This isn't a proper blog, it's just a space to share.
:-)
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Monday Socks
I recently bought some socks. I fell in love with them at first sight, because they were black. I have this theory that black socks are best, because when they emerge from the washing machine they all look roughly the same and can be paired up with relative ease. My system for pairing-up is simple - if one sock is black and the other sock is black, then that’s a pair.
But these particular socks really did promise an absolutely perfect match every time. Each pair in the packet had the name of a day embroidered on their toes. And the name of each day was embroidered in a different colour. For example, “Monday” was embroidered in red, which seemed appropriate for the first day of the week – a red-letter-day!
Well, it seemed like a brilliant idea at the time, so I bought them. What a terrible mistake that was. You see, I’d forgotten one of the basic laws of physics, which is that when you put an even number of socks into the washing machine, you get an odd number of socks out.
So I was faced with a puzzle. What on earth do you do with a single sock embroidered with the word “Monday” on its toe? My solution to this quandary was to keep my mobile phone in it.
Then a good friend of mine suggested it would be very avant-garde if I continued to wear my Monday sock on one foot, with a Wednesday sock on the other foot. A brilliant idea!
So I started rummaging in my sock drawer to look for my Wednesday socks. At first, I thought this would be a straightforward project, because my Wednesday socks have the word “Wednesday” embroidered on the toe of each sock. But the search took forever.
You see, I keep each pair of socks neatly ravelled up in a small bundle. But you can’t see the toes in a bundle. And as all my socks are black, all the bundles look identical. So I had to unravel each bundled pair. Whilst doing this, I came across a pair of socks that weren’t really a pair at all. The two socks were of different lengths. I had to lay these two mismatched socks on the bed, in the hope that I would find more mismatched pairs and be able to reconcile the problem later. Well, I did find several other mismatched pairs, and eventually I was able to reunite these socks into pairs of equal length and re-bundle accordingly.
At first I was quite pleased with myself. Then I remembered my original objective, which was to find my Wednesday socks. I hadn’t found them. So I looked in the laundry basket. No Wednesday socks. I looked inside the washing machine, which I had used earlier. No luck. I peered under the bed. No luck there either. I searched high and low, but my Wednesday socks had vanished.
Eventually, the truth dawned on me. The reason I couldn’t find my Wednesday socks was because it WAS Wednesday, and I was wearing them. Silly me, I thought, and I took my shoes off to check. Sure enough, there they were, on my feet, where they had been all the time. It was then that the really dreadful truth became apparent.
Both of my Wednesday socks are adorned with the word “Wednesday” in GREEN embroidery. But my solitary Monday sock has the word “Monday” embroidered in RED. I was instantly reminded of the old adage “Red and Green should never be seen”. So alas, there is no way I can wear one of my Wednesdays with my Monday.
Happily, I do know where my mobile phone is. It is inside my Monday sock, hanging on the washing line, but still ringing and wringing wet.
:-)
But these particular socks really did promise an absolutely perfect match every time. Each pair in the packet had the name of a day embroidered on their toes. And the name of each day was embroidered in a different colour. For example, “Monday” was embroidered in red, which seemed appropriate for the first day of the week – a red-letter-day!
Well, it seemed like a brilliant idea at the time, so I bought them. What a terrible mistake that was. You see, I’d forgotten one of the basic laws of physics, which is that when you put an even number of socks into the washing machine, you get an odd number of socks out.
So I was faced with a puzzle. What on earth do you do with a single sock embroidered with the word “Monday” on its toe? My solution to this quandary was to keep my mobile phone in it.
Then a good friend of mine suggested it would be very avant-garde if I continued to wear my Monday sock on one foot, with a Wednesday sock on the other foot. A brilliant idea!
So I started rummaging in my sock drawer to look for my Wednesday socks. At first, I thought this would be a straightforward project, because my Wednesday socks have the word “Wednesday” embroidered on the toe of each sock. But the search took forever.
