Category Archives: Amateur of Life and Death

Idle Eye 165 : The Best Things in Life Are Free

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Really? Now come on, Beatles/Flying Lizards/Janet Jackson, I’ve been around the block a few times and I beg to differ. Try telling that to the head waiter at whichever vulgar joint you’ve taken your better half to on his/her significant day and see just how much mustard it cuts. Or perhaps try your hand in one of those St James of London costumiers, where you can bag for gratis hand-stitched pyjamas with piping at the collars and cuffs if you simply mention how highly you rate them. The trouble with the above is that it is a phrase coined in the 1960s, when highfalutin ideals were chucked about without too much attention to detail. For the Age of Aquarius would have been tainted beyond recognition if there were a price tag attached to it.

I’m not being wilfully ignorant here. Of course, the implied best thing is love. Which, as we all know, comes at you from a place where there is no currency. It is the one thing that, in order to achieve it, we would pay any price for and yet it cannot be bought. It stands resolutely alone, across boundaries of race, logic and age. It defies the mores of any epoch it springs up inside and, to this day, remains enigmatically aloof. Literature feeds off it, science can’t get to grips with it and when it strikes, is truly egalitarian. And in that respect, it holds all the cards. Nothing else comes close.

But sod that, you can still buy it. I’m not recommending it as an option, but you can. As long as you can deal with the lack of intimacy, profundity and its cataclysmic, life-altering potential, a version of it is out there for sale. And for some, this is enough. The Prozac Nation, neutered variant will always be attractive to those who, for whatever reason, are unable to shore up to the real thing. Sometimes I wish I could join their ranks, but sadly I am destined to follow each and every gut-wrenching affair of the heart to no matter where it may lead. For which I make no apology. I am what God made me.

As for the other stuff, well it’s just bollocks innit? Name me three things that you can’t have if you get the chequebook out and I’ll shout you a meal at the Ivy. As long as you book the window table and get them to waiver the no jeans policy. There was a time, eons ago, when the finer points of human achievement were considered to be at the zenith of where we are headed as a species, way beyond the grasp of cupidity. But no longer. These days, everything comes at a cost, particularly the very things that shouldn’t. I am loathe to drag current affairs into this particular diatribe but seriously, do your research.

IE is available for children’s parties etc…

Idle Eye 164 : The Insomniac

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There was a time I thought it impossibly cool to be able survive on little or no sleep. That I could glide, ghostlike, into the dark portals of my home over the small hours, content in the knowledge that lightweight recumbents lacking the requisite stamina could not manage the same. In much the same way as an ASBO, it was a badge of pride which would almost certainly be the envy of the idle. So at the beginning of this book campaign, when I was riding high on nervous energy, I welcomed it in. Brilliant, I thought, I’ll coast through the jobs and come out ahead of the game. I could not have been more wrong. You know something’s up when the crying starts:

  • Postman delivers wine stain remover? Howl like a baby.
  • Blurry online photo of Cecil the Lion? Howl like a baby.
  • Builders below stop using circular saw for twenty seconds? Howl like a baby.

And that’s just the beginning. Next up comes the attention deficit, always handy when you’re multitasking:

Boil kettle / half complete to-do list / prepare for shower / remember kettle / make coffee half-dressed / ditto three lines of email / have shower / call someone / walk around park to clear head / remember email / check Facebook / quick cry / more coffee / check to-do list again / remember food / forget food / remember email / quick cry / go to bed.

The cruellest twist of the knife is that last bit. When you finally head up the hill, exhausted beyond language from your day of not quite achieving anything and discovering twenty different ways that sleep deprivation will see you off, you collapse into the welcoming tundra of the bedroom. But it is a Trojan Horse. Come stupid’o’clock (usually ten to something ridiculous like two or three), you find yourself bolt upright and worrying about that bloody email. So now there’s fat chance of getting back to Nod, yet somehow you have to fill up your time until the whole wretched shooting match starts all over again. And that’s when the chatting starts:

Me:  Not sure how much more of this I can take.

Me:  Me neither. It’s brutal.

Me:  Sure is. What shall we do?

Me:  Think anyone’s on Messenger?

Me:  Doubt it. How about a bit of Facebook stalking?

Me:  Yeah, why not?

(Two minutes later)

Me:  Sod this. Let’s go for a walk.

Me:  Too knackered.

Me:  Book then?

Me:  We’ll just end up reading the same sentence again and again. Like last night.

Me:  Smoke?

Me:  Like that’s going to help.

Me:  Well what do you suggest then, smartarse?

Me:  How about trying to sleep?

