Cosy Moments

It is almost a certainty that, as one picks up a previously unread Wodehouse novel, the following hours of happy reading will contain at least one moment of utterly irrepressible mirth. It will come in any form: a word, a sentence, a phrase, a paragraph. In The Code of the Woosters, for instance, this moment occurs across the words, “Modern Dutch”, for reasons that only those acquainted with the text will comprehend. Similarly, in the collection of short stories, My Man Jeeves, we hear of Bicky who “rocked like a jelly in a high wind”. Likewise, in a later text, Right Ho, Jeeves, Bertie remarks at a time of some considerable stress:

The persp., already bedewing my brow, became a regular Niagara.

Bertie goes on and, in conversation with his inimitable manservant Jeeves, attempts to confirm the identity of a gentleman under discussion:

The chap with the nose?

With this canon of regular hilarity whetting my comedy loins somewhat, I approached the Psmith series with dewy anticipation. I was not disappointed, dear reader, for within the first chapter or so, the reader is introduced to a nobleman of sorts, Billy Windsor, who possesses a notable talent for the security business.

[Billy’s] alliance with Pugsy Maloney had begun on the occasion when he had rescued that youth from the clutches of a large negro, who, probably from the soundest of motives, was endeavoring to slay him.

Richard Herring on Mastermind

Stewart Lee’s old comrade, Richard Herring followed in the master’s footsteps a few weeks ago and appeared on Celebrity Mastermind. The “celebrity” element of these things are always knocking at the doors of the weights and measurements department, but it’s a welcome aside to the usual mill-running dandies. (As Monkey Dust once postulated, soon celebrities will be produced at a faster rate than at which society can support them.)

Anyway, Herring did remarkably well. However, he was pipped at the post by a frustratingly perfect Hilary Kay, a presenter on Antiques Roadshow. Herring scored a resounding 35, but Kay went on to win with a monumental 36. I understand Herring would have set some sort of record were it not for her ladyship. Alack, when Stewart Lee sat before John Humphrys he came away with the trophy. As with many things, perhaps it just wasn’t to be for his old compatriot. Herring’s chosen topic was the mad monk, Rasputin, which shocked me somewhat. I’m aware that Herring has a degree in modern history from Oxford, but I hadn’t imagined his obsession to go that far. It has since come to light, however, that Herring’s first choice for his chosen field was Spinal Tap. Perhaps the producers deemed that area a touch too narrow.

When I wrote about Lee’s appearance on the show last March I noted how it didn’t surprise me that he won, and especially how his chosen subject demonstrated all the trimmings of an obsessive mind. What is it with comedians, particularly the best ones, and obsessive minds? Is the same true with all stage performers? Am I mistaken, and it’s simply a matter of better and more practiced memory?

Lastly, I feel compelled to point out that Hilary Kay’s chosen subject was The Life and Works of Josiah Wedgwood, which I can’t help but feel puts her in a somewhat advantageous position; she is, after all, a professional expert on the subject. It would almost be like Richard Herring’s chosen subject being The Life and Work of Richard Herring. Obviously, that’s a strange descent into hyperbole, but I have a point on this, I’m just not sure where I’m going with it yet.

PS. - The episode is worth seeking out if only for a predictably dire performance from the worst football pundit of his generation, Mark Lawrenson.

Salinger

I confess that I’m rather touched by this piece of news concerning J.D. Salinger. As opposed to the image one may adopt of the reclusive author, feverishly scribbling and reading, the only treatment or distraction from a frantic and overactive mind, buried away in some writer’s hermitage with books lining the walls and papers stacked like stalagmites, it transpires that Salinger enjoyed coach trips around Niagra Falls and the Grand Canyon, among other small delights. Imagine that: regular chappies like you or I sat beside Salinger on a bus without the slightest knowledge. One supposes that after, say, twenty years of seclusion it would be quite possible to enjoy the theatre or the local pub unmolested. Unless you’re a female, of course. I feel it’s only appropriate to take this to its inevitable conclusion, and parade around declaring how I bumped into Harper Lee at the sushi place the other day, and how I saw Thomas Pynchon doing karaoke with a trumpet on Saturday night. Fact.