You see, I keep each pair of socks neatly ravelled up in a small bundle. But you can’t see the toes in a bundle. And as all my socks are black, all the bundles look identical. So I had to unravel each bundled pair. Whilst doing this, I came across a pair of socks that weren’t really a pair at all. The two socks were of different lengths. I had to lay these two mismatched socks on the bed, in the hope that I would find more mismatched pairs and be able to reconcile the problem later. Well, I did find several other mismatched pairs, and eventually I was able to reunite these socks into pairs of equal length and re-bundle accordingly.
At first I was quite pleased with myself. Then I remembered my original objective, which was to find my Wednesday socks. I hadn’t found them. So I looked in the laundry basket. No Wednesday socks. I looked inside the washing machine, which I had used earlier. No luck. I peered under the bed. No luck there either. I searched high and low, but my Wednesday socks had vanished.
Eventually, the truth dawned on me. The reason I couldn’t find my Wednesday socks was because it WAS Wednesday, and I was wearing them. Silly me, I thought, and I took my shoes off to check. Sure enough, there they were, on my feet, where they had been all the time. It was then that the really dreadful truth became apparent.
Both of my Wednesday socks are adorned with the word “Wednesday” in GREEN embroidery. But my solitary Monday sock has the word “Monday” embroidered in RED. I was instantly reminded of the old adage “Red and Green should never be seen”. So alas, there is no way I can wear one of my Wednesdays with my Monday.
Happily, I do know where my mobile phone is. It is inside my Monday sock, hanging on the washing line, but still ringing and wringing wet.
:-)
Friday, April 2, 2010
The Bully
The bully wore spectacles. He was big and fat, by far the biggest boy, with hangers-on behind him. They followed him everywhere, mimicking his lumbering walk. They surrounded a small boy at the far end of the playground. Other children nearby scuttled away. I didn’t see what happened next. The bell rang for class, and it was my first day at that primary school.
Next day, and for weeks afterwards, I stood near the teachers on playground duty, just outside my classroom door. It was a safe place to be, from where I could watch. There were incidents every day in the other half of the playground, in which the bully reinforced his dominance with a push, a spit, or a kick. He particularly liked pulling a girl’s hair, or snatching a possession and throwing it to the ground for his tribe to kick around.
The teachers on playground duty, and there were usually two of them, were oblivious, engrossed in their own conversation. Their attention only switched to the playground when the bell rang and they organised the children into lines outside their classrooms. None of the children complained. They were too intimidated.
My hate for that boy and his followers grew by the day, filling every moment of my time in the playground. I watched his every move as he swaggered about looking over the top of his spectacles, making up his mind what to do next. He had a habit of pushing his spectacles back up to the top his nose just before he picked on someone.
Inevitably, the day came when his eyes locked with mine. We stared into each other’s souls. His face curled with frustration because I was standing near the teachers, and out of his reach. He raised a fist and spat in my direction before turning to his tribe, then pointing me out to them. I was on his list – he had made that crystal clear.
The worst happened soon after, on a day when for some reason or another, there were no teachers in the playground. The bully saw me standing in my usual place, with my back against the school wall, and he made a beeline for me. As he approached he pushed his spectacles up to the top of his nose. It was my trigger. I flew off the wall with my fists flailing. His spectacles broke, and then broke again. There was blood from his eyes. He fell on his back screaming, me on top of him, pounding his hands as they tried to shield his eyes, hitting his mouth, his chin, and any part of his head I could see.
Teachers arrived, pulled me off, and one of them dragged me away into the school hall. The teacher holding me wanted to know what had happened, but I was still in such a rage that I couldn’t speak. Later, I heard a teacher say that an ambulance had taken the bully away.
I was kept in the hall until my mother came to pick up me from school, and the teachers took us to see the headmaster. It was then that I told my story. My mother took my side, and there was an argument. Afterwards, my mother told me that I wouldn’t be going to the school for much longer, because we were moving away to a new flat in a completely different area. I was enrolled into a new school shortly afterwards, where there was no other child with a seriously mean streak.
Except, perhaps, for a new boy who could be seen during playtime standing with his back to the wall....
