have hot legs like I do – not in the Rod Stewart sense. My legs just get really hot. I don’t know why. But I digress…
I don’t mind ‘doing’ sport – especially solitary exercise, like running, where you don’t have to do all that physical bonhomie and roar at each other and ruffle people’s hair and stuff. The thing that I’m really worried about is having to pretend that I actually understand all that inane razzmatazz around football – let alone actually like it.
There’s no chance this side of eternity that I’m going to be able to rouse any credible enthusiasm about some educationally subnormal gang of bladder-kickers. That popularly accepted virtuosity that footballers are imbued with just isn’t really perceptible to me, to be honest. I mean, why not celebrate someone who can do a ’round the world’ with a yo-yo? What about spending years of social interaction droning on about people who can catch a stack of ten pence pieces that they’ve balanced on their elbow? How about devoting whole newspaper supplements to someone who can flip a pile of beermats on the edge of a table? I mean, if you can honestly admire someone who’s good at punting a ball about, you can make a hero out of someone like that too, can’t you?
But there’s the rub… Football’s the lingua franca of bloke-kind. It’s the social grease that lubricates a billion vapid and good natured masculine interactions. If I had a quid for every time I’ve been asked, ‘who do you support?’, I could keep up an enthusiastic bombardment of coins from the terraces for the full ninety minutes. I just can’t do that footy banter. I only know two teams, for God’s sake – Fulchester Rovers and Accrington Stanley. I couldn’t tell you who was winning the league or who plays for what team… It’s just not something I can summon interest in. It’s like the half roll of clingfilm in the kitchen drawer. I know it’s there, but I can’t conceive of an occasion where I’d be moved to talk about it. So, what the hell am I going to chat about with my son?
My son’s going to start coming home from school talking about ‘footy’ and expecting me to take him to watch a match and eat a pie or something. God forbid, he’s going to start asking me who I support. What am I going to say? “You, your sister and your mother”? It’s not going to wash more than once, is it? (And of course, frankly, it’s not even a particularly robust claim, at present… ‘Audacious corporate buccaneering’ etc etc…)
This is the thing about becoming the father to a son. Suddenly, you’re back at school again. It’s all about feats of strength and burping contests. You’ve got to show the kid the ropes, teach him the law of the jungle etc. And when, at 42, you’re still working it out for yourself, it’s a daunting prospect. I wonder if I can hire a tutor? Or maybe I just enlist a suite of God Fathers to school him in the masculine arts? Roger Moore for classes in wit and charm; a bit of instruction from Henry Cooper to deal with the bully in the playground; Sartorial matters? Alan Wicker, obviously; Manly prowess and insouciant swashbuckling, Maj. Digby Tatham Warter (who took on the Waffen SS with a furled umbrella*); bedroom arts and seduction..? Um… I can probably save some fees there – home-schooling: learn from the master, eh?
Big sigh…
Funny isn’t it? When you lay out the curriculum, it’s pretty tough to be a bloke. All those arts and sciences to master, all those heroes to live up to, and so few opportunities to do so… These days there’s never a Hun pillbox to assault when you need to prove yourself. Never a bar to drink dry, nor an arctic expedition to mount. Never a cup final to win – Oh, hang on… Do I suddenly get this football thing?
Men need someone to look up to, a fantasy to project their idealised self upon. All the little fish in the great global pond want to believe that one day they might be the big fish – otherwise, what’s the point, for God’s sake? I suppose football offers the most attainable of all fantasies, because all you need to be able to do in order to potentially live the dream, is propel a ball with your foot. Perhaps it says something about the endearing modesty of most blokes. They don’t idolise nuclear physicists, statesmen and visionaries, because they can’t really sustain the conceit that they could ever realise those fantasies. But with football they can. In a way, I’m slightly embarrassed to say my idols aren’t footballers. I’m afraid they’re closer to the physicists, statesmen and visionaries mentioned above. So what sort of bloody ego-maniac am I? Sweet Jesus…
I realised I’d circumnavigated the aquarium when I found myself staring again at the mullet. I wonder if he dreamed of being Nemo? Are all the little mullets dreaming of being Nemo? The latter’s all I’m ever likely to be – in latin, that is. A nobody. Still, perhaps life’s easier if you can just accept that. If I’m ever going to be a hero, it’s only ever going to be to this little boy. Time to stop dreaming. Perhaps it’s time to start liking football too…
*(http://www.pegasusarchive.org/arnhem/tatham_warter.htm)
Postscript:
To my mind the mullet has trumped the clown fish for all time, since it was once the subject of a Dick Emery verse, that has stuck with me, inexplicably, for at least 30 years. I’ve no idea why. It goes thus:
Tupper’s Fishcakes are the best
They’re filled with cod and mullet
They fill your stomach with delight
As they slip down your gullet.
White Meat in the Summer Heat…
The Italians, my Grandad assured me, are somewhat short of martial spirit. He based that on their performance against the 8th Army in North Africa, so I can’t say for certain whether that trait endures seventy years later. What I can say is, the ‘Macaronis’, as Grandad liked to call them, still enjoy a few choice reputational hallmarks today. Aside from its history and its art, Italy’s primarily known for corruption, male peacocking, meatballs and the goosing of ladies bottoms. A noble suite of national attributes, to be sure. But, I tell you what, I’ll give them something, they can dress.
And that sartorial acumen sets them in stark contrast to we Brits, especially during the summer months, when things really seem to unravel.
The English high street in Summer is like an animated butcher’s window, a writhing tableau vivant of shouting, sniffing, sweating, gristle. Scalded red or painted orange, there’s always too much flesh on display these days, because Brits have lost any sense of modesty – though most have plenty to be modest about. Don’t get me wrong, I’m no body Fascist, but if I had to choose between Leni Reifenstahl and the suety British endomorph, I might well recoil to the right… Sure, be comfortable, let a little air circulate around the dewy and tendrilled clefts, but don’t confront me with your corned beef legs, your blubbery belly-pork guts and your meat hygiene stamp tattoos. And ladies, be advised, I don’t need to see the jowls of your arse breaching the hem of your high cut shorts. Quite apart from it not being particularly attractive in most cases, we hardly know one another… I mean, for God’s sake, leave something to the imagination. It’s just no fun. If the erosion of modesty continues, I expect to see women walking round sporting uterine retractors in ten to fifteen years… (too much?)
The Brits are made for rain and rime, not Indian summers. We invented balaclavas, cardigans, wellies and duffle coats. That’s what we should wear. All year round. If you wear a duffle coat, not only you can you not get sunburnt, but my eidetic memory doesn’t have to have the image of your tripey Costa-carcass seared into it like griddle marks in a burger.
DIARY OF A DISAPPOINTED MAN 