Inception

As the seasonal movie cycle draws to its conclusion, I’m reminded of my perpetually lackluster cinema attendance record, as I haven’t seen most of the films nominated for the popular categories of the Academy Awards. I understand that The King’s Speech is receiving bouts of applause up and down the country, but it still heads my list of movie-experiences not had. I also haven’t seen Toy Story 3, Black Swan, The Fighter, 127 Hours, Social Network, True Grit, Winter’s Bone, and I’m sure there are a few others, but, dear reader, I have seen Inception, and I say with some confidence, albeit utterly unfounded, that it deserves at the very least a nomination for Best Director. Although I left the cinema without the palpable sense of exquisite delirium that so befell my beloved, one of its obvious merits was the invisible hand of Christopher Nolan. Much to the derision of the people I confront on this matter, I still maintain that, by quite a margin, Batman Begins is a better film than The Dark Knight, and Inception doesn’t quite surpass my level of admiration for the first of Nolan’s Batman trilogy. And yet, Nolan clearly deserves some personal recognition. Needless to say, this isn’t the first occasion in which directors have been overlooked by the academy; Danny Boyle was completely sidelined for his masterpiece, Sunshine, and Shane Meadows was roundly ignored in 2006 for This Is England. With those kinds of oversights, perhaps Nolan would prefer not to be the recipient of Oscar recognition, though that seems like a stretch. The unerringly great Mark Kermode has my back on this one, and I recommend today’s special edition podcast.

Corneas

We have a winner, ladies and gentlemen! Someone claiming to be a compound of two of my most favoured compatriots has sprung the answer upon me in language even my most erotic dreams hadn't fathomed. It was indeed "Ethan Hawke's Barbaric Yawp" from the 1989 classic, Dead Poets Society, which features a dazzling and upstanding performance from Robin Williams to whom the honour of an Oscar nomination was forthcoming. One hopes for the sake of your humble blost that The Dutton doesn't suddenly develop cataracts and decide to hunt me down and realise my foolish offer of retinal gratification. The contingency, however, as Jeeves might tell Bertie, is a remote one.

Hawke through the legs - Quiz

I close my eyes
And this image floats beside me:
A sweaty-toothed madman
With a stare that pounds my brain.
His hands reach out and choke me
And all the times he's mumbling,
Mumbling: Truth.
Truth like a blanket that always leaves your feet cold.
Push it, stretch it -
It'll never be enough.
You kick at it, beat it -
It'll never cover any of us.
From the moment we enter crying
To the moment we leave dying
It'll just cover your face
As you whail and cry and scream.

That poem was the centrepiece of my primary occupation this evening. If you know the reference let me know and you'll be a proud recipient of 100 'Iddiols Points', the totals of which will be totted up in the event of my death, and the forerunner will be awarded the rights to my corneas. Answers on a postcard.

The Fry Chronicles

It saddens me, dear reader, in the interim period between the publication of my initial thoughts on the Giffords massacre and my conclusions (that I’ll post soon enough), to deliver a rather pejorative verdict upon a book, especially one by an author so prone to the glass hammer of critical reaction. So disappointed am I, however, that I cannot help but pass it on.

I’m currently in the process of reading Stephen Fry’s latest installment of autobiography, and, unfortunately, I'm happy to be nearing the end. I'm afraid it's simply, undeniably, terribly boring. There's no sense of humour, no narrative arc, no real twists or turns, no extended investigation or exploration into what it's like to be Stephen Fry. The matter, for want of a less obvious cliché, remains a closed book. I can't help but be left horribly let down by it.

Fry’s previous effort, documenting the touching pleasantness and unpleasantness of his formative years growing up, in Moab is my Washpot, was far more illuminating, amusing, and entertaining, whilst also, most significantly, able to capture his voice that we recognize so fondly.

Incapable of doing differently, I'm also unconsciously comparing The Fry Chronicles to Christopher Hitchens’ Hitch-22 and Derren Brown's recent effort, Confessions of a Conjuror. Both memoirs are fantastic, and Fry falls well short of their mark, so much so that the former two have adopted an even higher mantle by mere juxtaposition. Fry’s latest output is basic, tediously chronological, drab, predictable, apologetic, yet simultaneously unapologetic in its narcissism. He readily admits that he attempts to manage the paradox of combining modesty and smugness, and, in public, he does it quite well, well enough that we love him for it, but in the book it simply jars and makes him appear thoughtless and, the biggest sin of all, boring.

There are but glimmers of his intelligence, wit, vibrancy, zip and vim that characterize a man who has, it’s clear for all to see, lived a very rich and enviable life. The dialectic that undercuts his personality, his subservience to the stifling effects of Manic Depression is only mentioned in brief and rarely expounded. Surely this is the currency of contrast and dichotomy that throws such light upon his character, affecting, as it clearly has done, his entire life. And yet, the text yields nothing of the sort.