Next day, and for weeks afterwards, I stood near the teachers on playground duty, just outside my classroom door. It was a safe place to be, from where I could watch. There were incidents every day in the other half of the playground, in which the bully reinforced his dominance with a push, a spit, or a kick. He particularly liked pulling a girl’s hair, or snatching a possession and throwing it to the ground for his tribe to kick around.
The teachers on playground duty, and there were usually two of them, were oblivious, engrossed in their own conversation. Their attention only switched to the playground when the bell rang and they organised the children into lines outside their classrooms. None of the children complained. They were too intimidated.
My hate for that boy and his followers grew by the day, filling every moment of my time in the playground. I watched his every move as he swaggered about looking over the top of his spectacles, making up his mind what to do next. He had a habit of pushing his spectacles back up to the top his nose just before he picked on someone.
Inevitably, the day came when his eyes locked with mine. We stared into each other’s souls. His face curled with frustration because I was standing near the teachers, and out of his reach. He raised a fist and spat in my direction before turning to his tribe, then pointing me out to them. I was on his list – he had made that crystal clear.
The worst happened soon after, on a day when for some reason or another, there were no teachers in the playground. The bully saw me standing in my usual place, with my back against the school wall, and he made a beeline for me. As he approached he pushed his spectacles up to the top of his nose. It was my trigger. I flew off the wall with my fists flailing. His spectacles broke, and then broke again. There was blood from his eyes. He fell on his back screaming, me on top of him, pounding his hands as they tried to shield his eyes, hitting his mouth, his chin, and any part of his head I could see.
Teachers arrived, pulled me off, and one of them dragged me away into the school hall. The teacher holding me wanted to know what had happened, but I was still in such a rage that I couldn’t speak. Later, I heard a teacher say that an ambulance had taken the bully away.
I was kept in the hall until my mother came to pick up me from school, and the teachers took us to see the headmaster. It was then that I told my story. My mother took my side, and there was an argument. Afterwards, my mother told me that I wouldn’t be going to the school for much longer, because we were moving away to a new flat in a completely different area. I was enrolled into a new school shortly afterwards, where there was no other child with a seriously mean streak.
Except, perhaps, for a new boy who could be seen during playtime standing with his back to the wall....
Coincidences
Coincidences are fascinating. They have a quality of surprise that makes us pause for breath in our busy lives, and wonder if we are a part of some greater mysterious pattern, or if the event was merely some random chance. I suppose that most people encounter coincidences one at a time, and relatively rarely, but my story is about a day when coincidences happened one after the other, all of them amazing.
It all happened on a Saturday when I was eighteen years old. I’d had a busy morning, shopping in the West End of London, where I bought myself a faux suede jacket and a pair of shoes before keeping an appointment to have my hair cut in my favourite barbershop tucked away in a side street off the Edgware Road. The barber, an old friend of my father’s, had cut my hair since I was six or seven years old.
When I got back home I was in a hurry. It was perilously close to the time that I’d arranged to meet a school friend at a local tube station. I quickly changed clothes, donning my new jacket and shoes for their first venture into the outside world. As I left the house, I crossed paths with the postman who had a letter addressed to me. I opened the envelope as I set off on my walk to the station. Oh happiness – the letter was a confirmation I had won a provisional place at my first choice college. And the exam grade requirements were just about within my reach.
At that moment a newspaper delivery van pulled up next to me. The driver asked for directions to the very same station that I was headed to. Of course, I offered to act as his guide if he gave me a lift to the station. He agreed and let me hop in. We arrived at the station five minutes before I was due to meet my friend.
Imagine my surprise as I alighted from the van to see my friend a few yards away, also alighting from another newspaper delivery van. We stood there and gaped at each other. Then we gaped some more, as we took in the fact that that we were each wearing brand new faux suede jackets and new shoes. And we were both sporting fresh haircuts.
It transpired that he had spent the morning doing exactly the same things as me, and he too had been asked directions to the station by a passing newspaper delivery van. We were amazed. We had even bought our jackets and shoes in the same shops.
But that wasn’t the end of it. I asked him where he had had his haircut. The very same barbers! And he had been going to the same shop for many years, but we had never crossed paths there.
