That day's To Do List - the story
Start custardy battle in court
Brine – 3 litre bottles
Recant faith by tomorrow or Wednesday
Run out of milk
Change sign – Leo? Aries?
Stand up and be counted (should be one – if more, see someone)
Nose – order recount
Stand corgi up and count him
1. Just made it out of Wellminstow Magistrates’ Court before the cops realised that it wasn’t the prisoner in the dock who had triggered a vicious exchange of pastries and egg-based dessert sauces between the prosecution and the defence.
2. Popped into What a Pickle! to make sure they weren’t following me, and to get my next month’s supplies of bottling water. Not sure what I’ll try to bottle - last month’s batch of rollmop figs in brine didn’t go down very well at Keith’s the other night, although Claudio felt that there was a flavour contrast that could be quite exciting in the right culinary context. That was just before most of his last mouthful came out of his nose, and he had to go and lie down next to Runty on the sofa. Which made Runty go all dewy-eyed, the incurable romantic that he is. Runty’s held a candle for Claudio for so long that his right hand and arm are set solid with wax. At least that’s what he says it is. Claudio let Runty put his arm round his shoulder for at least a minute before he swore at him in his thick Buenos Aires dialect, causing Runty to burst into tears and the corgi to leap onto the mantlepiece. I could try bottling dry-roast peanuts – they’d go well with the olives.
3. I don’t think I’m going to be able to keep my promise to the Pope. When I last wrote I swore on the corgi’s head that I would join his church if he spoke out against the heinous excesses of the Catholics against practically everyone else over the last few centuries. The only group they haven’t managed to slit up a treat appears to be the Met. Of course, I didn’t think for one second that he would, but the fact that I put in a signed and sworn provisional adoption of his faith in the envelope must have swung it. I didn’t realise that I was such a catch, but he must have his local spies giving him the details of my mission-based lifestyle, which I suppose, when you look at it, could easily be directed along lines helpful to the Catholic church. So I guess I’m going to have to withdraw gracefully before they get their hopes up too high.
4. It’s time to get more ascetic again. Black coffee, black tea. The hallmarks of a true existential warrior, bent on right and justified action. Began my monthly milk fast today, therefore.
5. Went to Alf’s Astrology to see about changing my sign. I’m bored with being a Taurus, and it’s not good for the existential warrior image, either. Alf thinks being Aries would be good, more of a crusader type, single-minded, unidirectional, chivalrous – a true knight in modern armour, he says, and he’ll make the necessary enquiries to the organisations and bodies concerned in order to effect the change as speedily as possible, he says. Second choice would be a Leo, for the flamboyant egocentricism.
6. Got a bit confused in the evening and upset the corgi too. Had to go to bed early.
Chapter 2
Get postmodern, ironic tattoo
Service vacuum cleaner
Plunge into Miss Streatley
CDs – Up Your Funnel
Wreck Rock Ruckers
1. There’s a tattoo place near me. I was going to call it a parlour, a tattoo parlour, but that would be reducing it to the level of those nasty little holes in the wall in Southend where you can get a lightning bolt on your arm for a tenner, to go with the LOVE and HATE on your knuckles. (Although I did know a dyslexic skinhead, I think that was why he was kicking against society in his violent uncompromising skinhead way, really, because he was alienated by his dyslexia, who wanted that on his fingers and he had the misfortune to meet a trainee tattooist who was also dyslexic who tattooed VOLE and HEAT on his fingers, but of course the skinhead, being dyslexic himself, thought it was fine and was delighted. And no-one dared tell him the truth.) No this place is a very artistic establishment where they understand the modern – or should I say ‘postmodern’ – need for tattoos that represent your persona on a deeper level, that are so much more significant than your mother’s name or a blue anchor on your forearm like Popeye the Sailor Man. They do artistic piercing too. Ink or P(erf)orated, the shop is called, like that with the brackets to show that they’re incorporated, with ink and perforating (piercing).
So I went to see them for a tattoo consultation and I expressed to them my situation as a sensitive man – not a New Man, please, there’s no such thing – who is in tune with feminist issues but doesn’t necessarily align himself politically with them since that would exacerbate the ongoing emasculation of man in society, and who wants a tattoo that expresses this in a knowing, self-aware, postmodern way.
‘Tits,’ they said. ‘Fine,’ I said. So I’m having a pair tattooed on my chest next week.
2. Feeling very satisfied with how things were going I chanced a visit to Miss Streatley. I know this is her afternoon off from Wellminstow Library. She let me in but I got a bit confused and must have said something wrong with ‘plunge’ in it and she showed me out before we’d finished our scones.
3. Went home and put on ‘Up Your Funnel’ by Panic Button at full blast or nearly full blast anyway to make up for the disappointment. Panic Button’s lazy interplay of of distorted guitar sound and half-whispered, slightly obscene lyrics always takes me away from the trials and tribulations of daily life, such as Miss Streatley’s rather defensive attitude towards me. My new CD this week is ‘Wreck Rock Ruckers’ by Lyrical Wax. Not their best, but enjoyable for the hurdy-gurdy sound on some of the tracks.