The photographs dotted among the text are terrific, promising tales of a trip to Crete with Hugh Laurie, meeting and working with famous faces like Ade Edmundson, Ben Elton, Rik Mayall, Emma Thompson, Harry Enfield, and yet we here nothing about Fry’s relationship with these individuals beside the most expected and rudimentary tidbits. Indeed, the text never surpasses the pictures in its vitality. I am very much looking forward to finishing it, but for entirely the wrong reasons.

UPDATE: I’ve just thrown it down in frustration. With only fifty pages to go I’ve decided I cannot stand one more paragraph of Fry's incessant repetition of self-entitlement and self-adulation that he marries so failingly with false modesty and humility. Take as an example, a common passage:

Look, I can’t keep apologizing, but I will say one more time, I know how horrible this must be to read. […] I have to lay out the facts as I recall them in the full knowledge that they reflect little or no credit on me. The cash was flying in and I was a victim of my own saucer-flying cupidity and trashy delight in the riches the world seemed so keen to offer me.

At this point the book went hurtling across the room. It is almost unheard of that I should proceed so far into a book and then set it aside, never to return. It is (his word) a stinker.

Pop Aside

I thought Ricky Gervais was brilliant last night.

Giffords Massacre - A Report

The University of Arizona was scheduled to begin the first semester of 2011 tomorrow, and the incoming trickle of students has abruptly reminded those of us who lingered what becomes of the campus and the surrounding area when school is in session. Meanwhile, however, the flagpole at the center of the university, and, arguably, the city itself flies the Stars and Stripes at half-mast along with most other flagpoles across the United States.

For those of you unaware, I live in Tucson, Arizona, the setting for the massacre on Saturday that befell six innocent civilians, including a child, and critically injured a remarkably beautiful congresswoman, as well as more than a dozen others.

Before the shooting, on Saturday morning my friends and I dispersed from the athletics department after a rather grueling weekend training session, and headed to the variety of local cafeterias that welcome ravished swimmers such as us with veritably open arms and open pockets, especially during a period of relative quiet among Tucsonian social circles. Our weekly journey, typically on bicycle, takes us away from the pool, past the basketball stadium, around one side of the football stadium, perfectly dissects the campus, and spits us out on University Boulevard where one may find the usual array of stores, coffee shops, restaurants and bars that enjoy a constant circulation of students to whom the convenience of the locality seems irresistible. This being America, although the hubbub of a lazy Saturday like this one is hardly a matter worth writing home about, the bars along the stretch proudly mount their HD television screens and display them outwards towards passers-by and diners braving the January chill. The display brought news of an event that had only just occurred, in Tucson, within walking distance of the university. While we all arrived at separate times to our chosen rendez-vous point, the conversation was immediate and patron to a single topic.

The grocery store wherein Gabrielle Giffords elected to host her informal constituency meeting, although not within throwing distance, is not quite out of earshot on a still and crisp day. From University Boulevard the grocery store resides about two and a half miles away, and the noise, say, from the firing of a handgun could well be heard to the attuned ear. What’s more, of an evening on Saturdays it is not unheard of that my friends and I might dash to that very store to replenish our continually depleting alcohol supplies. Indeed, the closeness of the event was striking and, it almost embarrasses me to say, terrifying.

The story was instantly recognizable as a tragedy, but also an attack, a flagrant attack, on a scale of senselessness that had never quite struck me before then. When something like that happens in your immediate vicinity the importance or significance is somehow heightened. Our waitresses, at first unaware of the news, responded by covering their mouths and neglecting their tables in order to make momentary phone calls to friends and loved ones. One asks oneself the question: what is it that colours an incident of this nature with the personal? Were this to occur in the adjoining city, for instance, my fear and sense of heightened curiosity would surely be lower: in the adjoining state, more so; in another country, like Pakistan, the backdrop for the recent and similar shooting of Salman Taseer, even more so. But here we may, and in fact feel entitled to feel personally violated, attacked, undermined in, for want of a less predictable cliché, our own backyard.

Needless to say, the regular ongoings of the community were interrupted. Facebook statuses carried the expected notes of shock and disbelief, alongside dismal feigns of sympathy and outreach, obsequiously and uniformly inclusive of the depressing phrase, “thoughts and prayers”, as though the divine would listen after ignoring the plea from a now dead nine-year old girl, for instance. Friends of mine set about organizing get-togethers that may help “bring together” the community. In the evening, a basketball game against Stanford was postponed, apparently because of limited security forces. I would have taken against such acts of contortion had it played out in the wake of a terrorist attack, but in this case, society almost demanded it be shaken.

