Election 2019 - Here's Boris

My piece a day or two ago, suggesting that the incumbent in Uxbridge & South Ruislip was elsewhere, has been rendered obsolete. I am indebted for this tweet (and to @RuislipManor who retweeted it to me) showing the great man enthralling a vast cheering crowd somewhere in Eastcote, on the eastern borders of his constituency.

A shame that, for technical reasons, the shots of the vast cheering crowd, displaying the "fantastic optimism" for which we are justly famed in this part of the world, are not available on this clip. Cynics might suggest that Mr J was in fact orating to an empty street but I couldn't possibly comment.

Yesterday also saw the first sighting of canvassers. My eye was caught by a flurry of activity right outside my house. I peeped through the net curtains and watched about ten people, each sporting a blue rosette, earnestly consulting clipboards and giving each directions. I assume they were canvassers - they might have been rosette salespeople, working for some ghastly multi-level marketing scheme where each buys rosettes from the person above them in the chain and tries to flog them on but this can probably be safely discarded. No, I think they were Conservative party supporters.

I mentally rehearsed some of the questions I might put, should any be brave enough to essay my drive and ring the bell, especially the one about the man who was going to die in front of the bulldozers at Heathrow right up to the point that he changed his mind; they must have got wind of this because the whole lot suddenly stormed up the road and disappeared in the general direction of the Ruislip woods and the posh houses that surround them. I suppose they might get a warmer welcome there.

101 Things #29 - Danish Comfort

Settle back into your favourite armchair, snuggle into an old fleecy cardigan and sip some hot tea as I explain why today's entry on my non-achievers bucket list, 101 Things I Refuse To Do Before I Die, is the biggest thing in Denmark (apart from the Carlsberg brewery) and why I stout-heartedly refuse to

Embrace Hygge.

A few years ago you couldn't move for people going on about feng shui, moving their toilets out of their living rooms to bring good luck [That always works, you know: Ed] and paying consultants to tell them solemnly that because their yin and yang were out of balance with the cosmic auras, it would be necessary for quite a lot of money to change hands.

When I started work in London some considerable time ago, no man would sport any facial jewellery, not even the smallest ear stud. Today it is unexceptional to find plastic rings stuck into ear lobes, or staples above the eyebrows. 

Fashions come and go. Feng shui may be on the way down; bolts through the lips on the way up. When you have had long experience of such evanescent trends, it is easier to ignore the pressure of social media and public hysteria over the next one.

One of the more recent fashions was a Danish pastime known as hygge. Hygge was presented as some sort of spiritual revolution in how to live, embraced instantly by magazine columnists overjoyed to have new content to fill their pages and by all who wished to be seen at the forefront of novelty. We were told that adherents outnumbered ordinary Danes by two to one, that 5 million people round the world were signing up each day and that anyone not totally familiar with the theory and practice of hygge would, within a few months, find themselves a social outcast, divorced, jobless and fit only for admission to a secure hospital of the type with bars on the windows. [I don't recall all of these details, is there any truth to them? Ed].

Before we can go any further let us settle on how to say this peculiar (to English-speakers) word. According to CountryLiving.com it is "hoo-gaa". That's a bit of a googly right from the start. I always thought it was "higgy" (and I bet you did too). Hoo-gaa is what rows of sinister orientals in kung-fu films chant as a sort of war cry, when about to go (one at a time) into a ludicrously speeded-up unarmed combat sequence against the lone hero, who stands impassively as he despatches them with a quick chop here and a kick to the nadgers there. You probably recall Mel Gibson as Robert the Bruce Lee in some of them.

Now we know how to say it (and do try to do so without chuckling), what is it? Thanks to sites like CountryLiving, I learn that is a philosophy that transforms and brings happiness. It

encompasses a feeling of cozy contentment and well-being through enjoying the simple things in life. If you've ever enjoyed reading a book indoors on a rainy Sunday or a cup of hot cocoa on a snow day, you've experienced hygge without even knowing it. 

 Yes, I have done these things. I have read books indoors and out, on trains and in waiting rooms and at the back of rehearsal rooms. I have read them in the rain (rain outside, me inside, you understand) or when the sunlight is blistering bright, on Tuesdays and on Fridays too. Yes, I have had a cup of hot cocoa on a snowy day, not to mention a biscuit and slice of very acceptable cake. I've had cocoa on days when it wasn't snowing at all. One or two might have been on Sundays, I'm not sure if that counts or disqualifies me.