Me:  We’ve talked about this. But give it a try if you want. I’m off.

Me:  Where to?

Me:  Anywhere but here. You’re doing my head in, man.

Yes, it’s true. I’m doing my own head in. And there’ll be fisticuffs at dawn unless I sort something pretty soon. Just not sure which horse to back if I don’t.

Idle Eye 163 : The Builder Jour

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Now don’t get me wrong, I know people need to get works done from time to time in our fair capital. How else can we justify those absurdly inflated prices for what effectively are outmoded hunks of Victorian brick? But there comes a point when you just snap, and last Friday I did exactly that. When you’re running a Kickstarter campaign from home and the din and dust from downstairs penetrate through to the very fibre of your being, words have to be said.

To be fair, I held off as long as I could. I was pleasantly chatty (in that monosyllabic way builders seem to enjoy) when our paths crossed in the street. I pretended not to mind having to listen to Taylor Swift thirty times a day at ear-splitting volume, I managed to feign some kind of interest in the project and I even shrugged off the endless banging (that made my treaty glass of Pinot do a Michael Jackson across my desk) as the inevitable consequence of home improvement. What’s all that about? Why hasn’t someone come up with a device that just hits whatever it is they’re hitting once, very hard, job done? I don’t claim to understand what’s going on down there but it is positively Neanderthal. Yet still I did not react.

The final straw came when my water got shut off for the weekend. The builders had done a POETS day, the owner was on a train to somewhere foreign up north and I hummed like a lactating hyena. Then, finally, I saw red. A torrent of pent-up fury was unleashed down a broken phone line, made worse by the excruciating platitude that these things happen. I calculatedly escalated the intensity and tone of my delivery which would have culminated in a commanding Sgt Major roar, but unfortunately I had lost my voice a couple of days beforehand and ended up coming across as a mildly peeved Joan Rivers.

At approximately 11.30pm, a builder reappeared. He had hightailed it back from Southampton and was clearly steeling himself for the raving neighbour I’d no doubt been portrayed as. However, I was the consummate gentleman. Together we investigated the site and found the main feed, wrapped in white tape and haemorrhaging water into the back garden despite being turned off. Calls were made. Brows were furrowed. Not a lot could be done. Until tomorrow. Sorry, mate.

At this stage of the proceedings, there remained but two courses of retaliation. The first being an out-and-out screaming match which, as we’ve already established, was sadly denied to me. The second, ultimately more satisfying option was to plough into a freshly purchased bottle of Bulldog gin and stay up most of the night ranting and listening to vintage Australian pop. And then turn up at Crystal Palace Food Market (where I had a stall to promote the campaign) still steaming, still stinking and looking like death itself. Which is what I did. Obviously.

Idle Eye 162 : The Runway

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OK, action stations! Everything I’ve worked towards for the last four years is about to kick off big time on Friday. No room for funnies now, just need to know that you’re all on board. It’s been a mad week, what with the computer playing up, the launch party, being sick as a panda and losing my voice just as we were shooting the straight-to-camera stuff, but at last the whole shebang is going to pitch and it’s in the lap of the Gods what happens after.

At this stage of the game you need a bit of TLC, because most of your time is taken up with being wired on adrenalin, not sleeping, eating shit food, drinking shedloads of quality alcohol, smoking for Britain, swearing and crying. Oh, and doing the work. And for the most part, people have been pretty good. I even brought some campaign postcards into my local café yesterday, and the Italian girl who I usually get served by took one look at me and said “Guess it’s started then!” Bless her. The family have finally accepted that I mean business, I’ve got four more followers on the Twitter and some bloke at the party said my stuff was worthy of Ed Reardon. High praise indeed.

But never mind that. What matters more than anything right now is that I reach the funding goal. Although I’ve been trying to imagine what to do if this doesn’t happen. Those bloody letters to the artists, oh God!

Dear Artist,

Thanks for your interest and involvement with the Idle Eye project. I regret to inform you that, to date, it hasn’t received the anticipated volume of public support and consequently I would suggest that you to persevere with your chosen profession as before. This is in no way indicative of the quality of your work. We are living through austere times and there is only so much gold in the pot. Sadly, this time it isn’t yours.

I shall, of course, keep your details on file and if anything suitable arises in the fullness of time, I’ll be in touch. And if you need an assistant, I am but an email away. They say my coffee is excellent and I am quick at washing up.