The news that the shooter was a young male threw me somewhat. I had expected a middle-aged aggressor, disillusioned by a failed relationship, perhaps by several failed relationships, loneliness, delusion, by mounting political aggression and by militant rhetoric of the dogmatic and absurd kind that merely draws a scoff from all but the most disturbed and volatile minds. Undoubtedly, Jared Loughner, the deranged 22 year-old behind the massacre was in possession of one such disturbed and volatile mind, and yet it still troubles me that someone so young may fall prey to the most heinous and sinister compulsions.

The pistol Loughner used, a Glock 19 is readily available to someone such as myself. Even though I’m a resident alien, I have a social security number, a visa, and all sorts of other paraphernalia that confirms my age (over 21) and identity. If I were I so inclined, I would be faced with few obstacles to securing myself a Glock with an extended mag and several hundred rounds of ammunition. One chap on our team, who shall remain nameless, was scurried by this very urge a week or so ago and, upon walking into our local gun shop (ominously named: ‘Second Amendment’), purchased a Glock over the counter for a few hundred dollars. He quickly became a source of much amusement to my teammates once this information was gathered. A Glock, I am reliably informed by another of my friends who has a gun or two to his name, is such a hackneyed weapon to the point of hilarity. Only a man sailing on the whims of fancy would be so impressionable as to buy a Glock, he claimed.

Arizona gets singled out, and rightly so, for its strangely lackadaisical arms laws. Rather than tightening the grip of the law given the flurry of shootings and senseless massacres, from the Virginia Tech shootings, to the Washington DC sniper, to the Columbine high school massacre, the laws have loosened. Unquestionably, there resides, at least in myth, a huge pro-gun lobby that politicians dare not offend, particularly with regard to, yes, the second amendment of the constitution. Although we live in enlightened times, the untruth that the availability of weapons or the widespread concealment of weapons prevents violent crimes has a firm hold on the cultural psyche of cities like Tucson.

A short aside: The household of a handful of my teammate (including the Glock fancier) recently hosted the fire department, the police force, (somewhat alarmingly) two bomb squads, and, most impressively, the FBI in their four-bedroom home following a supposedly panicked call from a neighbor after having seen plumes of black smoke emanating from their garden. Well, it seemed to irritate me more than others when I learnt that the FBI were more concerned about their experiments with chlorine tablets and brake fluid that they were with the menu of unchecked firearms that litter the floor of their house. Once again, I shan’t mention their names, as I imagine they are under enough scrutiny and surveillance as it is, but I couldn’t help but allude to it as an example of, on this occasion, federal indifference toward young people and guns.

President Obama is due to speak here tomorrow at 6pm following an appeal from the university president, and under the banner, “Together We Thrive: Tucson and America”. Presumably with security measures in mind, the basketball arena has been selected for the occasion, regardless of the fact that it seats a paltry 10,000. And so, what has, for me, become a second home, is currently being worked upon tirelessly by event organizers, presidential aides, and what seems to be the entire local Mexican community in preparation for the address. Earlier today, the presence of something untoward grew ever stronger. The FBI and secret service loitered in groups of two, checking over clipboards or being briefed by the Tucson police. A strikingly large malaise of Washington suit-types busied themselves indoors, similarly checking clipboards and barking orders at Mexicans who, for want of something better to do, were cleaning the scuff-marks from the corridor walls. A solitary helicopter buzzed soundlessly overhead and, for some thirty minutes, hung motionless; were it not for the moving blades, one would be forced to conclude they were hallucinating.

Not only has school been canceled tomorrow, but entry into the building or the immediate area, a corner of my world that maintains a singular familiarity, has been forbidden beginning 6am, twelve hours prior to Obama’s sermon. I carry a peculiar feeling, and one hard to articulate. The political and private have and will again come together in an otherwise everyday and mundane environment. Needless to say, I shall do my best to attend, and overcome hoards of people probably more devoted than I in a queue that will almost certainly extend well back toward the place where I first heard the news. It is, after all, free and open to anyone. I’ve packed my voice recorder, my notepad, and my camera. For you, dear reader, if you bear with me, I shall bring a full report.

It will be Obama’s first public address proper since the incident and, given the degree of the matter and its potential reverberations, both political and ideological, I expect, or rather, hope that he addresses the following:

i. Gun ownership legislation, both in Arizona and nationwide.
ii. The death-penalty, and its implications for this case.
iii. The current rhetoric of the media and political spheres.
iv. The Tea Party movement and its affiliates.

