Small Beds and Large Bears

Conversation, reported by K, paraphrased:

A: “I don’t know what it is. I just can’t get a boyfriend.”
B: “What about my mate? He’s quite good-looking. I can set you up if you like.”
A: “… Oh. No. Thanks, but. I mean… I’ve never met him, so there’s no point, is there?”

…

C: “So what do you do?”
A: “I’m in HR.”

To counteract to a tiny extent the recommendations I keep spotting for the most boring blog in the world—replete as that one is with contributions from intellectual heavyweights such as Mark Lumbering, and quotes from acclaimed novelist Kitchenette Elgin Marbles—I give to you: The Enemies of Reason (via burkesworks).

Here’s a post discussing Liz Jones, who incidentally has the most acerbic entry on the whole of Wikipedia:

… Most of the comment and analysis that really strikes a chord with me is to be found in blogs. It’s immediate; it’s incisive; it’s raw; it’s passionate; it’s emotional; it’s funny; it’s moving.

Which brings me to Liz Jones, who is none of those things. The only emotion she invokes is hatred. The only way she moves me is by making me be sick in my mouth a bit….

Its author Anton Vowl, judging by the account of his blog visits thus far, has obviously run away from any links to that odious work I hint at above. As Brian O’Nolan might say: —what would Anton do to its contributors? —A void.

Google has given up its use of GMail in Germany, in favour of the trademark owned by gmail.de. I for one was up most nights these past three years, pacing the floor, choreographing in my sleepless brain all the possible manoeuvres and defences that might be employed in this complex moral battle between modern-day David and Goliath. Those months of practice were all I needed to withstand Saturday’s dawn raid on Port Meadow. But now my mind might finally find its repose, and for that alone I’m grateful.

I still think Germans should call Google “Guckel”, which would translate as something like “Looky” or “Peepy”. Now there’s a retroactive etymology for you. Call my user-agent!

On Saturday morning at around 3 o’clock, addedentry, K. and I set off in what still seemed to be the middle of the night, in order to reach the Port Meadow tump in good time for the sunrise. As we tramped down Botley Road in the orangey gloom, it started to rain: fat, occasional drops. I swore at the darker points of the road that I could see dark blue in the sky to the east north-east, but the consensus was that it must be light pollution from the town.

We passed by Ferry Hinksey Road and dropped down towards the railway bridge. Late-night drinkers began to appear, heading generally in the opposite direction to us, pursuing lost buses and the ghosts of house parties. We had briefly considered heading up first Binsey Lane (petrifyingly dark) and then Roger Dudman Way (pointlessly and unpredictably locked at the Port Meadow end by the university), but eventually turned left into the train station’s concourse, passing through the cutesy estate at the end and onto the canal towpath.

In the absence of any street lights it was obvious that the day was approaching; indeed, had been for some time. I acted smug and vindicated as we navigated the towpath by twilight alone, but understandably nobody paid me much attention. We whispered our way past the canal boats and up towards Port Meadow. On our left loomed what was once Lucy’s Factory, now a housing estate. We climbed, and then descended, into the meadow and northwards along a pavement.

The meadow had flooded—high for June—and water was lapping against the corner into the nature reserve. Out towards the river we could see white swans and geese. “Messengers,” K. said: “in Anglo-Saxon legends, white animals are messengers.” As we went through the gate and carried on, we were passed by two people, then three, then another: we could hear distant, semi-rhythmic drumming and the sound of a crowd. Only when we reached a fork in the path did we realise that there was a large group of—newagers, crusties, hippies, students, take your pick—people, only really as crazy as we were, if that was crazy; playing the bongoes, of course, and sitting on logs and grass around a makeshift fire. We awkwardly said hello, and carried on to the north-west corner of the reserve.

On the way, we tried twice—both times in vain—to sneak through the western hedge and reach the tump quicker. The first time I smelled rabbits; the second, it might have been badgers: long gone, of course. We reached the stile back into the meadow; worried now, we saw that it was flooded here too, although there were rocks below the surface of the actual water, and the ground wasn’t too boggy beyond. We moved out into the meadow a little but couldn’t see the tump. I was worried by this point that it might actually be under water: it was a raised hillock, but it could have been in a depression I hadn’t noticed before.