 It's not all just about lazing about. Oh, perhaps it is though. Here's a bit more from CountryLiving on how to create those cosy vibes that are the essence of hygge.

 In Denmark that might mean pastries, meatballs, and copious amounts of coffee, but in America you might want to pour yourself a warm drink, dig up your grandma's chicken pot pie recipe, or spend a weekend afternoon baking your favorite chocolate cake

I suppose we could translate the last bit into British

... in Britain you might want to pour yourself a hot cup of tea, watch another repeat of Midsomer Murders on telly and spend the weekend eating any old cake that happens to be in the house whilst screaming at the cat to stop bringing dead birds into the kitchen.

Is that it? Is that what all the hype is about? Essentially it seems to mean telling non-Danes to do stuff they would do anyway, and the happiness it brings is to the rash of authors of "little books of" and the like whose lives are certainly transformed when large sums of money move in their direction (see Feng Shui, op.cit.).

Did you notice the smug claim in the quote above: 'you've experienced hygge without even knowing it'? By exactly the same token I hereby declare that I am the founder of scromblekag, an ancient form of wisdom emanating from the eastern part of Ruislip. If you have ever cursed the delays on the trains and compensated for it, internally, by wishing a murrain upon those who have chosen to divert your normal service elsewhere, then you too have experienced scromblekag without even knowing it. Now is the time for you to buy my "Extremely small but reassuringly expensive book of scromblekag", sign up for the correspondence course (You will experience top quality scromblekag when you see the terms and conditions) and start spreading the word (even sillier words are available at a very reasonable price).

Obviously I am going to go on doing what I did before. I refuse to have my everyday lifestyle appropriated by a fashion or to have to consult anyone before deciding that being comfortable is better than being uncomfortable. When the craze has died down, like all such trends before it, those of us who like wearing old jumpers, sitting around the sofa and carefully pondering the next choice of biscuit will still be here and you know what? - We don't give a toss what this lifestyle is called. Scromblekag to the lot of them!

Election 2019 - The Calm before the Other Calm

There is very little to report as the general election campaign begins to gear up for the big day. Nationally, the parties are all promising to spend loads of cash and to do things they never did when they were in government. Locally, only the Green party has managed to match the flyer that the Conservatives dropped off some ten days ago; their leaflet is clearly in favour of the environment and then their candidate woffles so badly on Brexit

Has our democracy failed us? This cannot go unanswered.

that I am left wondering how this helps. The party wishes to have another vote but does not say what would happen if the country splits more or less evenly. The rest is wishful thinking.

There have been no sightings of our local MP, one B. Johnson, but I suppose he has more important things to do such as being photographed staring blankly at machinery in factories or kissing babies in a town centre as is traditional at these times.

Nigel Farage (who, utterly inexplicably and not in the least down to the fast vanishing vote for his party, is not actually standing as a candidate anywhere) was interviewed this morning on the Today programme on BBC Radio 4. I don't know what he said because my hand somehow slipped onto the off switch just as he started and then I seemed to forget where it was. Oh, dear. I suppose I could catch up with it on the internet but, would you credit it, I seem to have forgotten how to do that as well.

101 Things #28 - Dangerous Bathing

Normally, as I select items for my anti-bucket list 101 Things I Refuse To Do Before I Die there is one feature of the suggestion from which I recoil. But in today's example there are two (with a third one cunningly hidden) so it was very easy for me to reject the notion proposed by Conde Nast Traveler that I should

Go swimming with sharks.

I can see why people might wish to swim with dolphins. Dolphins are intelligent, sociable, playful, enjoy interacting with humans and revel as much in hurtling out of the water as they do in effortlessly powering in it. They can also be nasty little sadists when given the chance to knock some hapless smaller animal about but who are we humans to judge?

Sharks are different. They exist to hunt and kill and appear to do little else. If a shipwrecked mariner sees dolphins swimming about his raft he may rejoice of their company. When a fin breaks the surface and circles, he pulls his feet well back, grips his oar tightly and prepares to do battle.

Why swim with them? Inside a cage, to have them eyeing you and up down and maybe batter away at it? Or swim free and spend all your time looking over your shoulder and hoping, really hoping very hard, that they've all just had a really enormous lunch and are simply out for a little light exercise to help it go down?