It would be optimistic to hope for a full-house, I suppose, but these points, I would argue, require special and meticulous attention. The case itself, and the prosecution of Loughner, as Sherlock Holmes would undoubtedly remind Watson, must not be theorized about before the acquisition of all the evidence. I leave that to the judicial system, albeit egregiously lessened by the death of one of its members.

"It's Time To Take A Stand"

I am alive and have not been shot in the face by a cunt. I cannot help but feel saddened by the awareness that we live in Arizona, where this man is almost certain to face the death penalty. String him up by the eyelids for the rest of his life.

Ps. This tragedy DEMANDS a response from Sarah Palin in light of her genuinely sickening crosshair stunt, and on account of being the figurehead for the threatening, hostile, militant, and fascistic rhetoric of the Republican Party at present. The two are connected and do not let anyone tell you otherwise. Yet again we await a proper, formal, and extensive revision of the arms legislation in the US.

Computers and Blues

Around this time last year the Guardian gave their much-coveted (*cough) album of the decade award to The Streets for Original Pirate Material, and I wrote about how I couldn’t help but acknowledge their choice. Now that Mike Skinner is adamantly maintaining that his upcoming release, Computers and Blues will be his last, I took it upon myself to download it and engorge.

While nothing grabs me by the terrestrials in the same way that classic numbers like Blinded by the Lights or Has It Come To This did, it is certainly worth your attention. Skinner’s well-worn and well-versed hands have turned a complete one-eighty in the course of the five albums that complete his output, from the playfulness and aggression of tracks such as Geezers Need Excitement, to the maturity and melancholy of something like Dry Your Eyes, a chart-topper that signaled the new direction of a musical collective on the cusp of international notoriety and acclaim. Meanwhile, he always had a weakness for the juvenile, denoted by the singles of the earlier years, Don’t Mug Yourself and Fit But You Know It (opening lyric: “I think you’re about an eight or a nine, maybe even nine and a half in four beers time”), which marked an otherwise serious attempt to push music forward and create a genre of his own. He does seem to acknowledge, however, that his best loved songs are those in which, in his own words, he “said a bit more than [he] probably felt comfortable with”. Dry Your Eyes, for instance, is steeped in autobiography.

Admittedly, his third and fourth albums, despite my almost fawning admiration for his first two offerings, failed to secure my attention, let alone my affection. Here, on the other hand, with Computers and Blues, Skinner has left us with a record that serves as a more than satisfactory endnote to a successful campaign of artistry. The opening track, I Love My Phone, introduces the vein of technology that runs throughout as a sort of defining trope. As an American reviewer once wrote, with Skinner’s delivery, it seems as though the lyrics are “jammed into measures like an overstuffed couch”, and the chorus in this case is no exception.

How would I survive without my outside
Line to the doubting life
Being in the inside lining
Of my trousers tonight?

The second track, Trust Me, somewhat disconcertingly, reminds me of a Just Jack song. It has, however, already become one of my favorites. During the second verse Skinner has something to say on the small matter of blosting, a foray he has undertaken fairly successfully and uniquely now for a long time.

Now that things are costing nothing
Is any of it good?
Come and love me, read my nothings,
Blogging with the floods.

That’s a rather depressing overview of his online exploits, which, it must be said, extends over yours truly. “Nothings”? Do blosts strive for the “love of others”? My audience may suggest otherwise.

Lastly, A Blip On A Screen is a superb song, and reason enough to buy the album outright when it adorns our shelves on February 7th. It’s a track that combines Skinner’s defining maturity with the earlier threads of melancholy, whilst confronting the terrors of growing up, of familial relationships, but primarily of fatherhood. If you only click through to one of the links here, let it be this one. Listen well.

Hitchens on Tea

Christopher Hitchens has gone quiet over the past few days, which is nothing if not ominous, but he has left an article on Slate about the significance of tea-making etiquette, a topic very dear to my heart. He writes that we must “heed the advice of George Orwell” and that he would “simply hate to think of the harm that might result” from pouring the water before adding the tea. As he accurately points out, tea is a herb and, therefore, activated by the precise and careful introduction of boiling water, that is, water at boiling point, and nothing less. Indeed, because of my ongoing wish to put forward the best possible impression for my future-in-laws, I have often had to stifle the eruption that seems to spill unbidden from my vocal chords when, not only do they add the tea bag last, but they add the milk first. Uncannily, Hitchens hits upon this brilliantly:

If you use milk, use the least creamy type or the tea will acquire a sickly taste. And do not put the milk in the cup first—family feuds have lasted generations over this—because you will almost certainly put in too much. Add it later, and be very careful when you pour.

