Sunday 18 August 2013

Random Thoughts about Nick: Cars, Vans, WOMBATS


Cars, Planes, WOMBATS

I once thought of writing the story of a relationship in terms of the vehicles in which and by which it is conducted, over several years. This seemed plausible to me even though I can't drive and have little idea what goes on under a car bonnet.  

Clearly it was Nick I had in mind.

In 1985 he was still in his young executive slimline briefcase phase, although, in his own words, had just fucked his career at American Express.

He had gone to his bosses and demanded they remove him from a jetsetting job running training for Amex agents all over French-speaking Africa, to doing any available work in the massive Brighton offices that could be dropped like a hot brick at 3 each afternoon in order for him to pick Jess up from nursery. He then spent the next hours playing with her and getting her tea before dropping her back at her Mum’s at seven pm.

I think there had been some additional deal about him returning to the AmEx office for another few hours work after that, or at weekends, but I’m pretty sure it seldom occurred. But pick up and spend time with Jessica he did, every weekday.

The car was a Cavalier: a model much loved by advertising execs and sales fleet procurers. It was metallic looking – very popular in the 80s – and the very first car I’d ever been in where the music system played CDs instead of battered cassettes that got stuck and spewed loops of tape.

CDs! The very cherry on the Black Forest Gateau of 80s sophistication!

The sound quality was very good indeed: in fact there was a James Last CD in which Nick could make out a metallic little clink. After careful listening he concluded it was the sound of the flute knocking against the music stand.

In-car listening was not quite what you’d associate with Nick of later years: Eurythmics, Level 42, Simply Red, and bloody Dire bloody Straits, who were everywhere at the time. But also Dr Hook, whose surprisingly rude songs may well have influenced subsequent donkey-based humour, the delightful Roche sisters, for the Plum to sing along to from the Plumseat in the back, and Frank Zappa, Joe’s Garage, as soon as Nick knew I had been a Roman Catholic. 

Blasting along between Birmingham and Leamington Spa, or from Brighton to Drusilla's, or through Southern England on the way to Glastonbury, we sang The Freaker's Ball, Ireland Soon, and many another. 

Later came Vanessa, a VW camper van. I think there were at least two Vanessas, one with a popup top in which there was a little den for Jessica to sleep in at festivals.

The final Vanessa, in the mid 1990s, became a bit of a nuisance, which Nick decided to solve by arranging for it to be “stolen” and disposed of while he was away visiting me in Thailand.

He was outraged on his return to find the thing still gently rotting where he had left it. ‘Where can you find a thief you can trust these days?’

Finally there came a succession of vans and trucks, in various states of repair, many of them fitted out with ingenuity, often full of musical paraphernalia, old t-shirts, and even worse, musicians.

In one WOMBAT - Waste Of Money, Brains And Time - covered in rust and patches, he drove up to Norwich for August Bank Holiday 2003. We had both just returned to England from elsewhere – he from France, me from the United Arab Emirates.

The van pootled along fairly reliably once it got going, but starting was complicated. It involved pulling out the cover behind the steering wheel – revealing a spaghetti of different coloured wires - and Nick diving down into the footwell with a large pair of pliers while at the same time keeping a hand, or occasionally a foot, on the wheel. He could not see where he was going and get going at the same time, and the tangle of wires became ominously longer each time.

At one point as we potttered along the Norfolk lanes we passed a convoy of rather splendid glittering vintage cars coming the other way, out for what was probably their ‘once a year if the weather is right’ excursion away from the deep oil, bubble-wrap, and temperature-controlled garages in which they were usually preserved. The drivers were vintage too – some of them dressed appropriately in deerstalkers, capes, big hats and so on.

Nick fixed his eyes on the drivers, took both hands off the wheel and applauded wildly, nearly causing the leading driver to swallow his meerschaum pipe.

‘It’s nice of them to make all that effort just to entertain us,’ Nick said. "Think of all the trouble they’ve gone to so we can look at them.

