Case File: Nora

Jon agreed to accompany me in pursuing a few gorgeous girls I’d met at a party. After driving fifty miles to where they stayed, only to find out they weren’t there, he drove us on to his parents’ house by the Kent coast instead. Date-chasing was a favourite hobby of mine, defined by precisely little success and little evidence that I was any good at it. Some unknown hand had written my name in marker pen on my romantic file and named it “Hopeless Casanova.” The file dated back to June 1991, the month Sega released the original Sonic the Hedgehog video game, and was so thick from poorly handled rejection, uncertainty, and not knowing if girls fancied me!

“I exhibit red flags all over the place,” I mutter to Jon, gulping a pint down my throat at his local full of bullshit older men. “My romantic intuition is catastrophic,” I tell him, speaking quickly to myself rather than to him:

• The emotional reactivity test ❌… failed.

• The boundary push ❌… failed.

• The availability test ❌… failed.

• The jealousy probe ❌… failed.

• The compliance test ❌… failed.

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Sitting in the pub’s corner, confiding my troubles to Jon, I instantly saw her enter the pub carrying a bouquet. She glanced at me, her expression a mix of delight, composure, and joy. And I stared back at her, star-struck. There she was, taking a deep breath, glancing toward her three friends, and smiling sweetly as she looked up at me again.

For a moment, the pub disappeared, and the old men stopped talking bollocks; even Jon vanished, although he may simply have gone to the toilet to avoid further embarrassment.

This was it.

Years of research… countless failed experiments… a romantic success rate to embarrass even Sonic the Hedgehog… AND finally… a woman who seemed interested in me.

Jon, of course, knew otherwise, having developed a highly sophisticated system for analysing my behaviour towards ladies. I could practically hear him opening a new file somewhere:

CASE FILE: Nora

• Subject: Light blonde female.

• Location: Jon’s Kentish local.

• Initial assessment: Stunning, sweet. Student cum-harvest picker.

• Evidence of mutual attraction: Promising.

• Language: Slovak.

• Likelihood of catastrophic cock-up: Extremely high.

• Known associates: Three other Eastern European friends.

It was completely useless, though; Nora and I—as I discovered days later while touring Bath and Stonehenge with her and her friends—had no language or cultural connection whatsoever; not even the flowers spoke.

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Thirty-five years later, my desk and filing cabinet are overloaded with files! Jon had rated dozens and dozens of other romantic interests as somewhere between unlikely and no chance, mate! Like an examiner’s strong attention to detail, expertise and impartiality, he had marked my efforts with remarkable consistency:

Attraction? Frequent.

Chemistry? Occasional.

Communication? Questionable.

Romantic outcome? Let’s not talk about it.

The Flowers I Forgot

After decades, I had completely forgotten about the flowers. Until I met Yoshimi , thirty-five years later… well, not IRL (in real life), of course, but on Substack. Between us stood my rather optimistic, satirical AI translation tool, PeteGPT™, several thousand miles, and a concerning quantity of emojis. EXCEPT… somehow we understood each other.

We messaged about writing and stories, life and culture… and, almost by accident, flowers!

As Yoshimi prepared to film her doll, Mini Yoshimi, her hands lingered over the delicate flowers in her miniature photographic set. Pink roses and carnations, purple statice and broad green foliage sat in small glass jars on the shelving units, their fine stems and tiny blossoms spilling over vintage tea jars and wicker baskets.

And suddenly, I remembered the colour of the flowers I’d forgotten three and a half decades ago. So I sent Yoshimi a terribly ill-judged message:

Do you like flowers, Yoshimi?

She replies:

Of course, Alan. I love traditional Ikebana 🌹🌺💜🌿

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Excellent, I think. Here comes PeteGPT™; I’ll ask it what Ikebana means before I respond too hastily. I mean, I don’t really understand Japanese art or culture, and I don’t want to embarrass myself by asking, “What is Ikebana?” That’s what I’d do before the millennium! Nowadays, PeteGPT™ might help me decode women and avoid potential disaster with better technology.

PeteGPT™ provides an instant answer:

Ikebana is an art form where the Japanese give life to ‌flowers through their arrangement, not only for the beauty of the flowers but for the harmony and balance achieved between the stems, the vessel and the surrounding space!

Abruptly, Jon’s old dating-analysis system gets resurrected. AND... I see hidden meanings in every emoji she has sent!

CASE FILE: Operation Ikebana

• Subject: Yoshimi—Japanese, mysterious, possibly anime-adjacent.

• Location: Japan / Substack / miniature tea room

• Initial assessment: Friend, writer. Cultural Conspirator.

• Evidence of mutual attraction: Not the point.

• Likelihood of catastrophic cock-up: Extremely low

• Language: Japanese

• Known associate: Mini Yoshimi

• Unexpected connection: flowers 🌸

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Case File: Operation Ikebana

I stare at my computer screen… the rose 🌹, the carnation 🌺, and statice 💜 contain secret messages of love, admiration, affection, and remembrance. Even the bloody green leaf 🌿 represents nature, harmony and balance.