Milk is a frequently overlooked ingredient of the perfect cup of tea, and adding quite a lot will not be the surest way of attracting my wrath. However, what is inexcusable is pouring it first, not because you may pour too much or too little, but because it falsely activates the tea and depletes the temperature of the incoming water, which, as I have pointed out, is all important. Why this corrupting and foreign practice ever caught on I have no idea. Idleness appears to be the only explanation. As ever, Hitchens is writing to an audience he loves, about a subject he loves, with reference to a writer he loves, and yet remains as impassioned, compelling, entertaining, and vehement as his attacks on Islamic fascism or any other of the world’s more abhorrent elements. That’s why we love him.

Disabled

I write to bring bad news, dear reader. I had envisaged coming here to throw forth some Stewart Lee videos for your amusement, his entire 2010 DVD recording to be precise. It was all set, YouTube-ized for your consumption. Unfortunately, this cut somewhat close to the bone with Mr. Lee’s distributors, Viacom, and my inbox yesterday was swamped with angry emails from YouTube informing me of copyright violation and that, if I were to retry my little escapade, or do anything else untoward, my account would be summarily terminated. Apparently, a complaint had been leveled against your pitiful blost, which does seem to beg the question; would Mr. Lee himself be behind such a protest? Would he condone a complaint by his distributors? After all, all my other, older Lee videos remain intact, and there are plenty of other clips of his latest show online. I did ponder on this blog before Christmas whether my conscience could handle a latent reprisal from our hero, especially after his outburst in which he called pirates “cunts”. A certain Thom Lowe and a certain Master Dutton roundly reassured me on Christmas Eve that it was about time I put my morals to one side, suck it up, and slap the bloody thing on YouTube. Ah. How well that turned out. Even so, we all agreed that, surely, Stewart Lee must realize or at least consider the possibility that the availability of his material online does in fact increase his audience, boosting his ticket sales, and proving more financially viable in the long-run. I would argue that anything worth its salt does stand up to this watermark when cut loose on the web. The cream always rises to the top, and all that rot. For now I am unsure as to what to do, although I still urge you to go here, and download the show properly through a torrent, or, if you’re gay, buy it here.

When routine bites hard

"Right and wrong," he says and stops; his head shifts, and the stiff downward lines of his mouth and bad eye show. "Right and wrong aren't dropped from the sky. We. We make them. Against misery. Invariably, Harry, invariably" - he grows confident in his ability to negotiate long words - "misery follows their disobedience. Not our own, often at first not our own. Now you've had an example of that in your own life." Rabbit wonders when the tear-trails appeared on Tothero's cheeks; there they are, like snail tracks. "Do you believe me?"

~ John Updike. Rabbit, Run.

Somewhere I'm lost

What follows was written on December 19th, but polished and added to over the past two days. My uncle John, a psychiatrist, recommended I document my experiences as a sort of exercise in anger-management or, if you will, an exorcism. The reports of travel chaos in the mainstream media, he suggested, lacked the human touch that adds much needed pathos and credence to otherwise arbitrary news. It has somehow extended to over 2000 words, which I feared might happen. Indeed, John and I postulated the idea of developing the story into a publishable narrative in which the pointlessness, meaninglessness, and hopelessness of the protagonist’s struggle against airport travel mirrors the overarching decay and futility of society as a whole. Conceptually, the book would reflect the argument, void of description or narrative flair, self-aware, ironic, and observing itself as a piece of composite art and, by that definition, unnecessary. I fear that may be pushing things. None the less, here is the original account. Enjoy at your leisure.

*****

Facing the helpless misery of chemotherapy Christopher Hitchens wrote in Vanity Fair that he felt “swamped with passivity and impotence: dissolving in powerlessness like a sugar lump in water.” Although I’m saved the grave and the profound, clear as I remain from the threat of Cancer, I’m writing this from my room of the hotel in which I’ve been holed for the last two nights thanks to the weather in the British South-East, so, without being overly self-reverential, I think I’m beginning to appreciate what he means.

As I lie in my latest set of lodgings in Houston, Texas, courtesy of the Hilton family, I unconsciously adopt the mode of the reflective. “Never cry over spilt milk, as it may have been poisoned” were the immortal words of Ross Tremain. I’m afraid I can’t share in his appreciation of the ironic in this instance. Now that I’ve become an active victim of travel chaos, a humorous metaphor about milk smacks of the delusional rather than the hopeful.