Sincerely yours,

Idle Eye

Then there would be that climbdown in front of those I’ve bigged it up to for months, followed by the inevitable mockery as I re-entered the world of gainful employment. Fortunately, such a ghastly, apocalyptic projection has been the spur for me to soldier on regardless. Failure is so not an option it’s not even a hologram. And if that elusive target proves to be exactly that, I’ll have a chat with my nine chums of Hatton Garden notoriety and furnish myself with a few tips. Because who would expect a half-cut, wan blogger to be capable of anything more than a few shoddy words of whimsy every week?

Exactly.

Idle Eye 161 : The Rhinoceros

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In what has become more French farce than reality, everyday objects have conspired against the launch of Amateur of Life and Death in a way I could not possibly have conceived. If I could only stand back and laugh (and maybe I will sometime in the future), perhaps I’d get some kind of perspective. But when you’re living through an implausible nightmare, the absurdities get so polarised you just can’t help but take them personally. I’ll try to boil it down. Firstly, the iMac went haywire. Right at the point I was editing in the last bit of footage for the Kickstarter promo, the screen strobed at me like an Eighties disco and then presented ugly green vertical stripes across everything I tried to do. At which point, I lost it:

Me:  Not now, bubba, not now.

iMac:  PARTAYYY!!!

Me:  Listen. We’ve known each other for almost four years. I dust you, I defrag you, I clear out that ugly crap you accumulate on a regular basis and all that I’m asking is that you work with me for the next four weeks. It’s important. It’s why I bought you in the first place. Now is not the time. Capiche?

iMac:  PARTAYYY!!!

Me:  No. Not Partayyy!!!  You can go wild after this is all through. But not now. I’m trying to do something that really matters to me. In fact, the rest of my life hinges on it. So just play ball or you’re out with the recycling.

iMac:  PARTAYYY!!!

Then my shaver packed in; I ordered another. My watch stopped dead; one of those Russian ones that pride themselves on longevity in the field of conflict suddenly went AWOL. I took it off, and as I did, two of the lights in the living room blew for no reason at all. I turned them out at the dimmer and then, I kid you not, our lavatory started to overflow. I knew something was up because the flat below had just started building work and they’d been crashing about for God knows how long, but when water starts pissing its way into your hallway, words have to be said. Next up, two builders appeared:

Builder 1:  Awright, mate? Sorry about that, didn’t know youze was on the same ring.

Me:  It appears we are. Can you stem the tide? It is rather unfortunate timing.

Builder 1:  Bloody cheap stopcocks, that’s your problem. Who fitted this craphound?

Me:  It was done by an emergency plumber four months ago. The parts are new. And they worked this morning.

Builder 2:  Tone. I gotta be in Dalston in fifty. Can you sort this? I need the van, mate.

Builder 1:  What am I supposed to do?

Builder 2:  To be honest, I don’t give a monkeys. Either come with me and deal with this clown tomorrow morning, or sort yourself out. Your choice.

Me:  Excuse me. I have a book campaign going live in 48 hrs, a toilet that badly needs sorting, and you two are debating whether to leave now?

Builder 2:  Another job, mate. Life, innit?

The phone went. An automated someone chose this exact moment to offer me compensation for another accident I’d supposedly had. And as I was screaming blue bloody murder into the void, both builders left the…er…building, leaving me with a secreting loo and a flat teeming with broken stuff. There was no-one around to scream at, so I screamed at the iMac:

Me:  You jumped up, poncey piece of crap! I hate you, I hate everything you pretend to be and I hate how you come across all slick and cool when actually, you’re nothing more than smoke and wires. SMOKE AND WIRES, do you understand me? Of course you don’t! Because you can’t do jack shit without me. Nothing. NOTHING!!! And when I’ve got you fixed and you think this is all business as usual, let’s see how you feel when I wheel in a Gates. Because I’m through with you, Apple. Really, I am. Jobs would be turning in his grave if he knew the shit you’re trying to pull now. So I’m out. Fuck you!!!

iMac:  PARTAYYY!!!

To be continued…

Idle Eye 160 : The Enemy Within

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For the last 48 hours, I’ve been at war. However placid I may be in my natural state, when invaded by germs hell-bent on turning my internals into that green goo from Dr Who, I tend to kick off. For a while there, it looked as if they had the upper hand: First, they came for my voice, next for my nose and lungs, and then, while I was rushing about tending to these, they came for my bottom. However, what they hadn’t banked on was my British resilience in the face of extreme adversity. That, like any great military strategist, I could and would play the long game, feigning weakness and ineptitude when, in fact, I was building up to a mighty show of strength which would conclusively put them to rout. Something like this:

Germ A:  He’s going into the bathroom, men! Weakest to the fore!!! WEAKEST TO THE FORE!!!