Of course, Yoshimi will expect a reply. I just had to figure out what to say. So I reacted as a mature, happily married sixty-something man would when faced with an expert in Japanese flower arrangement; I’d prompt PeteGPT^™ for a suggestion:

PeteGPT^™:

Yes, Alan. Why not try a little postmodern architecture? Like how structures fit into their habitat and milieu, rather like Ikebana considers form, shape, and the meaning of space 🏗️🏯🌇

Me:

No, PeteGPT™. I need to discuss flowers. Layers of purpose and relevance. How each arrangement expresses the spirit of the moment through simplicity and contrast. 🌻🌿🌷

PeteGPT^™ tries another go:

Understood. Discuss the shape of pickles and London’s Gherkin then!

Me:

Why?

PeteGPT^™:

Pickles begin with cucumbers. Cucumbers begin with flowers. 🥒 🌱 Therefore, we have established a botanical connection to Ikebana. And the Gherkin is a symmetrical, cigar-shaped glass skyscraper with an open-plan interior and a conical glass dome at its peak! 🌆 🚬🍸

Me:

That’s a building, Pete

PeteGPT^™:

Correct.

Me:

We’re talking about flowers.

PeteGPT^™:

The Gherkin is approximately 180 metres tall.

Me:

I give up.

How to Turn Flowers into a London Pickle

And, against every instinct I’d learned through years of romantic failure, I pressed ahead with PeteGPT™‘s terrible idea and sent Yoshimi a photograph of the Gherkin with a message:

Do you think this is a good example of harmony between structure and environment? 🏗️🌿 Although this is an arched-shaped building, only one bit of curved glass is at the top. 🤔 Instead, hundreds of flat, triangular panels 🔺🔺🔺 make up its iconic shape. They give it its rounded appearance, and the triangles’ strength also lets the structure benefit from natural light ☀️ and airiness. 🌬️✨ Dramatic, isn’t it? 😆🏙️🍸

I sent it and heard nothing back—ZILCH—which, in my experience, is seldom a good sign, so I look at my screen again because staring at a message makes the recipient reply faster.

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Now, I know what you’re thinking: Alan, leave the poor woman alone.

Quite right.

Unfortunately, my romantic intuition had already entered the building and was running around with a fire extinguisher.

“Jon, where have I gone wrong this time?”

I could almost hear him sigh. “Alan… she was talking about flowers.”

Then the three little dots appeared on the screen; Yoshimi was sending another message.

Alan, it is very interesting! But I meant Ikebana. 🤣🌸🌺 Do you have an issue with flowers? 😆🌹💐🤔

There it was.

Thirty-five years after Nora, I had finally found a woman who spoke my language.

Unfortunately, I still wasn’t listening.

AND… That’s when I realised I might have done it again!!!

The Road to Wembley

A Saturday night party atmosphere pervades after a hot summer’s day in the British capital. I’ve spent the morning at the National Portrait Gallery, feasted in Covent Garden over a late lunch and battled my way through English nationalists protesting in Trafalgar Square. Now, my daughter and I take the tube to Wembley Park Station with a stream of excitable Bruce Springsteen fans, then pour out onto Olympic Way. We snap photos and mingle with the crowds. Street food sellers fill the air with the aroma of grilled meat and fried onions, and colourful merch vendors hawk T-shirts and memorabilia. Ahead, the Wembley Arch beckons us forward.

This Springsteen concert was the first I’d attended at Wembley Stadium for decades. They’d come around every blue moon, the mega-arena rock concerts in the 1980s and 90s—Bryan Adams, Deacon Blue, Steve Winwood. My eldest daughter gave me the tickets as an early birthday gift for my sixtieth. My first proper rock concert in ages!

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Inside the stadium, empty seats stretch around us, with a scattering of early arrivals in the front pit and general standing admission areas. Stewards in golden-yellow V-neck T-shirts direct and prompt Bruce Tramps as the stadium slowly fills. Sound engineers check acoustics, delays, and frequencies.

Meanwhile, we manoeuvre back and forth to the concessions, beer, drinks, and snacks in hand. What follows surpasses it all.

The buzz… the excitement of what’s to come… the stratospheric anticipation…

Then the E Street Band appears.

Then…

BBBRRRUUUCCCEEE!

The electrifying energy that only one legendary live act can truly deliver surges through Wembley. Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band wire me to the power of rock ‘n’ roll.

For a while, I wasn’t nearing sixty. I was the same age as my twenty-seven-year-old daughter.

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“Hello, London. It’s Saturday night!”

Bruce isn’t addressing thousands of adoring Wembley fans. He’s calling me to rekindle my youth.

Some things about his shows are truly phenomenal: stunning sets, profound connections to the songs, touching moments, emotional depth.

AND something I’ve lost… stamina.

