Another life

Strange, sitting in bed with the window open on a far-too-hot-for-May morning with a zillion birds tweeting, to recall a certain day way back in mid 80s London. I'm including these few paragraphs from an early novel, Going out in the Midday Sun, in my latest book as an illustration of the decade's excess when it came to food advertising budgets (and probably everything else); I imagine they are now somewhat less extravagant, or maybe not . . . 

I'm meandering into non-fiction territory with the new book, at the moment entitled, Celebrating the Inconsequential inspired partly by a very long walk which I described a few posts back. We'll see where it goes. So far I'm enjoying a new literary departure very much, when I get a chance to write in between trying to keep our garden/bird and insect sanctuary alive in this alarming heat.

On a Monday in 1986, a stylist is late for an office furniture shoot.

 

    Randy Fisher's photographic studio sat in a Kings Cross backstreet. The client and slimy Marvin, the art director, were due there at 9am. It was 9am.

    Holly had the knowledge as well as any cabbie, but all the snarl-ups were well in place plus a few extras, including a lorry unloading toilets into a new loft complex in Leonard Street. The driver, attired in baggy shell suit, a fag drooping from his lips, wore an unhurried air as people leaned from their car windows yelling and gesticulating; the air was thick with honking and swearing. 

    Holly found her notebook and added a phrase to her anti-styling song, humming another slice of the tune. Calm: there was no point getting worked up. If she did, she would be lying in the back of the car under a blanket with a firework-display migraine by the end of the afternoon.

    She arrived at the studio at 9.15 and climbed the iron staircase, nerves jangling. Randy's new assistant Marcus opened the door and mouthed: "Watch out, Marvin's already had three coffees." Randy was up a ladder fiddling with the large-format camera, the height revealing cowboy boots under too-tight white jeans The Eagles were on the sound system and the client was leafing through a book of models.

    Marvin kissed Holly lecherously and lightly groped her backside. Coffee breath and stale cigarette smoke enveloped her: Marvin, the huge beaky bird of prey, shaking from his diet of fags and intravenous black coffee with five sugars drip. 

    "Hi darling, you're late . . . we'll have to spank you."

    "Yes, sorry. Traffic." But he was already gone, sucking up to the client.

    "Holly our Stylist — Roger Hillway from Streamline products."

    "Hi."

    "Hi."

    "Did you find everything Holly?" said Marvin, looking even more beaky than usual. 

    "Yes – selection of smart office wear dresses, new Mac computer, phone, and . . . the donkey head." 

    "Good, good," said Marvin, rubbing his hands. "Well, we've chosen the model." A round of snorting laughter emanated from the three men. "She'll be here at 10.30, should be done by 12.00. While we're waiting for the lab to process the film, we thought we might all go out for lunch."

    Charlene arrived, blonde and busty. The outfit was chosen, the props arranged, lights placed. No need for makeup as Charlene was to wear the donkey head. 

    "But you could have just used me," Holly was about to say, but realised Charlene and her breasts were the reason for lunch.

    The courier came for the film, they all got in a taxi and were at the door of 'School Dinners' by 1pm.

    Holly groaned internally at the sight of the restaurant. She had gone there once before with a crowd of advertising executives and had hoped never to return. They were shown downstairs into the cavernous space and presented with menus by a gazelle-like young woman dressed in blazer, stockings, suspenders and painfully high stilettos. The client and Marvin perused the wine list, occasionally stopping to mentally undress Charlene, while Randy flashed his new mobile phone: "Yeah, sure I can fit that in this week, what's the budget? Not bad . . . on the way to getting the Porsche, eh! See you on Thursday then — ciao." 

    Holly glanced around the room at the tables of overfed businessmen on expense accounts and wondered how the world had got into such a state. She requested the day's special after a brief glance at the menu and excused herself to have a few quiet moments in the loo away from Marvin, who had started to rub a foot up and down her leg. 

 The loo was already occupied with women checking their makeup. Holly made do with a perfunctory glance at herself in the reflective steel hand dryer: short blonde hair, disarrayed from the rushed start to the day, winter pale skin. 