Germ B:  It’s ok, sir! He’s only having a huey in the sink. No great loss.

Germ A:  Right. Get a message over to Nasal Production without delay. We’re going for a massive push in ten.

Germ B:  He’s got a new loo roll by the bed! They’ll be toast in seconds. If Bottom Bay gets cracking now, we stand more of a chance of catching him off guard when he goes back in.

Germ A:  How many rolls?

Germ B:  Not sure, sir. Maybe we should send a few privates up to the throat? They can have a quick butchers when he’s bent over the khazi.

Germ A:  Too risky. We’re down on mucus and we’ll need everything we have for when he starts necking the Benylin.

Germ B:  Benylin, sir?

Germ A:  Yes, bloody Benylin!!! It was on the sideboard.

Germ B:  That changes the rules somewhat. How long do you think we have?

Germ A:  Long enough to play merry hell with his bottom. Now get on with it!

Germ B:  Germ B to Bottom Bay, Germ B to Bottom Bay, open all sluice gates now. I repeat, open sluice gates now!

Bottom Bay:  Bottom Bay to Germ B, Bottom Bay to Germ B. We have a problem. The gates are wide but there’s nowt coming out. Urgently request reinforcements from Chest and/or Throat Depts. She’s dry as a witch’s tit, sir!

Germ B:  MAYDAY!!! MAYDAY!!! ALL MUCUS ZONES TO PROCEED TO BOTTOM BAY AT ONCE. THIS IS AN EMERGENCY!!! DO NOT HANG ABOUT!!!

Germ A:  He’s got quilted!!! Bail out now!!!

Germ B:  Too late! I’ve instructed all departments to head south.

Germ A:  Oh my good God! It’s done. He was too good for us this time. Give my regards to your wife and family and should we survive, perhaps a drink at the Criterion when it’s all over?

Germ B:  Indeed. And may I say it was an honour to serve under you?

Germ A:  You may. Goodbye, B.

Germ B:  Goodbye, sir.

Kickstarter Promo for Amateur of Life and Death

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This is the Kickstarter promo Donald Ross Skinner and I shot and edited in order to raise funds for ‘Amateur of Life and Death’. Life had not yet beaten us into a cocked hat, so there is a charming naive optimism to be seen here. I am happy to report that it was instrumental in raising more than the required amount, and you can still purchase it here in the sidebar for stupid money. Dig deep x

Idle Eye 159 : The State of Denmark

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Good title. Well, I like it. Those of you who had your Coriolanuses kicked into reading the Bard’s greater works at school will recognise that the broader idiom suggests an element of brooding malcontent, that something in the land of salty liquorice is not exactly as it should be. See, you’re already hooked! Perhaps one of the perilously thin strands along which we all conduct our lives has become tangled or broken. Perhaps a moral compass has been thrown out of kilter. Perhaps it’s just an elaborate decoy to throw you off the scent. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps, as our Doris once succinctly put it.

As I write this, it is the hottest day the UK has cooked up in a decade. And heat, as any fule kno, plays havoc with the brain and those last remaining pollutants of Glastonbury. The synapses within sizzle and fuse, neurons struggle to function and the propensity for rational thought gradually deliquesces into chaos and confusion. So what chance does one have if this is the moment to step up to the plate? To make brave, life-altering decisions before yielding to the charms of high summer and going out topless into the streets (the Englishman at home’s favourite pastime)? It’s a one word answer: Fat.

In that tragic-heroic fashion all romantic schoolboys are prone to, I was once asked (after midnight, around a flickering tealight) to declare the one thing I’d be prepared to give up everything else for. And, being a relatively inexperienced resident on our complex planet, I answered, with some certainty, that it would be the aquamarine pair of Speedos (with white printed dolphins bobbing their merry way across my privates) I had just been given for Christmas. I was serious. Life had not yet complicated my childish aspirations, and I could think of nothing or no one I wanted more. And in some ways, it was the perfect response. Perfect in its unswerving simplicity, and perfect because it was a need easily fulfilled. No hopes dashed, no hearts broken. And it would probably be different the next day. Ironically, it was the summer of 76. Another hot one.

Then we age. And as we march through our lives, things get increasingly difficult. They just do. We steal moments of pleasure wherever we can, in the full knowledge that they will probably be fleeting and outweighed by the sheer pressure of hanging in there. It’s why our occupations are so much more than a means to an end. They define us. They validate the reasons for our being alive at all. Otherwise we’re just grown-up sperm looking for something to do. If asked the same question again, after all this time, I only wish the answer could be as economic. But the things we crave in later life inevitably come at a price, by which I do not mean anything so vulgar as money. And we’re usually too busy to notice.