I guess we must have stood outside that station for at least twenty minutes, in animated and somewhat bemused discussion about these incredible coincidences. Eventually we agreed to move on to our planned visit to the local youth club. It was then that I remembered my letter from the college admissions secretary. I reached inside my jacket for the letter at exactly the same moment that he was reaching inside his jacket.
You’ve guessed what happened next, haven’t you? We had identical letters, from the same college, for the same undergraduate course. And we both passed our A-levels with identical grades a few months later.
It all happened on a Saturday when I was eighteen years old. I’d had a busy morning, shopping in the West End of London, where I bought myself a faux suede jacket and a pair of shoes before keeping an appointment to have my hair cut in my favourite barbershop tucked away in a side street off the Edgware Road. The barber, an old friend of my father’s, had cut my hair since I was six or seven years old.
When I got back home I was in a hurry. It was perilously close to the time that I’d arranged to meet a school friend at a local tube station. I quickly changed clothes, donning my new jacket and shoes for their first venture into the outside world. As I left the house, I crossed paths with the postman who had a letter addressed to me. I opened the envelope as I set off on my walk to the station. Oh happiness – the letter was a confirmation I had won a provisional place at my first choice college. And the exam grade requirements were just about within my reach.
At that moment a newspaper delivery van pulled up next to me. The driver asked for directions to the very same station that I was headed to. Of course, I offered to act as his guide if he gave me a lift to the station. He agreed and let me hop in. We arrived at the station five minutes before I was due to meet my friend.
Imagine my surprise as I alighted from the van to see my friend a few yards away, also alighting from another newspaper delivery van. We stood there and gaped at each other. Then we gaped some more, as we took in the fact that that we were each wearing brand new faux suede jackets and new shoes. And we were both sporting fresh haircuts.
It transpired that he had spent the morning doing exactly the same things as me, and he too had been asked directions to the station by a passing newspaper delivery van. We were amazed. We had even bought our jackets and shoes in the same shops.
But that wasn’t the end of it. I asked him where he had had his haircut. The very same barbers! And he had been going to the same shop for many years, but we had never crossed paths there.
I guess we must have stood outside that station for at least twenty minutes, in animated and somewhat bemused discussion about these incredible coincidences. Eventually we agreed to move on to our planned visit to the local youth club. It was then that I remembered my letter from the college admissions secretary. I reached inside my jacket for the letter at exactly the same moment that he was reaching inside his jacket.
You’ve guessed what happened next, haven’t you? We had identical letters, from the same college, for the same undergraduate course. And we both passed our A-levels with identical grades a few months later.
Crash
It is one of those rare days when I can leave the office early. Midday sunshine and traffic is light as I snake my way out of the city. Life is good when your job is done, the customer is happy, and you are on your motor bike to spend the afternoon at home.
I turn the Honda left into the long run up to the fork at the station and check my rear view mirror. Nothing following me and the road is clear ahead. I relax and shift up through second and third. It will be a clear run past the station and up the hill to the heath.
A car in the distance approaches the fork from the left. It slows down and stops as it should, and I can see its right indicator flashing. I’m still quarter of a mile away, so there’s plenty of time for it to make its turn across my path. Except it doesn’t - it just sits there, indicator flashing.
It’s a fork junction with my right of way. But I’m cautious and double check that my left indicator is off. It is. No problem then. Strange the car hasn’t moved.
I’m passing across the front of the stationary car when it moves out and broadsides me. There is a fraction of time before that in which my left leg reflexes up out of the way. The lights go out.
My eyes open. I’m on my back, motionless, feeling nothing, waking into a dream. There is an ambulance close by, back doors wide open, casting a shadow over me. A paramedic is cutting the strap of my helmet. It’s too late to tell him no, don’t do that. I’m coming around, slowly moving my toes, my fingers, lifting and relaxing each knee, and raising my forearms. I’m working, but my head has a soft buzzing sound that isn’t unpleasant.
I’m told to lie still. My helmet is removed by someone else. I’m all right, I say. Let me try to get up. I start raising myself. It works, I’m sitting up. Let me stand up. They help me to my feet and want to know if I am feeling good. Yes I’m OK, no problem, and no, I don’t want to go to hospital for a check up. I look around, and see onlookers, the crumpled wreck of my bike, and two policemen talking to a man by the car that hit me.