I’m beaming at my daughter for her generosity.

Fifty Fuckin’ Years

Bruce then throws down the gauntlet.

“You think you can outlast the E Street Band? We’ve been doing this for 50 fuckin’ years!”

How about I’ve been doing this for 60 fuckin’ years?

After walking miles around London, my knees are about to give way. BUT the Boss has just laid down the challenge, and I’m about to discover whether my sixty-year-old body got the memo.

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Bruce unleashes his high-octane rock ‘n’ roll centre stage, somehow concealing his seventy-four years of age. This is a full-on attack by a man seemingly thirty years younger than me…

Then comes the scintillating set list assault:

🎵LONESOME DAY🎵… trips to the front rows.

🎵CANDY’S ROOM🎵 … up and down steps.

🎵ADAM RAISED A CANE🎵… man-hugs and lean-ins.

🎵DEATH TO MY HOMETOWN🎵… giant-screen visual optics.

🎵THE PROMISED LAND🎵… intimacy with the fans.

A master is at work with a surprise. Patti Scialfa joins the house for an à propos performance of 🎵TOUGHER THAN THE REST🎵. Bruce sings endearingly; his guitar’s tuning pegs are less so, snagging Patti’s blouse as she seeks to break free.

Bruce refuses to get sidetracked.

Neither does the audience.

Bruce gathers Nils and Little Steven Van Zandt to call an audible, and they launch into a sombre, tempestuous rendition of 🎵 DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN 🎵. The final howl of “Towwwwn” is flawless, blowing everyone away. I can’t fathom how Bruce’s throat isn’t torn to shreds! Then it’s on to:

🎵YOUNGSTOWN 🎵… but I’m not feeling so youthful now.

🎵 LONG WALK HOME🎵… the first warning sign.

🎵THE E-STREET SHUFFLE 🎵… my feet are negotiating terms.

🎵MARY’S PLACE 🎵… how far is it?

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Like everyone else, I stand and applaud the Boss throughout. I’m captivated by Springsteen’s songs and the chemistry between him and his band. Then comes:

🎵THE RIVER 🎵… is he sending me coded messages?

🎵LAST MAN STANDING 🎵… I’m about to sit down.

🎵WRECKING BALL 🎵… oh, my knees!

My Bladder Has Heard the Closing Chords

The sun drifts west behind the stadium roof, and when the floodlights come up for the encore, the stadium transforms into one where Springsteen governs his audience. Yet now the songs increasingly sound less like a set list and more like instructions to my ageing body: Now we’re onto:

🎵BADLANDS 🎵… my feet.

🎵THUNDER ROAD 🎵… my bladder.

🎵BORN IN THE U.S.A. 🎵… my birthright?

🎵BOBBY JEAN 🎵… perhaps a chance to sit down.

🎵 TWIST AND SHOUT 🎵… I do neither.

Bruce rightly declares London a motherf*cker of an audience, then floats the idea of going home early.

“We’re in it together!” he tells Stevie, who is adamant about staying put.

After six hours of music across the two Wembley nights, this finale for the E Street Band is surely the deciding factor. Bruce tells us the last two nights have been “simply the greatest crowds we’ve ever had in England,” before he sings one last song:

🎵I’LL SEE YOU IN MY DREAMS 🎵

The mood changes. Bruce puts down his guitar.

I look at my daughter.

She looks at me.

Neither of us said anything.

My bladder has heard the closing chords

Bruce yells out one last time, “We’ll be seein’ ya!”

And I’m Born to Run to the loo!

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Several Kilograms of Misplaced Optimism

It took me a while to decide, I remember, but I finally committed to the Cannonball Run, a 48-hour gastronomic odyssey around some of the UK’s finest restaurants. Naturally, there was little point packing a change of clothes or even undies for this nonstop adventure, so I did the next best thing: I packed a sous-vide circulator for water-bath cooking, a bundle of marketing materials, and several kilograms of misplaced optimism. Priorities!

I, along with the other Cannonballers, assemble for the customary briefing. George, a commanding figure wearing ‌tightly fitting chef’s whites, officiates the handing out of the Mercedes SUVs’ car keys and unveils the challenge:

• Four teams

• Twenty restaurants per team

• Forty-eight hours

• One road network, different destinations

• Motorway services, if you dare.

Our team comprises Suave Sid, Mushroom Molly, Barbecue Burt, and me (no names were hurt in protecting their true identities). By the end of the trip, we’ll either become best friends or feature in a documentary: Road Rage: Hospitality Edition.

In Pursuit of the Perfect Scallop

The clock strikes ‌noon, and we disperse like contestants on the BBC’s Race Across the World, except we’re not chasing money, just amuse-bouche.

Our mission is noble: to celebrate each restaurant… present Outstanding Achievement certificates… photograph the occasion…. flood social media… and champion the showcase dishes set before us. Each restaurant presents the very best of its kitchen, or in our case, adds to our calories.

