Clockwork Motorboats

I’d imagine that being homeless is horrible. I’ve seen many a documentary about those who live on the streets, but I wouldn’t begin to make out that I have any kind of view on the subject other than it must be a nightmarish existence. The most frightening thing in my opinion, is that it can happen to anybody. How many times have I heard a homeless person state that his or her marriage broke up and they found themselves without a place to live? It’s quite incredible how we all walk on a tightrope and could fall off at any second. I often wonder what it would be like to be on the streets and how I would cope with the minute-by-minute pressures of having to look out for myself, find food and, most importantly, shelter. What always baffles me, however, is why homeless people stay in the city. I’m sure there are reasons that I simply don’t know about because I’ve never been in that position, but if it was me, the first thing I’d do is get out of the city. I would buy myself a tent (somehow)...

This morning I awoke fresh after a fretful dream, it was 0500hrs. I was in a taxi, a London black cab , and, as I travelled along a central London street, I was aware of interference from outside. Another cab was ramming the cab in which I was a passenger. My cab came to a halt at the side of the road and I told the driver that I would be ‘having a word’ with the rogue cab driver. I jumped out and confronted him as he walked across the road from where he had parked. There followed a tirade of abuse from yours truly, plenty of use of the ‘c-word’. The man in question was a mildly eccentric character; he had shoulder length greying hair and wore a kind of white smock patterned with vertical grey lines about an inch apart. His trousers were made of the same material and he came across as belligerent, but not threatening. Just annoying. I woke up, heart racing, or rather my pulse appeared to be slightly raised. Summer light was oozing through the curtains in my bedroom and soon I was out o...

Finally, I reach my destination. There has been rain after the stifling heat of yesterday, but it’s not cold. The sliding doors of the train open and I find myself bang opposite the exit and the steel-capped steps that lead down to the tunnel under the tracks. A smell of rain lingers in the air. I turn left and head towards the road. “What’s your fantasy today?” “I’ve used them all up.”  “Wrack your brains.” “I am, but I can’t think of any.” The truth is I can’t be bothered. All of my day dreams have exploded into nothing, there’s little much left and besides, I don’t want to degenerate into fretfulness, which is always the end result. I cross the road and walk past parked cars and plastic dustbins in untidy driveways, numbers scrawled roughly on their sides. “I’ll play a game instead.” Most licence plates these days close with three letters, like SKN or TGP or NSK and I try and make up words. So SKN could be ‘ stupendous kayak ninjas ’ and TGP might be ‘ the gormless porpoise ’ ...

A blank sheet of paper. No ideas. Just sitting at the dining room table, gone 10.30pm. Half watching a psychological thriller on television when I should really be thinking about going to bed. Box sets. They’re a big problem. I watch one episode and then the next one’s coming up in 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4,3,2,1 seconds and suddenly it’s on and I’m not even watching it, just glimpsing it while writing this pile of poo.  I’ve got a glass of water on the go. Tap water, three quarters finished. On the psychological thriller I’ve been half watching they can’t stop drinking alcohol. They’re preparing food and drinking wine and they’re all dysfunctional in some way or other: one is 60 and divorced and going out with somebody half her age; her son drinks too much and seems to be having relationship issues and the daughter is, well, the daughter, although she might be a lesbian, I haven’t worked that bit out yet. She probably is a carpet muncher, because these days there has to be one, there’...

I don’t think I’ve ever understood politics. Oddly, while I don’t come from a political family, politics has always been around and this is because of my dad who worked for the government. Dad worked inside Number 10 for two prime ministers - Ted Heath and Harold Wilson - and I remember, during that time, we had all the newspapers delivered daily and a scrambler put on the phone. Dad was neither left nor right; he voted for what he thought was best at the time and that meant he voted for Labour and Conservative. He was always reading the papers at the weekend and listening to the Today programme and The World at One on Radio Four and during the summer months would sit in the back garden with a glass of Tolly Cobbold reading the Sunday Times . I can’t remember who I voted for when I turned 18 back in 1976. In fact, looking back, I can’t remember who was in power. There was a long period of time when it was either Ted Heath or Harold Wilson and back in those days I didn’t really u...

On the way to work this morning I was pleased to see a huge puddle , caused by a massive downpour of overnight rain. I’ve seen the puddle on many other occasions when there has been a considerable amount of precipitation. Every time I see the puddle, I have just one desire: to place a small clockwork motorboat at the edge of what I think resembles a small lake, switch it on and send it across to the other side. The trouble is, of course, I don’t have a clockwork motorboat, but to be honest, it doesn’t have to be clockwork, it could be battery-powered. Whichever way you cut it, I don’t have one. More worrying, however, is the fact that I want to send a small toy boat across a large puddle; and even more worrying is the fact that I’m going to be caught in the act by other grown-ups who might just be a little more grown-up than yours truly. Worse still, I don't have a young child to legitimise the activity. There’s bound to be witnesses and they could come from any direction: behind ...

Sometimes I fear that I’m losing it. I am not my usual self. I don’t even know what my ‘usual self’ is anymore. Or perhaps I do and I find it rather worrying. I start to wonder, not about my sanity (that’s intact, or rather it’s in far better shape than it used to be) but about whether the person I seem to be turning into is the real me and that the caricature, the ‘act’, the alter ego that I developed many years ago in order to combat feelings of inferiority and shyness, is slowly dying out. Many years ago I decided that the only way to be popular was to play the fool, be the ‘crazy guy’, the Keith Moon , the nutter, the one that was fun to have around until things got out of hand, usually because there was alcohol involved. I was proud to be the one incapable of having a girlfriend for more than a couple of weeks (such a wild and crazy guy!) and although the reality was that if I hadn’t been locked into the crazy character I had developed, I was probably capable of being ‘the sensibl...