And they  have to look at us! "


Monday 12 August 2013

April Fool: Random Thoughts about Nick


April Fool

Nick always claimed he was an April Fools’ Day prank.

The story was that after his big sister Lesley was born his father said, “One’s enough”. So Nick’s Mum sabotaged the marital condoms. Before noon on April 1st she was able to say “April Fool!” 

Sure enough, Nick was born on Boxing Day 1950.

I have no idea whether that was true or not, but remembering Romee, Nick’s tank driving, Nazi-escaping, Japanese-Prisoner-of-War-camp-surviving, multi-lingual German-Dutch-Jewish matriarch mother, I wouldn’t be at all surprised.  

(There’s a memorable vignette of Romee in A Liars Autobiography, by Graham Chapman, the deceased Monty Python member. Chapman and other Pythons used to drink at The Monarch in Chalk Farm Road, the pub that Nick’s parents ran, and attended Nick’s wedding some time in the 70s).

Sunday 11 August 2013

Tales for Weddings

A couple of storytellers have asked about tales suitable for weddings or engagement parties. 

There are millions of stories on a theme of marriage, some more, some less appropriate for weddings, though weddings are traditionally places where inappropriate things can be said too. 

However, I'm not sure many newly weds would want Dave Tonge, the Yarnsmith of Norwich, to tell his startling tale of the husband, the wife, the angel and the magic ring just in the middle of their celebrations... (Not that it isn't a great story: you must hear Dave tell it some time! Just not exactly wedding fare, no matter how rude the best man's speech).

Anyway, here's a tale which appears in Jewish (Ashkenazim) tradition but also in India and North Africa (Mahgrebi) tales. 

* * *

Back in the days when young men and young women did not mix much socially, people still used a matchmaker to help them find a husband or wife. 

The matchmaker was called to a family where the son was thinking about getting married. 

Did he have any specific woman in mind? asked the matchmaker. No, said, the young man, but she has to be a kind-hearted girl - I couldn't live with a wife who was unkind.

The matchmaker thought about it and suggested some suitable, kind hearted girls, and the young man thought about it and said 'Fine, but what do they look like? I want a beautiful wife, obviously.' 

So the matchmaker thought again, and came up with a list of kind girls who were also beautiful. 

And the young man said, Yes, but are they intelligent and well-educated? I couldn't possibly marry someone who wasn't.

The matchmaker gave it some thought and brought a list of girls who were kind and beautiful and intelligent and well educated. 

And the young man said, You know what? It would be ideal to have a wife with a bit of money put by. 

So the list got re-jigged again. And this time the young man said, I forgot to mention cooking. A woman who can cook well - that's so important for me.' 

So... finally the matchmaker brought a list of suitable girls who were kind and beautiful, and intelligent and educated and had some savings and were good cooks. 

And the matchmaker and the young man went through the list, and this one had a brother the young man disliked and that one, well, the young man had once heard her use a swearword in public, which of course put her out of the question for him, and this one sometimes wore a dress the young man felt did not suit her ... and so the list got shorter and shorter, until there was just one woman left on it. Surprising there was anyone, really. 

And try as he might - and he did try hard - the young man could not find anything to object to. She was, by his standards, the perfect woman, and he thought she would make him the perfect wife. 

So... great excitement, the matchmaker set up a meeting between the two.

The young man went off to the meeting looking very pleased but he came back looking like a wet weekend.

What's the matter? said the matchmaker. Wasn't she as perfect as we thought?

No, said the young man. As far as I can tell, she's the perfect woman.

The problem is, she's looking for the perfect man.

Ah, you didn't think of that, said the matchmaker, and walked away.

* * *

Friday 9 August 2013

Practice seminars today.

Students discuss rival candidates to become visiting lecturers and try to agree who to choose.

One student's vote went to Semen Cowell.

Surprisingly apt.