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The first team back to Cumbria claims victory. Our route would sweep us through Gloucestershire, Bristol and Devon, then east along the south coast to London, and then back via Birmingham. The Sat-Nav estimates twelve hours. My Ministry of Dreams—my governing board for inspiration—agrees. The Department of Nightmares disapproves. Hallucination is bound to throw a spanner in the Mercedes’ works... AND the sous-vide circulator believes it’s embarking on a busman’s holiday! Poor thing!!!

It does not know that I will shamelessly shoehorn it into every photograph:

• At every restaurant

• With every chef

• Next to every certificate

• Cradled by me.

There I’d be grinning like a proverbial Cheshire cat, proudly clutching what looked like an expensive scientific thermometer.

We’re greeted magnificently at the first venue by scallops. Then the next is scallops. Followed by, you guessed it, a daring reinterpretation of… scallops! Every chef announces their creations are completely different… some with purée… others with foam! The photo collection of myself, scallops, and a sous-vide circulator is growing like the fridge magnets on my refrigerator door… exponentially.

By the third restaurant, chefs were asking, “Does The Ministry of Dreams approve of sous-vide?” It seems to add unnecessary plumbing to the profession!

Late evening, and we’ve squeezed in five restaurants before the kitchens close. The last plate arrives as a stunning work of art, a gastronomic delight of exceptionally cooked… scallops, this time arranged with surgical precision and carrot purée.

Nobody spoke. We admired them. And photographed them!

Four Adults and a Mercedes

Then Sauve Sid’s phone rang. Our next venue is calling to say they’ll make a special breakfast opening just for us. Wonderful. Yet we have a conundrum. We have nowhere to sleep tonight.

Sid adjusts his Ray-Bans, even though it is dark. “I’m all for hiding the Mercedes behind the hotel hedges out of sight from CCTV,” he says.

Mushroom Molly sprouts up, “If my mushrooms can grow overnight, we can drive on.”

Barbecue Burt is mourning another scallop and wants to visit a burger joint.

I look at my sous-vide circulator. It peers hopelessly back. For the first time all day, we are in complete agreement with Sid. Sleep and an early start tomorrow, except: it’s quite frightening to think about sleeping in a car with strangers, after all…

• Sid’s a chef’s knife salesman.

• Molly’s mushrooms might be poisonous.

• Burt drives as if he has a chef’s temper.

• And the flatulence levels are amazingly high!

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The Mercedes is a comfortable car to ride in, but by heck, it’s uncomfortable as hell to sleep in! My bottom slips and slides on the leather seats, whose rake-and-tilt folding capabilities offer no comfort. I’m thinking all night whether to just alight and sleep in the hedges, except for my fear of meeting wild boars rumoured to exist here.

The Department of Nightmares is working overtime on my semi-comatose affliction; every thought directing me to the headlines in the local Wiltshire Gazette:

FOOD CHALLENGE ENDS IN TRAGEDY… WILD BOAR CLAIMS THE LEFTOVERS.

The Sous-Vide Circulator Gets Sat On

Day two arrives, and the race is in ‌full stride. Twelve restaurants to visit. Umpteen scallop variations. Venues in Dorset, Hampshire, Sussex and Surrey, before the imperiousness of London’s Park Lane and Mayfair.

Race Director George is on the phone from the Isle of Skye, praising the culinary world. Everything is MESMERISING up there in Scotland: the food, the hospitality, the welcome, the venues, and the weather... perhaps not… it’s drizzling!

George takes a few minutes to video-call Barbecue Burt regarding our progress, but we’re in Central London gridlock, and Burt’s response is a bit arsy. He’s sat on the sous-vide circulator, and it wants to cook him in a vacuum pouch at the next stop.

“How about a large, black limousine with diplomatic plates?” Burt asks George, eager to speed progress.

“Nah!” Race Director George replies.

“I know! A bloodmobile! They wouldn’t stop a bloodmobile, would they?” continues Burt’s absurd line.

“Nah!” Sid joins in.

“Nah,” Molly emulates, too: “What about a black Trans Am? No, that’s been done!”

“An ice cream truck! Yeah, an ice cream truck! Y’know, they gotta get there before it melts!”

The scallops are clearly going to everybody’s heads apart from yours truly, who is driving!

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The dishes are pouring out of the kitchens, sometimes three or four at a time now. It’s no longer just scallops… lemon verbena, buffalo shin, poached duck’s egg and pea mousse, foie gras, Goosnargh duck, poached lobster, mango & pine Bavarois, to boot.

The empty plates are stacking, and our stomachs are distended. Our travelling companion, now adopted as Victor Vide, sits erect. He’s having the last laugh with his slimline waist and streamlined condition. Every photo of Victor looks exactly the same: metallic, scientific, technological, whereas we need to join Weight Watchers or Slimming World.

Hours of travel, miles of roadworks and logjams. Adrenaline-filled, exhausted bodies. And, as predicted, at 22:39, it’s scallops once more!