The police walk over, take my name and address. Everything is happening so slowly. The ambulance moves away as the policemen drag my bike off the road onto the pavement. Then the police aren’t there anymore. The crowd dissolves, and I am alone with my buzzing noise and my bike. I walk into a shop and ask to use the phone to call home.
A neighbour answers. She is baby-sitting. She says she will get someone else to look after the kids and come pick me up. I’m in a dream, sitting on the kerb by my bike, not thinking about anything, waiting. She arrives in that big estate of hers, big enough for me to haul my bike on board.
We arrive home. The kitchen door in from the drive is wide open and the room is crowded. I see my wife and kids, my mother, the neighbours, their kids, and good friends who should be at work now, but have rushed here. And my dog is jumping up on me.
I sit down at my kitchen table, and big silent tears start pouring out of me. Because I know what might have been, and because I’m home, where I’m not alone.
I turn the Honda left into the long run up to the fork at the station and check my rear view mirror. Nothing following me and the road is clear ahead. I relax and shift up through second and third. It will be a clear run past the station and up the hill to the heath.
A car in the distance approaches the fork from the left. It slows down and stops as it should, and I can see its right indicator flashing. I’m still quarter of a mile away, so there’s plenty of time for it to make its turn across my path. Except it doesn’t - it just sits there, indicator flashing.
It’s a fork junction with my right of way. But I’m cautious and double check that my left indicator is off. It is. No problem then. Strange the car hasn’t moved.
I’m passing across the front of the stationary car when it moves out and broadsides me. There is a fraction of time before that in which my left leg reflexes up out of the way. The lights go out.
My eyes open. I’m on my back, motionless, feeling nothing, waking into a dream. There is an ambulance close by, back doors wide open, casting a shadow over me. A paramedic is cutting the strap of my helmet. It’s too late to tell him no, don’t do that. I’m coming around, slowly moving my toes, my fingers, lifting and relaxing each knee, and raising my forearms. I’m working, but my head has a soft buzzing sound that isn’t unpleasant.
I’m told to lie still. My helmet is removed by someone else. I’m all right, I say. Let me try to get up. I start raising myself. It works, I’m sitting up. Let me stand up. They help me to my feet and want to know if I am feeling good. Yes I’m OK, no problem, and no, I don’t want to go to hospital for a check up. I look around, and see onlookers, the crumpled wreck of my bike, and two policemen talking to a man by the car that hit me.
The police walk over, take my name and address. Everything is happening so slowly. The ambulance moves away as the policemen drag my bike off the road onto the pavement. Then the police aren’t there anymore. The crowd dissolves, and I am alone with my buzzing noise and my bike. I walk into a shop and ask to use the phone to call home.
A neighbour answers. She is baby-sitting. She says she will get someone else to look after the kids and come pick me up. I’m in a dream, sitting on the kerb by my bike, not thinking about anything, waiting. She arrives in that big estate of hers, big enough for me to haul my bike on board.
We arrive home. The kitchen door in from the drive is wide open and the room is crowded. I see my wife and kids, my mother, the neighbours, their kids, and good friends who should be at work now, but have rushed here. And my dog is jumping up on me.
I sit down at my kitchen table, and big silent tears start pouring out of me. Because I know what might have been, and because I’m home, where I’m not alone.
Monologues and Dialogues
Yes, living on a Spanish sub-tropical island is slowly driving me nuts. As if any further proof were needed of my continuing descent into insanity, I’ve started talking to inanimate objects. It began one morning several months ago, after I’d put my second sock on.
A cursory examination of me in the mirror confirmed that both socks had holes in them. “You poor things”, I murmured, adding the somewhat ambiguous comment “You really are on your last legs, aren’t you?”
Then I had breakfast, and started talking to the marmalade on my toast. “Crikey! You’re yummy!” And while examining the Spanish label on the marmalade jar “And to think I thought you were jam!”
Afterwards, when I went down to the car, I said “Good Girl!” when it started first time.