When I dropped to my knees and scanned the horizon to the south, I saw it, and pointed. We set off with a spring in our step and suddenly we were there, jumping up and then sitting down. It was just after 4.30, and the rain pattered onto our anoraks and umbrellas, as if we were on a school trip. But it was pretty, and fresh, and under the clouds clear as a bell. We could hear the singers at the camp pass from Pink Floyd through The Doors to The Levellers. Nothing exciting happened to the east, but suddenly we realised that it was day, and the second half of the year.

I’d felt, before making the trip, like there had been a build-up of something. The sinister wellness that you feel before getting horribly ill, or possibly the overexcitedness that leads quite prosaically to an all-nighter such as we had all just managed. Now I was just exhausted, like I had earthed all the charge and had hardly anything left in me, just enough to make it home. We were none of us in the mood for either the poems or the runes that we had variously brought with us. The elements and the roundabout journey had stupefied us, and it would have been awkward and forced.

But just before we left the tump, to make our way back, the tump disappearing once again into the folds of the meadow as if it had never been, before we picked and squelched over the flooded fields, tottering wearily past the party and making it into town… before all that, stood high on the burial mound, K. fished a single rune out of her bag.

We all squinted at it. “I can’t remember that one,” she said, sadly. “I’m too tired. It’s the pasta-bow rune, anyway. Hm.” Only later, after drinking sleep like hot soup for hours, did we find out what the rune had actually meant.

“Dawn.”

My diary claims that Friday is the summer solstice. Saturday would be more convenient. And the adventist calendar for 2008 is silent on the matter, and precession complicates matters anyway.

We’d like to celebrate it, anyway, as it’s a day when you can justify getting up or staying up at times when you would normally still be under the covers.

What might other people want to do? Options include:

1. Friday: walking in the evening across country to the Port Meadow tump, to arrive at midnight. Bring strong drink.
2. Friday/Saturday: going out late to a pub, getting some drinks in, and staying up either at someone’s house or in Port Meadow, to walk to the aforementioned tump, arriving at 4.46am BST (sunrise).
3. Saturday: something at the Rollright Stones, depending on buses to Chipping Norton.

With the cross-country walking (option 1) we would come from Farmoor, around Wytham; others might wish to come in along the canal (north or south) or over the allotments (east) depending on their location.

So: thoughts?

Some five years ago—probably just before I started blogging, as I can’t find anything about it here, and you just know I would—a certain huge cycle shop on Cowley Road tried to sell me the flysheet of a child’s tent, pretending in their sale that it was a multicoloured cycle cover. When I returned it, pointing out its tenty shape and the small triangular logo consisting of a boy and a girl gaily cavorting, they mumbled something about supplier issues.

As you’d expect, I didn’t go back for a long time. Then, a month or so ago, I needed wheel reflectors. the smug coterie of twentysomethings behind the counter at Bike Zone, who chuckle mockingly at anyone who comes in not wearing lycra, considered it beneath their dignity to stock them. Reluctantly, on their guffawing recommendation, I reasoned that anything made out of plastic and with a low profit margin would probably in that warehousey place in east Oxford, and grudgingly crossed its threshold for the first time in years.

Whereupon they sold me four of those long, chunky reflectors that attach to a single spoke with an insertable clip: with the clips all inserted at the till in front of my eyes. I didn’t realise as he did it, but those little pieces of plastic aren’t actually removeable afterwards, even with needle-nosed pliers, and hence all were entirely unuseable, unless perhaps I taped them to my forehead or bum. The money I would be able to get back from them was more than the hassle and cost of my return trip back over to Cowley Road: they, unlike the flysheet, went in the bin.

Yesterday the bolt on my saddle post sheared off. I felt like a fat bastard when I realised what had happened: my saddle became squishily loose for a couple of miles and, when I stopped and wobbled it, detached with a clunk.

I groaned when I realised. Bolts—proper bolts; singly or in lots; in standard, varied, and useful sizes; and made of decent steel—are hard to come by in east-west Oxfordshire since Leigh & Sons uncompeted itself out of business. Gill & Co are still around, but are also only open when everyone’s at work, and are in Oxford city centre (commenter pred: I have not checked Gill & Co’s opening times since the last five times I found them closed). I saw no other choice but to go to a building-supply chain, probably out of town, and suddenly telescoping in distance as I realised I couldn’t really cycle there.

As I was reluctantly hiking out to Wickes today along Botley Road, back by train from a London meeting, I suddenly remembered Warlands, the cycle shop that sells Bromptons and tandems. Surely, I thought, such a shop would be just as bad as Bike Zone: I’d never find something as boring as a bolt there. But it seemed like an awfully long walk to the business parks, or a misery of a bus journey interrupted, a riding of my journey in home chopped off just as I was looking forward to a mug of tea. I decided to give it a try. I went in and held out the two halves of the bolt.