Ginger Biscuits for Four

I raise the ugly question again: “Where to sleep before the ascent back north?”

“I know, “ says Sid. “We’ll sneak into our London showroom. Sleep on the floor. Nobody will know unless we tell them.”

Molly hasn’t had a mushroom all day. She’s pining for just one. “Do you have any mushrooms we can buy on the way?” she asks.

“And what about my burger?” demands Burt.

“Will biscuits do instead?” Sid suggests.

And so at 23:49, as if we’ve not eaten enough already, we greedily enjoy our last supper: a plate of ginger and chocolate biscuits. Delicious!!!

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Victor becomes our overnight security guard. He sits at the bottom of the stairs, doing what he has done throughout this trip, absolutely nothing… EXCEPT THAT…without realising, if an intruder or office worker arrives for an early shift and the little rascal falls over, we might hear him and arouse ourselves from our deep slumber. Just a plain doorstop for someone to trip over.

It worked. For Victor’s steadfast backing, we sleep much more soundly on the office carpet than in the car. And Victor gets another photograph for his efforts… with last night’s biscuit crumbs.

And so to the last morning:

• The final venues

• The last scallops

• The high-stakes sprint to the finish line

• The exhaustion from tactical decision-making (and overeating)

• The bonds made

• And of course, the prize of Cannonball champions.

We roll safely into Cumbria at lunchtime, ready to crash out in our hotel rooms… our team looks less like winners and more like four podgy Homer Simpsons. We hand the Mercedes keys back to the hire company and wait for the others while Victor sits quietly on the car bonnet… clean and unused… no watermarks or limescale… not a single calorie consumed. He has spent the last forty-eight hours watching, waiting, and gathering insight and analysis as four grown adults gouge their way through a mountain of scallops. His time is now!

Without warning, Victor flickers himself on, warming himself from 42°C to 46°C, then 50°C.

Then the penny drops… Hallucination. Of course. Victor isn’t just Victor. He’s been Hallucination all along. His plan wasn’t to throw a spanner into the Mercedes’ works, but to watch us become progressively slower, wider and increasingly incapable of fastening our belts… until four thoroughly overcooked Cannonball competitors were standing in front of him. We aren’t contestants with several kilograms of misplaced optimism anymore; we’re ingredients.

Race Director George returns with his crew. Victor—or Hallucination, as I now realise—looks at us.

His display stops at:

54.5°C.

Medium-rare.

Victor emits a BEEP.

I look at the others.

“Anyone fancy a salad?”

Victor switches himself off.

Nobody says a word.

Then, just as I’m about to put my camera away, his display flickers back on.

54.5°C.

I reach for my camera.

Victor wins.

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The Lady in the Van Leaves the Car Park

I barely had time to read my first book at book club and divest myself of the eccentric Miss Shepherd from Alan Bennett’s The Lady in the Van when the next thought-provoking book was voted upon in a way I wasn’t anticipating. When I nervously joined the club, I kept in mind the stereotype of judgmental literary snobs; this group, though, wasn’t like that. Whoever they were, they loved books AND real ale.

“Fight Club? by Chuck Palahniuk. Satire,” Pete says, stepping forward to pitch for votes, his neatly kept ginger-brown beard and moustache frothing with Theakston’s Old Peculiar ale.

“I was expecting the genre to be sci-fi,” I said, peering around at the group.

“Miscommunication, I’m afraid; that’s the pitch for next month. Save your speech,” Pete replied.

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I asked to learn more about their voting system—I mean, you can’t be too careful in a beer house with all the beer talking. Pete gave a tiny smile and sipped his ale. He was learned, jovially faced, with a vigorous smile and high energy. As he spoke, I observed the rest of the book club members at the no-music, no-TV micro-pub:

• Palmer hugs his Philip K. Dick novels.

• Elinor doodles birds.

• Ivan—the pub and microbrewery owner—proudly devours his beers.

• Hannah curls her already tightly curled blond hair.

• And a fictional bloke called Tyler Durden—and his Brad Pitt lookalike—is keen on a bare-knuckle fistfight!

Eventually, Pete explains, we vote for a theme for one month, and the next month we vote for a book from that theme. There’s also a vehement antipathy toward Waterstones and all its ‘come to our book club and buy our books’ machinations.

I scrutinise them carefully, look at the bar full of casks and kegs, and decide the ingratiating mix-match is likeable. They weren’t eccentric intellectuals, more smooth, unhinged people, with tastes and a slash of absurdity. My kinda people!

The First Rule of Book Club

“First rule of Book Club…” I say at the next meeting, while the group remains silent. “You do NOT talk about book club.”

They stare at me, dumbstruck. Once again, I’ve proudly announced the bleeding obvious. In every walk of life, I seem to do so with alarming frequency.

“Who’s ready to discuss anti-capitalism over a pint?” Pete diverts attention away from me.