Idle Eye 158 : The Magnetic Fields

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‘Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more’

Early doors post this week ‘cos I’ll be heading back to the undulating hills of Glastonbury tomorrow. Long-term readers of this stuff and nonsense may remember I reluctantly did something similar last year, hauled kicking and screaming into the furore by those who would not take no for an answer, and yet I came out relatively unscathed. Perhaps this time around the relentless assault of life will have conclusively exacted its toll, leaving me unable to manage much more than a couple of juniper-based sharpeners at dusk and a premature nosedown in whatever wigwam they have in mind for me. Or not. We shall see.

It hasn’t always been thus. There was a brief spell when I could gambol across the site, unfettered and nimble as a ballerina, drinking in the madness and whatever my tipple of choice was back then in equal measures. I would stay up all night, every night, insane with joy and totally beyond caring what was happening elsewhere. Music and adrenalin were my co-pilots, and when they were on board I owned the very core of those vast magnetic fields. You should have seen me, I was superb: I burned like magnesium, radiating like gamma and blistering in the sun like the Violent Femmes. Really, I did.

It didn’t last long though. When being grown-up became a thing instead of a distant concept, I gave in and learned the rules of the everyday. I did jobs I didn’t want to do. I went out with sensible people I didn’t really want to go out with. I feigned interest in all of the trappings of being an adult, when all I wanted to do was the polar opposite. I trod on a few toes along the way, which I’m not proud of but it happened. And then, a good decade after most regular folk are preparing for the final chapter, I decided to piss away whatever minuscule security I had mustered to date in favour of a much riskier, but ultimately more satisfying goal: to write. In an era when writers have less chance of staying afloat than ever. Because there are more writers than cockroaches these days.

This is what draws me back. Glastonbury, despite its inevitable nod to commerce, still represents the troubadour spirit. Anything seems possible here if you have a dream and the balls to see it through. And if it’s just an illusion, it is a magnificent one. Who cares who’s playing on the big stage? It matters not one jot. Someone in a tiny tent way out on the fringes has the potential to make an incalculable difference, and that’s what makes it special. That’s why I’m going in one last time. To suck at the marrow of a sprawling collective unconscious which can turn your life around on a sixpence. Even at its most desperate, outermost ebb.

Idle Eye 157 : The Plagiarist?

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Impending death kind of makes you get your skates on. All that time you spent dicking about doing nothing of consequence will eventually appear at your door tapping its watch. Which is no biggie if you happen to have chalked up some of the stuff you set out to achieve, but if, like me, you’ve tried and failed too often to even care about, you have to ask yourself two pretty searching questions:

Do I keep going, or do I shackle myself to the yoke of submission and admit defeat?

The death thing is quite a major pisser, but when you boil it back to basics it’s not actually life-threatening; just an expedient reminder for you to get off your arse and get on with it. If it bothers you, you can always hop over to deathclock.com (the internet’s friendly reminder that life is slipping away), where they kindly work out how long you’ve got until you are reclaimed by the Grim Reaper. I did briefly consider this, but thought better of it after browsing the search criteria and calculating for myself that I was already living on borrowed time.

I weighed it up. Yes, I could go back to a job that looks good on paper to those who don’t really understand what it entails, or load my bollocks back into the wheelbarrow of endeavour and run with it/them once again. To where there’s no safety net if things go a bit tits. Where the odds are stacked against you because you should have done it twenty years ago. Where the contenders are younger, media-savvy and hungry for that rapidly diminishing slice of the pie. And then, just as I was beginning to cave, someone introduced me to Jonathan Ames.

If ever an ageing, unpublished writer needed a tonic, it came then in the form of this man’s work. A self-deprecating, pushed alter-ego, doing (and penning) things most of us would ordinarily shun, in the tradition of the great American humourists but with a filthier edge, Ames was pushing all my buttons. The greater irony being that the exaggerated failure he casts himself as is, in reality, exactly who I am now. Although I too am writing as an exaggerated failure, and shall continue to do so despite any inconvenient impending success. It’s a headsmoker, make no mistake, but a glorious one nonetheless.

So where does that leave us? My newfound admiration for Mr Ames will almost certainly draw comparisons, the most apposite being that despite sharing a birth year, I am in South-East London writing drivel for 350 people and he is about to launch Blunt Talk (which, from the trailer, appears to be the sharpest comedy to come out of the States in decades) and is probably rather busy. But it is comforting to note that we have been singing from the same hymn sheet for quite a while. Independently, I swear.

Doubt, get thee behind me.