    The large brown eyes stared back while her mind wandered: What are you doing here? Why did you spend four years doing an art degree then to work in this superficial world? —must phone mum — wonder what Sam is doing now . . . do I miss him? No, but . . . Her thoughts were interrupted by a blast of Robert Palmer singing 'Addicted To Love' as the door opened and two more women swayed in to the crowded room, one of them bumping into Holly. "Oops sorry . . . d'you think he's going to ask me out then?"

    "Why wait — grab him! I would . . . if I wasn't already attached — here try this, it's new by Givenchy, Organza."

    "Oooh, that's just what I need, an Organza . . ." 

    Holly left and weaved her way back around the crowded tables. "Oh, there you are — we were beginning to wonder what you were doing in there," grinned Marvin, nudging the client.    

    "Champagne all round," Randy announced to a waitress in a gymslip. 

    "Would you like a caning with it?" She produced a long thin cane and whipped it across her stocking encased thigh, thwack! Today's special is sausage and dumplings," she added, pouting, lips glossy red.

    "Waahay!" shouted Marvin. "Yeah, bring it on!"

    From a long way off, Holly saw herself sitting on the cliff edge near Durdle Door in Dorset — a warm breeze, nodding pink scabious, the cry of wheeling gulls. She had to get off this hamster wheel: wake, rush, buy crap for stupid ads, sit in traffic, home, sofa, crash, eat, sleep.

    Randy’s elbow nudged her. "Top up? How's the sausage . . . phwoooaah!"

    At last the bill came: three hundred and fifty quid, to be hidden in the final invoice. 

    Taxi back, film back, no re-shoot. Holly packed the props, slipped out from the studio and found a car-shaped space where the car had been.

 

 

What we knew before

It seems increasingly clear to me that we have lost our way as a species. Back in the era when this marvellous construction was in full function there were no computers, phones, Meta, TikTok, instant pancake mix, flights to Goa, plumbed in toilets, burgers, garden centers; Spotify, mega yachts, fast fashion, supermarkets, golf, Las Vegas, Youtube, this platform I write on; cars, internet shopping, yoga mats, Netflix, surf boards, and corrupt governments. Well, there would have been the latter, sadly that's just part of human history, but surely life must have made more sense?

People grew wheat, it was taken to the mill, each house or village had a communal bread oven; bread was made and sold or traded. The wheat was grown without chemicals or motorised transport and without destroying vast tracts of land. Clothes were made by hand or basic machinery; vegetables and fruits grown by each household if they had land. People knew how to make things -  baskets, shoes, saddles, roofs, carts, churches, goat pens, pottery, lace, knitted socks, bottled fruit, candles; and how to do real survival things like killing, skinning and cooking an animal, gathering plants - and knowing what was edible or not, fishing - without half a shop full of latest rod and tackle equipment - and a thousand other vital things.

No doubt this is highly simplistic and of course life would have been hard in many ways but a five minute glance through the current news seems to prove that we have learned so little in the last few decades, and lost so much. Thank the lord of handed down crafts that there are still some folk who know how to make and repair everyday and vital things, and rejoice in doing so. Hopefully as kids reach the age now of deciding their futures, basic and real skills will once again be offered and encouraged in this rapidly changing and climatically unbalanced world.

   

The yawning abyss between beliefs

Youtube's algorithms present me with an interesting choice each day: really excellent political comment from someone called Phil (his Chanel- a different bias) who really should be prime minister rather than the blond swaggering idiot we have in No ten at the current time . . . actually, any of my three dogs, even the small runty one with three legs would be a better candidate - no offence Phil!
Oh, yes, algorithms.
Apart from Phil, they (appearing in my mind as tiny white-coated scientists scribbling down my personal data) suggest various subjects: Climate change, Permaculture, unusual houses, greening the world's deserts, astronomy, runner ducks, John Roger's wonderful channel: The Lost Byway; psychogeography, Vernon Bogdanor's history lectures, a lovely channel called 'Mossy Bottom' - nothing devient - just a charming young guy talking about his new self-sufficient life in a cottage called Mossy Bottom in the West of Ireland; Will Self talking about anything, George Monbiot lectures, and lots of French documentaries - great way of learning language - put on something that fascinates and marvel at how the information creep into your brain's word-storage facility.