I unleash a wave of sympathy towards Palahniuk’s characters, yet I am uncomfortable with their methods. But Project Mayhem turns out to generate a surprisingly civil literary debate. Our jury considers and awards an overall score of 7 out of 10.

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After we’re done discussing books, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is voted the next Book of the Month, much to Palmer’s delight. I listen to his Philip K. Dick gibberish as we slide ourselves across the laminate flooring toward the bar, and he asks if I like sci-fi. I’d been expecting that, of course. The notion of a storyline written in the past with the future in mind, incorporating artificial intelligence, off-world colonies, and a decimated Earth, is not really my thing. I mean, even Doctor Who never won me over! My children remain deeply disappointed!

But that’s one of the joys of a book club: You end up reading books that ordinarily you’d dismiss, which begs the question: Is science fiction really sci-fi at all? Not moral and philosophical tales that twist and turn and conclude that empathy is the only way to tell human beings apart from other creatures?

The Sci-Fi Experiment

I ask this question at the next book club. It vexes doodling Elinor, and before long, she is harmlessly asking whether it is in order to conduct a club experiment.

“Maybe we can use AI to suggest discussion questions,” she asks.

“Yeah,” Hannah adds, bouncing voluminous amounts of hair, “or suggest next month’s book and keep us on topic.”

“Well, that’s settled then,” Pete concurs, the Old Peculiar talking again. “We will conduct a sci-fi trial. AI decides who may speak next!”

“Hush,” I say. “Second Rule: You do not talk about Book Club…. not even to AI.”

Honestly, nobody gives a toss!

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By my thirteenth book club meeting, Ivan is actually brewing craft beers with AI, which is also writing his tasting notes. Everyone else is inputting prompts using their smartphones during debates. And more importantly, the beer menu already reads:

• GPT Lager

• Machine Mild

• Deep Ale Learning

• Neural IPA

• Kernel Pilsner

• Quantum Stout

If anyone cares to listen, I’m in my element now: “Third rule: If someone yells stop, goes limp, or taps out, AI does not choose next month’s book.”

Pete Becomes PeteGPT™

At week thirty-three’s meet-up, Pete has disappeared altogether, to be replaced by PeteGPT™. I just assumed he was on holiday! Probably gone to Cornwall!!!

Somehow, the discussion questions are oddly clinical.

“Please quantify your emotional response on a scale of 1 to 10,” says Pete’s reincarnation, reprimanding me that my anecdotes have deviated from the approved discussion pathway.

And so the downward spiral continues…

Thirty-three years later, I’m dozing in my chair next to the patio doors, reading the latest book: The Last Human at Book Club. The calendar shows a Tuesday evening in Week 33, 2048, and PeteGPT™ Version 11.3 now boasts a magnificent Pete-like beard. It looks remarkably well for sixty-eight… AND not a single grey hair! It has lasers in its eyes—probably cataract surgery!!!

Data centres also run in the beer barrels and pumps, handling high-performance computing, massive parallel processing, and extreme energy densities. Young people don’t want bar work anymore. The AI pub cat plugs itself into a charger—lazy thing.

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“If an AI were to nominate a book for a club, it would pick a title balancing wide appeal, deep themes, and strong discussion prompts,” says Elinor.

Ivan asks: “What genre does your book club like best?”

Palmer wants to know: “Do you prefer short or long books?”

Hannah confirms, “I can give you a custom book list tailored to your group, PeteGPT™.”

I’m fully Tyler-Durden-like immersed in my approach now… “The fourth rule of Book Club… hang on a minute: Why can’t we read a simple book about beer? You know, just like it used to be!”

The barrels and pumps gasp. PeteGPT™ tries to predict the morality and philosophical integrity of such an approach, concluding that beer deserves empathy, too.

“You remember the days when Ivan owned the beerhouse and a microbrewery, and we could expect a book about beer, right?” I ask.

Ivan steps in, “You can map beer styles using a bipartite graph network that links specific beer styles to their primary flavour profiles through weighted connections.”

I interrupt. “Ivan, Ivan… please spare me the graphs. What about Hops and Glory? The book about India Pale Ale (IPA)?”

Elinor reads a statement from AI:

“This book contains:

• 31% Travel

• 12% History

• 8% Social comment

• 17% Anthropology

• 32% Antics

Overall reading efficiency: 61.4%”

The Eighth Rule

It took me a while to realise that I’d read Hops and Glory aeons ago. I learned that author Pete Brown recreated the historical process of fermenting a keg of ale in Burton-upon-Trent and then shipped it to Kolkata, similar to how it was transported to the Raj in India during the 1800s. His voyage, at the mercy of wind and seas and hampered by various detours, customs officials, pirates, bureaucrats, scammers and touts, is full of humorous anecdotes. Like, why else would you carry a vessel containing alcoholic contraband into the Islamic Republic of Iran and gate-crash a sailors’ bar there without a visa, if not to write about it?