It’s sad, isn’t it? But in a strange sort of way, all this extra talking I do is strangely comforting. It’s good to happily chat away, safe in the knowledge that nobody will answer back.
In fact, it’s virtually impossible to engage an inanimate object with a decent monologue when there are other people about. If you try it in the presence of family or friends you’ll soon find out what I mean. They tend to ignore your quick comments, like those I’ve described above, but if you keep talking for more than a minute or two, they simply can’t resist interrupting.
However, if you try and do a monologue with an inanimate object in the presence of strangers, their reactions are quite the opposite. All the people in the supermarket aisles simply shuffle away when they hear me talking. Yesterday I was examining a tin of sardines halfway down what had been a fairly crowded aisle, when I noticed that everyone had disappeared.
Of course, there are exceptions. Not everyone behaves like those people in the supermarket. Take my therapist, for example. He never said anything in all my twice-weekly visits. Until yesterday, that is, when he finally broke his silence.
“No hablo ingles” he said.
Psychiatrists don’t know everything, do they? And you should have seen the look of surprise on his face as he realised I was an accomplished ventriloquist. Speechless, he was....
A cursory examination of me in the mirror confirmed that both socks had holes in them. “You poor things”, I murmured, adding the somewhat ambiguous comment “You really are on your last legs, aren’t you?”
Then I had breakfast, and started talking to the marmalade on my toast. “Crikey! You’re yummy!” And while examining the Spanish label on the marmalade jar “And to think I thought you were jam!”
Afterwards, when I went down to the car, I said “Good Girl!” when it started first time.
It’s sad, isn’t it? But in a strange sort of way, all this extra talking I do is strangely comforting. It’s good to happily chat away, safe in the knowledge that nobody will answer back.
In fact, it’s virtually impossible to engage an inanimate object with a decent monologue when there are other people about. If you try it in the presence of family or friends you’ll soon find out what I mean. They tend to ignore your quick comments, like those I’ve described above, but if you keep talking for more than a minute or two, they simply can’t resist interrupting.
However, if you try and do a monologue with an inanimate object in the presence of strangers, their reactions are quite the opposite. All the people in the supermarket aisles simply shuffle away when they hear me talking. Yesterday I was examining a tin of sardines halfway down what had been a fairly crowded aisle, when I noticed that everyone had disappeared.
Of course, there are exceptions. Not everyone behaves like those people in the supermarket. Take my therapist, for example. He never said anything in all my twice-weekly visits. Until yesterday, that is, when he finally broke his silence.
“No hablo ingles” he said.
Psychiatrists don’t know everything, do they? And you should have seen the look of surprise on his face as he realised I was an accomplished ventriloquist. Speechless, he was....
Heavy Socks
How heavy is a SOCK I wonder?
I’ll use the bathroom scales.
The needle doesn’t move a bit
And I worry why that fails.
So I weigh myself in just one sock
And then with both socks on.
I am the same weight either way
It’s a puzzle - something’s wrong.
So I weigh myself in ALL my socks
And yes, I now weigh more.
The needle’s gone right off the scale
Which it wasn’t just before.
So I peel a sock off my left foot
And then one off my right.
I know if I keep doing this
I’ll go from heavy to light.
I'll check my weight every two socks off
That seems about just right.
I don't suppose it matters much
If I lose a bit of height.
This takes an hour and fifteen minutes
My feet are feeling sore.
Now half my socks are on my feet
And the rest are on the floor.
But the needle stays right off the scale
Its nearly half past two.
It must be time to take a break
And rethink the whole thing through.
Yes I’m far too tired to carry on
I need a cunning plot.
Suppose I take off ALL my socks
And then weigh the bloody lot?
I can get a box to put them in
And count them one by one.
If I divide the total weight
By the count then I'll be done.
But there is one thing that troubles me
About this weight of socks.
How will I know the total weight
Without the weight of the box?
How heavy is a box I wonder?
I’ll use the bathroom scales.
The needle doesn’t move a bit
Can you guess what this entails?
If there is one thing I shall not do
Its do it all again.
With lots of boxes and no socks?
There's no way I'm that insane!
:-)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)