Thursday 8 August 2013

The Language of Disagreement

Preparing students for a seminar exam, recommended language for expressing disagreement includes:

- I'm afraid I'm not convinced...

- Well, you may have a point, but...

and

- I'm sorry but I really don't go along with that.

No mention at all of the most commonly used expressions in my household:

- Bollocks!

- Tummy rubbish!

and the diplomatic, not to say literary

- Up to a point, Lord Copper.


It seems a shame that students do not tend to get exposed to the actual English expressions used by people like me (by which I mean habitually foul-mouthed people, of course).

Which reminds me I have totally failed to introduce the expression 'bolleme' into everyday English. Based on lexeme, meaning a unit of lexis (or as we say in English, a word) bolleme means a unit of bollocks.

Examples:

Phew, that management meeting had a particularly high bolleme count, didn't it?

Looks like 'synergy' is bolleme of the day.

I thought that article was pretty good except for the bolleme on page 4

Adam Smith supposed that all participants in the market are rational actors and have all the information they need to choose rationally at all times based on their own best interests - which is a bit of a bolleme, when you come to look at the evidence.


There is clearly a need for this handy expression, but so far, alas, no takers.



Wednesday 7 August 2013

Random thoughts about Nick: Shooting stars


One August and another.

Early August, and the Perseid meteor shower swings past the planet again.

Nick and I crept out to one of the Downs, to a wheat field, nearly due the cutting, well over the brow of the hill from the city glare.

Gradually our eyes began to get used to the night sky, and then flickers at the edge of vision, fugitive glitters which seemed sure to be – nothing, just eyes playing tricks – intensified, brightened, and resolved themselves into long striations of light passing over us, here, then there.

Finally a speck of light appeared, grew brighter, bigger, closer, hurtling towards us, and instantly winked out. We both jumped, blinked, shook our heads.

I swear we could feel the star grit in our eyes.

Later, as we got up to go, collecting the rugs, Nick looked at the imprint we’d left in the field, which I’ve no doubt has been extra fertile ever since.

“Ahah! A crop oblong!”

‘Shooting stars,’ became a code between us – a secret password.

Now the Perseids are passing  by us once again, on their ineffable journey, as I head south to see him off  on his.

Shooting stars.


Tuesday 6 August 2013

Random Thoughts About Nick: I dreamt about my Dad

In Sussex staying with friends and preparing to commemorate one of my oldest friends, Nick Clyne, who died on July 25th. I've been jotting down some random thoughts and memories about him and thought I'd post one or two as they occur.


I dreamt of my Dad.

I’ll explain.

Meeting Nick for the first time, in December 1985, the initial impression was strongly, and rather alarmingly, reminiscent of my father, who had at that point been dead for 11 years.

There were resemblances. Both were witty, affectionate, highly intelligent, fat men with - as I discovered the next day, when Nick invited me round to tea with him and Jessica, then known as the Plum - a much-loved daughter.

Physically, apart from the fat, they were not in the least alike, but their emotional and intellectual signatures were remarkably similar. So much so that, when Nick and I were beginning to make a leisurely progress towards the inside of each other – a journey which began almost immediately  - I found the resemblance off-putting, and told him so.  (I’ve since made peace with the liking for witty, affectionate, highly intelligent fat men – men with curly ginger hair - that seems to have been imprinted on my psyche ever since. I’m married to one, but back then it had not occurred to me that I had a type.)

On Wednesday afternoon, 24th July 2013, I started to feel ill at work – dizzy and nauseated. I went home early, and the next day stayed off work and off line, feeling the room spin round.

Early on Friday morning I dreamt my Dad was sitting beside me. In Nick’s voice, he told me, ‘I’ve been alive again for a few years, but I’m going to have to be dead for a bit now. Sorry.’ 

I told Barrie what I’d dreamt, went to work and logged onto a computer to check messages.

And there was the announcement of Nick’s death.