“Irrelevant question,” interrupts PeteGPT™ in a monolithic voice.

I reached for the rule book… and read the eighth rule for the umpteenth time: “If this is your first night at Book Club, you have to read the book!”

PeteGPT™ has ordered every book… scored every discussion… brewed every beer… grown Pete’s magnificent beard… yet somehow… still hasn’t read a book in the human sense nor bought a round.

And, unlike Pete…

It never once drank beer or blamed the Old Peculiar!

Discuss.

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Previously on The Attraction of Chester (Parts I & II)

(Alternatively, a brief statement from the Office of ChesterDog123)

• My family voted to ignore Alan and adopt me anyway.

• Alan declares himself the pack leader, only for me to dispel the myth in three minutes.

• I became ChesterDog123, an internet celebrity, TV aficionado, and influencer extraordinaire.

• Alan now serves as my unpaid secretary and social media assistant.

• And I taught him the greatest truth known to dogkind… life is simpler than politics, theology, branding, and social media; the back door, with a walk and a wee, will always win.

Next, The Park’s Mayoralty Changes Hands

The current mayor of my local park is Maya, a blue-eyed Husky. Of Siberian descent, she is the dog I look up to as my role model for doggy decorum in the neighbourhood park, a kind of mayoralty protégé. Often, she passes my front door, and I give a friendly howl from my favourite windowsill, not because she is famous, but because she represents so much fun, rolling me in the dirt and apprising me of my place in the pecking order of canine society.

Some dogs would call that bullying. I call it:

• A sped-up course in gravity.

• Continuous professional development.

• Leadership mentoring.

• Trusted counsel for my inevitable election as mayor.

• Soft power over other dogs in the park!

Alan isn’t so convinced. He thinks Maya is just noisy. Maya thinks Alan is just a bench.

Like most things, Alan will learn.

Following my famous escape up the high street, the unofficial rule is that I’m not to be trusted off the lead unless I enter the fenced dog walking area. Apparently, it is for my safety. Personally, I think it is to protect Alan from further embarrassment on Facebook.

Originally, the fence was wood, but at a high cost to local taxpayers—whom my mayoralty will soon govern—a green powder-coated metal one is now installed. Humans call this ‘progress.’ We dogs call it ‘still a fence.’ A squirrel calls it ‘a climbing frame.’

🎵Who let the dogs out? 🎵

🎵Who, who, who, who, who? 🎵

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The council also resurfaced the dog-walking path just last year. It’s grainy and breaks up pretty quickly. By the look of it, they used digestive biscuits or cats as contractors. Alan mutters darkly about council contractors. Why is it, I ponder, that humans possess the ingenuity to invent the Tinternet but not a durable path, even for a wet Tuesday?

It’s really a rhetorical question, but comments are always welcome. Please send them to my social secretary, Alan, not me!

My Loyal Electorate

Beyond my Tinternet fame, local celebrity remains important for my mayoralty campaign. My loyal electorate includes:

• Steve, the perma-tanned Head Park Keeper and trainer of an Irish Setter.

• Sue, his endlessly cheerful Hungarian assistant, who’s more interested in doggy fuss than park politics (and a spiff, but I didn’t say that!).

• The old, white-haired owner of a white poodle, whose grandson plays rugby.

• And the athletics-mad lady with two elegant greyhounds.

Each of them knows me by name and gives me a wholesome pet when they see me. Some even remember Alan’s. Not that he is especially relevant to this story anymore!

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Sometimes, I conduct surprise civic visits to the park’s riverside café. Alan calls this escaping. I call it accepting invitations. The café staff call it, “Oh look... Chester’s here.”

See?

Celebrity!

A Speech to the Borough.

It’s not that I get many walks in the park these days. I’m more thrust out at the beach. Although seashore freedom is wonderful, one thing baffles me. Why am I welcome on every beach from October to April, only to become a menace on some beaches from May to September?

Humans call it zoning; the future mayor of the Borough calls it discrimination. I shall make my inaugural speech, thus:

Fellow dogs...

We demand...

Equal sniffing rights throughout the calendar.

Free movement to the sea from every beach, irrespective of species or breed.

More sand, shingle and shells to wee upon.

The abolition of Public Spaces Protection Orders.

And the unrestricted bursting of children’s inflatable beach balls

Alan might object to the last one… a dog popped his ball when he was eight… Do I care? Briefly, for three seconds! That’s leadership.

Every week, humans organise a beach run that follows the tree-lined road alongside the sea, and eventually bears right back near the enormous stone next to the children’s play zone. The joggers gather, wearing expensive shoes, measuring their heart rates, downloading statistics, then congratulate themselves… for doing something that we dogs perfected millennia ago: running!

Buy Me A Beer

The not-so-serious runners who wish to run with their dogs are welcome, although from my perspective, I’d impersonate Bono when I sing to Alan. I’ll run:

🎵With or without you aha 🎵

🎵With or without you ah-hah 🎵

Whether or not he runs, I intend to fulfil my pledge to reward every finisher with a teddy bear dog in my likeness. The runners may laugh. Their dogs won’t. Every vote counts, including dogs.