“This might be a bit of a long shot, but I need another one of these-”

“Is that a saddle bolt?”

“Yeah, I was wondering if you had any in stock in this size.”

“Yes, lots. We have to have them in stock, because they keep doing [points] that.”

He disappeared into the back room. I was so pleased—at such a little thing—that on a hunch I hunted for some clip-on wheel reflectors, which they also had. I couldn’t quite believe it, and mentioned to him when he returned with a new bolt that not everywhere stocked them. A brief lesson on the law as it applies to bikeshop owners and to mere bike owners later, I bought some snap-on flourescent bracelets too. It seemed peevish not to.

God bless Warlands. My mother would raise her eyebrow at me for writing that, but that’s another story.

For those who missed it, a bootnote to The Register’s ongoing coverage of the Phorm privacy saga (bizarrely, not covered by the traditional press):

We tried to obtain an interview today with Andrew Knight via a direct email approach. A Home Office press officer called soon after to say that “I’m not impressed by that… you [El Reg] do not do that, you come through us. If you do you will not get any response [at all to your queries]“.

We asked if it was Home office policy to threaten journalists with excommunication if they try talking to senior civil servants. “No,” she said. “It’s just the way it is.”

Funny, isn’t it, how the big newspapers go quiet every now and again, as if on cue? I wonder why. With all due respect.

From a passive-aggressive note:

via rhodri, and with apologies to William Carlos Williams:

We require someone
on drums
which explains
this advert

to which
previous applicants
may reapply
except Graham

Forgive us
we can only handle
so much
loud cowbell.

K. and I know too many people, although probably few for our demographic, who confuse an extended (possibly busman’s) holiday with actual emigration. I blame gap yars. A recent post by she-of-simian-fingers juxtaposes this half-seriously with child rearing, eliciting in turn a half-pred answer from the Botley Massive. Also half-serious, I assume, as self-fulfilment alone does not make so-called emigrées return after what’s essentially spring break.

(There should be a law that, if none of your friends have changed their facial hair and/or head-hair colour by the time you send round an exclamation-dotted invitation to your back-in-the-UK party, you have to fuck off again for twice the length of time you’ve just clocked up. And don’t you dare bring us back yet another round of dream-catchers as souvenirs.)

With friends who don’t have children younger than (say) two, I generally have conversations about pretty much anything, with shared points of reference even if an only nugatory overlap of preference: music, books, gigs, culture, food, scandals, events in the news, politics, shared friends, technology and various uncategorizable squee. The only conversations I’ve managed to have with people who do have offspring at that age revolve around, er, raising children.

I understand why, and I do actually want to oblige, because it’s such a clearly important aspect of that person’s life. I find I can do so for perhaps the first half-dozen encounters. But I don’t have two years’ worth of interested-sounding questions to as- er, opinions to volunteer about it, any more than I have two years’ worth of conversation stored up about making scale models out of matchsticks, Now That’s What I Call Hurdy-Gurdy or the benefits of voting UKIP. It’s like suddenly you and the friend belong to different and coincidentally disjoint hobbyist societies, for that two-year window, and it’s hard not to drift apart during that time.

Some friendships do survive a period of separation, of course. They’re strong enough to, say, weather a good six months of refusal to communicate (sorry, j4). But generally if people were to emigrate, or—worse—move to Cambridge, then a couple of years of unshared experience and communication lack is more than enough to kick over the traces of a merely casual or genial friendship.

Monkeyhands and I don’t have very much social patience in this area, I agree, and we’re trying to get better at it (with the awkwardness of someone on the autistic spectrum learning neurolinguistic programming, I admit). But what social contract are we expected to fulfil here: what are its obligations, and what are its recompenses?

… It’s the band’s anguished professions of supposed political concern, while simultaneously indulging the rampant self-pity of the most cosseted, comfortable constituency of music fans the world has ever known – that’s the most irritating aspect of Coldplay. Rock’n'roll used to be a rallying cry, a clarion call; now, in their hands, it’s just a palliative.

Right. Can these be the last words we hear about this unbelievably non-band? I managed to lose my incoherent monologue imagining Gwyneth and Chris indulging in an earnest, healthy, dessicated act of procreation, so I think that’s a yes.