Tag Archives: Brompton Cemetery

Idle Eye 127 : (Don’t Fear) The Reaper

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The trouble with hitting your middle years, apart from the incessant failings of the body’s risible infrastructure, is the creeping awareness of one’s own mortality. No-one tells you precisely when that middle point is either. It would be terrific if, at the exact median of your time on Earth, they gave you a ticker-tape parade with a brass band and silver watch and street bunting or something. With a desperately shy homecoming queen landing you a big kiss and an iced cake with ‘NOT LONG NOW’ piped onto the top. But they don’t, largely because they’re terrified of being sued for getting it wrong. These are litigious times.

And yet, as we march relentlessly towards the final curtain, the signs are all around us: That unexpected Alzheimers mailshot, being offered a seat on public transport (despite not being saturated in wee), feeling at ease in a Wetherspoons, caring about socks and the longevity of footwear, enjoying a butterscotch. All these incremental details are nature’s way of letting us know we’re on the slide, and that we had better start making the most of what we have left. It isn’t pretty, but what is when you don’t know where you are on the scale? Should we start making arrangements? Making that list of inappropriate tunes to be played out on the day of our memorial? Or should we just leave it to chance? It’s a lottery, make no mistake.

I’m working in a church right now, filled with saints and sacraments, effigies of the martyred Christ and his attendants, and endless reminders of the transience of existence. Just to give myself a breather, I take my sandwiches to Brompton Cemetery, alone and surrounded by the gravestones of those who, like me, used to take a lunch break somewhere before the reaper claimed them. The difference being that I’m the only one around who can clock it for now, until it’s my turn to be posthumously observed by some beardy berk with an artisan bloomer stuffed to the gunnels with halloumi and alfalfa sprouts. Even the stone carvers who meticulously chiselled out their client names & places of departure into marble or alabaster are no longer with us. You can’t fight it: It’s the inevitable cycle of life and death, and we’re all on board.

So what’s the point here? Perhaps, like Sally Bowles’s ex-flatmate Elsie in the movie Cabaret, it is to live every day as if it were your last (there is very little in that film that will not inform your every move at a cataclysmic level). Do something brave: Go see Nativity 3: Dude, Where’s My Donkey? Who knows, it might be life changing. Eat something weird. Fly off to somewhere you’ve never heard of and stay there a few days. Walk to work. Chat to strangers. Do yourselves a favour just for once. Because the halfway mark may be long since gone. And you don’t get a second chance.

Idle Eye 115 : The Tinder

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It has been suggested to me by a colleague (who shall remain nameless) that I should ‘have a go on the Tinder.’ Now, not being at all worldly in these matters, I presumed it was the sort of thing that men of a certain age bragged about in the pubs of the North when they had illegally bagged a massive rabbit or somesuch:

“I’m on t’Tinder”
“Aye, champion. Bring it round back after hours. And mind it’s skinned and scrubbed first”

But, turns out, it means nothing of the kind. Apparently, ‘having a go on the Tinder’ is a handy way for the young people to meet up and exchange fluids without all the bother of actually having to talk to each other. Which does indeed seem splendid, if any of the monosyllabic displays of syntax I have been witness to of late are anything to go by. What is less clear is why said colleague would imagine, in her wildest dreams, that this is the vehicle for me. Painstaking research has revealed that, whilst being quite the thing for some no-strings How’s Your Father, the demographic comes in at a terrifying 27 years young, and these people are circling around you like ravens over roadkill. Surely I need an app to keep them at bay, for Christ’s sake?

But cast your minds wide open. Imagine, if you will, that I accept this noxious challenge. That I Right-Swipe a cute little thing in a gingham dress who is cool with my involuntary farting and wants to meet up. And let’s say that we do so at a neutral space of her choosing: The Chelsea Hospice for the Critically Insane. Gingerly, I spy her at the kiosk in the foyer and, plucking up courage, I make my move:

“Err…Hello! Thanks for coming in. Are you on the Tinder?”
“Nan, there’s one for you ‘ere. Take your teeth out.”

And it is precisely the potential for this brutal, on-site humiliation that I think it unlikely I shall be adopting the Tinder for the foreseeable future. Perhaps, if these clearly adept tech wizards can come up with something posthumous, or approaching it, we could have some kind of dialogue (although I currently take my lunch break in Brompton Cemetery, which may well create its own unique set of problems – Any kind of romantic liaison with those who have ‘made the journey’ will almost certainly be frowned on in these litigious times). So, in short, I am doomed.

I know what this looks like. That I am poo-pooing any chink in the armour of despair the young have to leapfrog themselves towards a brighter future. Not so. By all means, roger yourselves senseless with whatever tools you have to hand: I salute you in all your endeavours. All I ask is that you don’t involve me, pitiful ambassador of debauchery that I would almost certainly be. But I figure you already know that.