Little Green Papers

I have the kind of life in which very little happens. It has settled down into a pleasantly dull routine that involves doing as little as possible for spells of time that vary from hours to weeks punctuated with intense bursts of manic enthusiasm. Of course this is obvious from my blogging. I do a bit and then rest upon my laurels for a month or six. Hell's teeth I even found an old school report that lauded my unexpectedly large improvement in grades during the preceding term but warningly also spoke of concern regarding my tendency to dwell upon my past glories. I hate to be so transparent. It is bad enough knowing that others have a low opinion of one's determination but it's utterly despicable of them to voice that opinion at every opportunity. Even if they were teachers.

The trouble with an uneventful life is that when events occur they sail by the window of consciousness and are too easily mistaken for humdrum passing scenery and they get — not so much forgotten — as overlooked. Either that or noteworthy events come tumbling along like a flash flood or an avalanche and one is swept away unable to keep a foothold on a semblance of a foundation upon which to set up base camp and begin the retelling: 'This is how it happened ...'. (That is my all time favorite opening for a short story and I am damned if I can remember who the author was!) The last few days have seen me flounderingly struggle to keep my head above water. I don't need this much excitement. It's not good for my blood pressure or my chronic anxiety condition. Especially not at time when I am moving house, which is the most stressful of life's little travails after bereavement and divorce — I know this because I read it in a Reader's Digest in a doctor's waiting room ... ooh two dress sizes ago.

In the last few days I have gotten involved in my country's legislative process. It's too much. Apparently I am not just expected to vote once every four years or so but now 'they' want my opinions about the laws before they make them. The whole process struck me as highly amusing in a Douglas Adams kind of way as I wondered if anyone would appreciate the joke if I enquired into whether anyone had conducted any studies to find out if people wanted 'well being' that could be anally inserted. There was an excellent lunch though and the conference facilities were very much in premier echelon of such places of corporate hospitality — which is an oblique way of referring to the football club that was our host. I forwent the opportunity to gaze upon the hallowed turf ... I've got way too much turf of my own and all of it is in direst need of a good scything. Maybe I could put it on ebay. Hay for sale: buyer to collect ... I'll just wait to mention the need for cutting it until the buyer arrives.

I have a very low threshold of tolerance for the humbug and bunco of politicking. Those traits may be great as entertainment but self-aggrandisment and axe-grinders and single-issue merchants mire down the decision making process in a welter of confusion. A period set aside for questions relating to a presentation (Powerpoint raises its ugly head again!) turned into a series of little set speeches promoting a single issue; but, O! Look how beautifully they were wrapped in glowing velvet praise of the presenter's sincerity, credentials and choice of cologne on such a hot day. It was good therefore that I had a elected to be chauffeured for the day by a co-conspirator who shares much of the same antipathy regarding fæcal matter of a bovine nature. We came, we ate, we buggered off. Leaving early we had no compunction in lambasting the others we saw who also scurried out like naughty children bunking off school on a day too balmy for double algebra followed by eng. lit.. We of course had good reason to bunk off: we were certified Looney Toons. They were wearing suits.

There's only one thing to do in England on a weekday afternoon in blazing June when the great white anglo-saxon protestant majority is mercifully trapped, sweating, in the hell that is the workplace. (Those Brits fortunate enough to work in offices with large number of computers are often lucky enough to get air conditioning; the rest just melt and stink.) For the lucky few with money to burn and time to burn it the blue skies demand that we seek a nice little pub with a garden. This can be a tricky task in a metropolitan area that is home to some three million multi-cultural souls, but not impossible. There are five or six within a 3 minute drive of my front door. I so rarely go into pubs these days that it is always a delicious pleasure to rediscover the odd grown-up-ness of a slightly dingy, low-ceilinged, Victorian or even Georgian English public house. The interior of the bar is dark on even the brightest of the longest days of the year; it is also refreshingly cool even without refrigeration technology.

My companion ordered a pint of the ice-cold lager while I chose a pint of the cold Guinness ... there's a drink to get your teeth into! We must have been thirsty. The liquid hardly touched the sides. We decided to have another. It was my turn to pay. My companion would not permit that and headed resolutely for the bar to have our glasses refilled. I'm reviewing the situation ....

Hmm. When one drinks but does not contribute financially to the transaction the situation is veering off-course into dating territory. Aw shucks. I am far too old for all that nonsense. Besides I like my own company far too much to begin sharing it ... again. On the other hand it takes more than a swallow or two to make a spring and I am no coy virgin either. All the same I have reviewed, with frantic mental haste, the foregoing hours. Replaying snatches of conversation looking for indavertent flirts. The beer arrives and I am like Homer Simpson sitting, blankly staring, thinking: "Message to brain: don't flirt, don't flirt". Doh! There's some devil in me that cannot help it. Wherever I am I take on a personna to fit the situation, like the time I flirted outrageously with a well inebriated pensioner in an East End London pub by slipping effortlessly into a pastiche of every barmaid there has ever been. Come to think of it that was an occasion when I had been to a meeting that became so dreary that I fomented revolution and led a sizeable contingent out and across the street into as perfect an example of London culture as possible. Londoners love to 'send up' up anything and everything including themselves. And I honestly didn't know that that pub held a male stripper night on that day of every month. Sheesh.

It's a good job that no one but me reads this because I have saved the most shameful thing until last. My drinking companion is one of that vanishing breed of men: a smoker. I smoked a couple of his cigarettes and frankly it wasn't that great ... but I need to be more cautious about restarting that habit than I do about becoming accidentally involved in any sort of relationship.