Pic: Seeker.com

I don't swim and don't enjoy being submerged. I certainly don't relish going anywhere near an omnivorous animal loaded with teeth like this. I might get a thrill from being so close to them and having their cold eyes giving me the once-over but what's in it for the shark? Is it considering how much of a struggle I might put up and whether it can get me unwrapped without getting too much swimsuit caught up in its teeth?



Now, we've got the swimming as one unwanted feature and the sharks as the second. What of the third, you ask? [Go on, ask, it'll make him feel better to know someone is taking an interest: Ed]. It is that, to get to anywhere where one can swim with sharks, it would be necessary to fly. Conde Nast themselves suggest Fiji, the Maldives, Mexico, the Bahamas, Australia or South Africa. Great, guys, thanks a million, assuming I did want to mix it with some of nature's toughest predators, I first have to run the gauntlet of airport security, endure the agony of a cramped economy seat for hours and then pay for an expensive holiday. How much carbon will be emitted to satisfy this whim for an adrenaline rush? Never mind other gases that might be emitted if one of these sods gets too close with jaws agape.

This activity definitely is one I'm happy not to have on my check list when the nice social workers in the care home ask me to reminisce.

101 Things #27 - The Man on the Ladder

There are many occupations that one might follow. Some require years of study and a genuine aptitude; others not much more than can-do attitude and a determination to work really hard to succeed. Numbered mainly amongst the latter is a job that has never tempted me and nor shall it in the limited time that remains. It is a worthy addition to my anti-bucket list, 101 Things I Refuse To Do Before I Die. No matter what may befall, I shall not

Become a decorator.

I have nothing against decorators. Indeed, I have relied upon them to paint, wallpaper, plaster and carpent my house from time to time. [Are you sure about this? Is there no other verb for what a carpenter does? I'll look it up: Ed] Standing well back, I admire the deft flicking of the brushes, the slopping on of paste, the confident selection of the right tool first time from a well stocked toolbox and the effortless swigging down of tea (three sugars, thanks love). They crouch down to snip off a millimetre of excess paper here and shave a flake off a sticking door there. And, sooner or later, they bring out ladders and planks and up they go into the dizzying heights above my head as they work on ceilings and that yawning gap on the wrong side of the bannisters on the first floor landing.

We have reached the crux of the matter. A decorator must be good on ladders. He must be able to stand reaching up with both hands free, balancing perilously on the top step of the ladder, blithely ignoring the chasm beneath. His hand remains steady and his feet firmly in place. Looking down presents no difficulty. His vision does not swim, nor is he gripped by visions of trembling, losing his balance, and toppling off the step to plunge, limbs flailing, to the unforgiving floor.

 If he has an assistant, that worthy is not to be found providing a heavy boot on the bottom tread to guarantee stability and the top of a head to be clutched for support. He will be elsewhere, mixing the paint, fetching up the tea (those biscuits were lovely, thanks again) or idling half in, half out of the van with the radio on and a blissful fag on the go. Untroubled by the prospect of a future poised above stairwells or leaning precariously out of windows, he contemplates nothing more bothersome than the runners in the 2:35 at Catterick.

This is where decorating and I part company. Up those ladders I refuse to go. More than two steps high, my hands falter, legs begin shaking and strange notions enter the brain. All my attention is given to remaining in place. Any movement, such as the extension of the arm to paint a wall, is forbidden; it would ruin my balance and all would be lost. Merely contemplating going higher induces a state of mild panic in which freezing in place is the only solution until at last one can stretch a foot backwards to return to normality on the lower rungs.

For similar reasons I have declined to become a circus trapeze or high wire artist, have allowed others to claim prime contracts in the demolition of industrial chimneys and, with regret, have never gone into mountaineering. These careers are somewhat precarious, in more than one sense. Decorating, however, is solid and can be done without excessive travelling or upfront financial investment (We've all got some old paint brushes in the garage, after all, it only needs a bit of turps to get them fairly usable). It is easy to begin - one need but print up a few flyers and pop them through one's neighbours' letter-boxes, and then sit back and wait for the phone to ring. Just up my street is a decorator and he is very much in demand. I could take on the clients he is too busy to oblige, couldn't I? And I'd be cheaper.

So I could easily have this on my bucket list of things to do, if it were not for the blasted ladders. There is no getting around it. Decorating is for others and I must resolutely refuse to be tempted into it, no matter how many offers to print really cheap flyers come my way.