On Saturday I was due to fly from here to London Heathrow, arriving back in Blighty on Sunday morning at 7am. Needless to say, that did not transpire quite as my family, friends and I had hoped.

The Independent carried the severity of the incoming snow, and the ensuing and inevitable travel chaos on its front page on Saturday. Little did I think it may actually affect the plans of your humble blost. As happens under these kinds of circumstances, one’s desire to read the published news shifts from the informative to the curious. However, it has since become habit to check the lobby computers for weather and travel updates every hour or so, such are the limits of the stranded traveler’s capabilities.

After over three years of trans-Atlantic travel I’m well-versed in the rituals of the efficient and diligent flier. As usual I checked-in to my flights precisely 24 hours in advance, selecting carefully chosen seats on both flights: near the front to ensure a quick exit, always on the aisle, away from any lavatories, and, where possible, next to an untaken seat. Of course, I made a thorough investigation into the likelihood of my second flight staying on schedule, and was reassured that the aircraft was dutifully on its way from delay-free Japan, and all signals suggested things were operating normally. Reviewing my itinerary I noted that I’d only be afforded about 90 minutes between connections, but flying back meant that the horrors of customs would be saved until I was firmly on home soil, and so I wasn’t especially concerned.

My concern rose slightly, however, when my first flight was delayed by half an hour, but I knew my way around Houston Airport well enough to dash across to my required terminal with time to spare. Picture the look of dread and nervous anticipation, therefore, that befell my whole person as I arrived at the gate to find it had been delayed by over five hours. This, we were all told, was because Heathrow would not be opening until Midday, and this calculated delay would put us high on the list of incoming flights at that time. The convenience of this seamless compromise sounded somewhat suspicious, so I enquired, “Is this delay realistic?” I was assured that, yes, it was.

I’d elected to take along just two books with me: The Last Tycoon by Scott Fitzgerald, and a book of select poems by Thomas Hardy. The Hardy collection is delightful to dip into on journeys, undemanding enough to provide light amusement, while dense and powerful enough to keep the mind ticking over at a decent rate. Fitzgerald, as ever, somehow combines the humour and light-heartedness of the American joie de vivre with the melancholic and the bittersweet. The Last Tycoon was incomplete at the time of Fitzgerald’s death in 1940, and this story of Hollywood in its prime, presents the idiosyncratic enterprises of the ambitious individual, and the burgeoning promiscuity of a generation in which all wars have been fought and all ideological boundaries explored.

Before the five hour layover was complete I’d read both books back to front, and yet, what depressed me more than anything was the inability to find a bookstore that shelved anything besides Robert Ludlum and Patricia Cornwell books (I refrain from calling them novels). Ah, the sickening airport paperback with its embossed fonts and gold lettering: the dregs of society’s waning literacy.

At last, and not without the exhaling of many lungs and the formation of a few wry smiles, we all boarded our plane to London, albeit five hours behind schedule. We were relieved to relinquish our passivity and the malaise of helplessness that accompanies air travel. I stepped onto the plane only to find that my carefully chosen pew was filled (literally) with an obese Yanqui woman who offered little explanation for why I found myself in such an awkward and embarrassing impasse. I scuttled back to the door and, stifling my trepidations and donning the charming smile that has become the toast of many fellows around the world, asked the stewardess what the best course of action would be now that I had no seat. After a moment in which she conferred with her colleague, I was told that there was another aisle seat free in row 26. Now, given the furor of the past 5 hours, and the lingering concern that we were not in fact going to reach London, I felt that the offering of an explanation, or even an apology was in order. Not so. Surely, even if only out of an involuntary respect for human politeness, the attendants should have waited before I’d boarded the plane to ask me whether I would be comfortable exchanging seats. Obviously, I would not have been, especially at this stage of proceedings, but their concern would have softened the blow somewhat. Regardless, I took up my new seat and found that I was accompanied in the regular row of three by just one other, meaning a free coffee table in between my new friend and yours truly. Just as I was getting comfortable and spreading my salad of distractions and various other necessities around my person, undoing my shoelaces, and generally broadening my person into the vacant seat beside me, a skinny and fidgeting teenager came and plonked himself down. My dismay would have been foregone had he been there to begin with, but to arrive at such a late hour and sabotage my little home-making was a step in the direction of retaliation.