Yesterday, I listened to Mr Monbiot's lecture given at Falmouth Uni in 2018. Entitled 'How to truly take back control', it was a utterly insightful, intelligent and hope-giving talk, set against the impending wreckage of the world we currently know - the need for new communities, the need for a new human narrative beyond Keynesian economics and Neoliberalism.
I thought about it a great deal during the day as I went about dealing with the heat ravaged-garden, and then later while doing kitchen chores opened the laptop to see what Youtube would present me with - A choice of French Documentaries entitled Bling! Great choice you little tiny scientists. I was utterly hooked on the absolutely awfulness of it all: the world's richest people, hugest houses, biggest yachts, most exclusive hotels, most expensive jewellery . . .  I think the most absurd bit of all featured a certain Chinese real estate developer who owned four Rolls Royces and only seemed to wear suits that made Liberace's dress code seem rather pale.
On the fifth floor of the utterly exclusive Monaco hotel he was being chauffeured to there was utter panic as his three bedroomed, panoramic sea-view marble suite (at 30,000 euros per night) was not actually enterable as the key code was refusing to work. Of course, just in time, a locksmith (probably helicoptered in) did arrive and saved everyone from utter humiliation and multiple heart attacks as the person would have had to wait . . . And I don't suppose it would have been like waiting in a Travelodge reception area with a mouldering pot plant for company and a free token for a drinks distributer . . .



68,000 euros a night . . . Royal Penthouse suite: the President Wilson hotel in Geneva (Image - Elite Traveller)



One of the world's most expensive yachts - a mere 330 million. I've just seen one for 4.5 billion . . . but it does have a statue made of genuine Tyrannosaurus rex bones. Oh, that makes sense then . . .

Maybe if you experience stuff like this all the time, you don't worry about what might be lurking on the horizon line as far as the future of the planet, and us as a species, is concerned. There was a great quote in the Guardian yesterday by a well known environmentalist planning to leave Sydney for a new apocalypse-proof life elsewhere. I can't find it now but it was something like: 'people think they'll be okay (in the face of climate breakdown) because they have superannuation.'

garage visits, cheese counter-stress, banners, stoicism

I think I've always been a latent Stoic - perhaps just never actually put a name to a mostly-omnipresent character trait.

During a particularly stressfull time a few months back, a friend mentioned having a look at the stoic philosophy which I did but then promptly forgot all about it as other stresses joined the first one - my mother dying being a particularly huge stress.

About two weeks ago, I was preparing to do supper and idly prodded youtube into action to see what the algorithms might have decided would keep me entertained/distracted, or whatever.
Amongst: Permaculture studies, Have I got News for You, A Different Bias (excellent YouTube channel for discovering what is going on in the Brexit nightmare), Professor Bogdanor, etc, up popped a talk on Stoicism. I was instantly fascinated and started thinking about some of the key elements that had first been 'invented' by greek philosophers such as Marcus Aurelius (plus being an emperor . . .).

              

              Himself

             (photo wikipedia)

It all made so much sense. In a totally boiled down summary: don't worry about what you have no control over, and do your best to aid yourself in things you do have control over; be grateful and consider how wonderful it is just to be. 
Easier said than done? I tried it out with some everyday stresses - unfathomably complex letters from scary bureaucratic bodies; our huge garden that is gradually turning into a desert, and the fact that our concrete water capture thing is cracked; worry about things I have absolutely no impact on - like rainfall.

The letters . . . less worrying. The garden . . . well, the guy may come and look at the concrete thing- I've tried enough times to get him to come. If not, I'll try someone else, mulch more and use town water if I have to. Worrying about it is totally unproductive and won't change anything other than add to my forehead wrinkles.

Rainfall. Hm. Really nothing I can do other than continue buying virtually no plastic in the hope that everyone else will too, and eventually governments will realise that climate change and wiping out bio-diversity is THE problem and that WE as humans have to do something about it.

Talking of which, on a minor tangent. I did take my home-made sheet-banner to the houses of parliament and managed to tie it to a police barricade. No one removed it and quite a lot of people took pictures, so I hope in some microscopic way, I might have made a difference.

Very interesting man in the picture - he's been standing with his STOP plastics banner for several months now. And when he's not doing this he's cleaning up his own garden and locality, and noting the incredible difference it makes - how the insects start coming back, the birds, the general cycle of nature.

So, stoicism.
I, possibly like most people, had a vague idea of what it meant - be stoical about this or that . . . but investigating further made me wish to attempt to become a stoic.
I think what clinched it for me was standing in the cheese-counter queue at the supermarket. 

Being a French store, there were about two hundred different types of cheese but the woman in front of me - on hearing that the particular type she desired had been subject to 'rupture of stock' - decided to become very belligerent. This produced nothing other than making the assistant very uncomfortable and giving herself more stress-lines - she had a very fine crop already. I wanted to say, 'For Christ's sake just have a slice of Cantal, or Tome de brebis, or a bit of cheddar - (yes, they sell it), or one of the other two hundred choices. What the F does it matter?' But instead I just wondered about what the caves are like where roquefort is produced, and watched the sparrows that seem to have taken up residence in the supermarket roof space.

Ok, easy enough to feel smug about someone else ranting about nothing, but what about me?
On cue, my new-found stoicism was tested at the Renault garage the following day.
The car was just going to be 'looked at' for a quote after failing its MOT. I had been expecting the mechanic to say 'come back in an hour' and had prepared myself to write in the local café. But he said it wouldn't be ready for at least three hours. Normally, I would probably have huffed internally and thought about how annoying this would be as I would have to waste time walking back home, or try and get a lift back from someone, but this time I just thought, OK, I'll walk back a different way. So I did. And got lost down by the river but noticed the springtime wild flowers, a woodpecker, an old guy tending his magnificent vegetable plot and some wonderfully artistic graffiti. These things were in no way remarkable but they did seem to take on a sort of remarkable-ness because I had chosen to make this a soulfully nourishing time, even if the in-tray didn't get as sorted as it should have been and phone calls would still have to be done, etc.
So, will it last?
I think so - maybe with some careful mental 'topping up' everyday. The 'professional' stoics have a phrase - negative visualisation, where you take a little while every day to imagine how less good our personal life would be if, say . . . if we hadn't found one of our lovely rescue dogs, or I hadn't bothered to plant grape vines that shade our house in the summer, or made friends with someone important to us, or taken that very memorable hike with our son last holiday, and so on. Or much bigger things that have been really life-changing - supposing I hadn't answered the phone about thirty years ago which led me to take on a job which then led me to meet Mark and in turn produce our son . . . The point being that any negative feelings sloping about will be discarded as you consider these positive elements.
Time to do the washing up and consider the rampaging beauty of the yellow banksia rose from the kitchen window while doing so.

Climate change, zombie cereal ads and selfi-spoons

After reading a particularly worrying article on melting glaciers in the Guardian this morning I somehow ended up wandering into another piece about food products designed to allow you to carry on instagramming while eating snack foods . . . Yes. In Japan, much thought has been put into creating pre-smashed crisps that you can 'drink' and thus not have to coat your phone in grease.
Mc Donalds has also created special plastic chip-spears to elevate this stress, and praise the Lord, someone has invented the Selfi-spoon . . . Mm-hm, you can eat and snap at the same time.
A hole the size of Manhattan has been discovered in an Antarctic glacier, but don't worry your phone will no longer have to be greasy. Phew.
Highlighted within this article was a link to this scary ad for? I can't even remember which cereal brand as I was so petrified. Says everything about where we are really. Crap food (?) promoted with the most annoying song ever, dumbed-down, pastel tones, glazed/zombie expressions, and a selfi-spoon. Who are all these people and why do they suddenly invade this house owned by a milk-slurping ménage à trois?


selfi-spoon in many colour ways.