The army of stewardesses delivered the meal options with untoward zip and vim, which, had it been another day, may have raised my concerns, but given the unassailable fact that we were now 36,000 feet above ground and floating atop the clouds of North America, the meal came at no better time. By this point the fidgeting teenager and his glossy locks of black hair had exhausted the Sky Mall magazine twice over, and instead of occupying a position alongside the devil himself in my mind, he had now become a figure of some humour. Settling, therefore, I gulped back the accoutrements of any successful long-haul flight: two sleeping pills and a box of Vitamin C. Because of the five-hour delay, Continental, to their credit it must be said, had dealt every passenger with a card promising a free alcoholic beverage. I took them up on no uncertain terms, demanding a glass for my miniature bottle of red wine (the plastic sort – imagine the terrorizing one could do with a two inch shard of glass).

Picture the scene, if you will, of your humble and exhausted blost reclining in his seat, sufficiently boozed and drugged up, satisfied to allow the remaining six hours pass by in what would seem but a moment. Picture then, the following.

We had been flying for about 2 and a half hours. As my resistance against the disease of travel seemed nearing its end, the captain came over the address system at what can only be described as a rather inopportune time. “Ladies and gentlemen”, he stammered, “unfortunately, due to the adverse weather conditions in London at the moment, Heathrow have decided not to open today”. Silence. A mild yet increasing sense of panic and urgency crept from the back of my mind to the front. Was it really the case that I would be forced once more into the helplessness and hopelessness of airport navigation? Will we be diverted to Paris perhaps, or Glasgow with their almost utopian infrastructure of dealing with climatic issues? What about Dublin even? My thoughts were interrupted half a second later when the captain continued: “regretfully, this means we’re going to turn the plane around and go back to Houston.” He clicked off. My head fell back against the head-rest without making a sound. My eyes rolled back of their own accord into the depths of nothingness. My mouth was closed and it felt as though my lungs had failed. There was no anger, no sighs, no turning to one’s neighbor, no gasps, no voices, nothing. The silence was penetrating.

Your being crawls with futility. What was there to do or say? Groggy and nauseous with resignation I fell asleep.

I awoke as the plane touched down on the tarmac of Houston airport and just as the captain reappeared for what I hoped was the only time since my departure into ignorance. He assured us that, upon exiting the aircraft, we would be directed left towards the service desks where we would be handed documentation entitling us to one night at the local hotel, and from there we could retrieve our baggage. The first-class passengers, we were all assured, would instead be directed right. Wankers. It was now 2.15am, one hour after I was originally expected at the arrivals gate at Heathrow Terminal 4. As I was stumbling down the aisle towards the doors I caught a glimpse of a flight-map screen; the resultant loop of yellow that documented our simple and pathetic journey across to Ohio airspace and back was almost poetic. I wish now I had taken a photograph.

The news about the turnaround was, as Bertie Wooster would have said, a bit of a facer. And yet, what perturbed me most of all was the news that the passengers, including myself, were expected to make their own re-reservations; we would be offered no preferential treatment, let alone any help or pointers. And so, at 3 o’clock in the morning nearly three hundred disillusioned travellers got on the phone and immediately got put on hold. For four hours. Were it not for my diligent and sympathetic father, awake and alert after having woken early to pick me up (or not) from the airport, I doubt I would have made it home for Christmas. Three more hours listening to the recorded messages of Continental’s sales team was not the most appealing prospect after five meaningless hours spent in the night’s sky.

So here I lay, awaiting the onward flight, filtering the incoming weather reports through a sieve of both optimism and resignation, garnished with a festering sense of hostility, which, it so happens, was beautifully summarized by the infinite eloquence of Thomas Hardy in the closing stanzas of his poem The Impercipient.

I am like a gazer who should mark
An inland company
Standing unfingered, with, ‘Hark! hark!
The glorious distant sea!’
And feel, ‘Alas! ‘tis but yon dark
And wind-swept pine to me!’

Yet I would bear my shortcomings
With meet tranquility,
But for the charge that blessed things
I’d liefer not have be.
O, doth a bird deprived of wings
Go earth-bound willfully!
Enough. As yet disquiet clings
About us. Rest shall we.

Post-script: It would be wrong of me not to point out that Continental, presumably in opposition to the totalitarian decrees of BAA, conducted themselves at all times (apart from that minor seat altercation) with due dignity and diligence, maintaining a veritably comforting air of professionalism and helpfulness. I dare say, were it not for the American fervor of the pilots and all involved, that plane would have never left the runway in the vain hope that Heathrow would, in the end, open its doors. One struggles to imagine a British Airways flight taking off when unsure of its destination. Continental gave it fair old go, and I do not begrudge them taking the handle and firmly cracking the whip.