Pub Politics

Anyhow, back to matters at hand. The trees, shrubs and flowers in the pub garden are now beginning to bloom, and every bush contains fascinating fresh smells. Overall optimism is returning in bucket loads, a vital resource in troubled times. Spring’s eventual grip expresses dynamic, creative energy, replacing winter’s gloom.

Meanwhile, Alan settles into his pint, while I notice the dog turds near the oak tree from three days ago. We’re both enjoying life… just differently.

The garden is near Leicester City’s King Power Stadium, where the publicans have dressed me up in a tiny replica of the team’s shirt. I’m their lucky mascot. Apparently, it helped the team achieve the incredible feat of winning the Barclays Premier League… a story that resonated worldwide as a ‘David defeats Goliath’ tale in the stupendous world of footballing pedigree and finance. From 5,000-1 underdogs to champions is a feat that, upon reflection, pales in significance compared to the challenge of catching a neighbour’s cat.

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Humans celebrated for weeks. Personally… I just don’t understand why humans are reluctant to sniff each other before entering a pub, though I am pleased everyone keeps telling me I’m wearing the blue shirt rather well. In fact, everywhere I look, there are blue flags, scarves, and banners adorning the bar, mirrors, tables, chairs, and walls. Not so, Alan; he’s not a Leicester City fan. I am. I need the community’s votes to become my next target: an MP.

Even my friends at Fetch and Walk, a reputable pet care business, can’t stop celebrating. They are lifelong Foxes supporters and spent weeks taking selfies, wearing replica shirts and celebrating a title almost nobody believed possible. Even Alan had to apologise to them for saying Leicester would never win the league. I didn’t doubt them for a second. Mind you… I also have absolutely no idea what football is.

Still… Parks… Cafés… Beaches… Pubs… Complete strangers. Wherever I go… the world somehow reorganises itself around me.

Perhaps being an MP is too small an ambition after all.

Perhaps...

Prime Minister. #DogsForPM

Next time, I’ll continue on my election campaign trail… Alan will continue carrying the poo bags…One of us is winning.

“Stop it right there, Chester! Give me back my Substack space right away!!!” Alan demands, exasperated.

BISH BASH BOSH

WOOOOOOOFFFFFFFFFFF!

Official Statement from Alan:

“I’d like to clarify that I am still writing these posts.”

Correction from Chester

“No, he isn’t.”

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Previously on The Attraction of Chester (Part I)

• I lost a family argument over adopting a puppy.

• Went to Facebook to debate the pros and cons of dog ownership with friends.

• Chester’s arrival led to a contract of promises, none of which lasted three weeks.

• Armed with misplaced confidence, I attempt to establish myself as pack leader.

• And Chester politely ignores me… bolting through town, charming strangers and teaching me I wasn’t taking him for walks... he was taking me running.

Next, Chester Fancies a Crack at the Internet

Finally, a perfectly ordinary day arrives, and Chester—my ridiculously cute teddy-bear-looking dog who still pulls the ladies’ heads sideways when they drive past me—sits forlornly on a cushion near the patio doors. I sit next to him at my computer desk, thinking strategic human thoughts while Chester opines about the neighbour’s grey cat and various bird life with his barking.

“Suppose,” I say to him as I open my computer, “we create an online presence for you, Chester.”

I could see it instantly: Chester writing tweets and blogs, moving swiftly from lofty ideas about politics, economics, theology, and philosophy to thinking about how humans think they’re in charge, yet quietly believing they’re making very poor decisions.

“You’ll be a Tinternet sensation,” I add. “But it won’t actually be you. Every comment and page will foremostly be me, posing as a dog.”

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Of no surprise to me, he is pleading for me to take him for a walk, BUT… I continue my cunning plan, and before long, I am no longer Alan, but the man behind ChesterDog123!

Within minutes, Chester has googled the Internet, as every dog secretly does: “How to train a human?” And “Does every dog have a story to tail?”

An hour later, the young dog seems to have more X (Twitter) followers than I do! Apparently, it’s surprisingly easy to make the most ridiculous and controversial comments on social media under the guise of a dog persona and avoid the abuse. For example:

A human Twitter user writes, “The country is going to the dogs.”

ChesterDog123: “Excellent. We have been trying to improve the management for years.”

Twitter sphere: 73 Comments. 127 Re-tweets. 592 Likes. 23K Views!

AND

A Twitter user posted, “@realdonaldtrump is dominating the news again.”

ChesterDog123: “Is he the chap who keeps interrupting programmes about otters?”

Twitter sphere: 657 Comments. 1143 Re-Tweets. 5328 Likes. 207K Views!

Then Chester posts an innocent observation… and #DogsForPM trends. Five minutes later, the BBC invited him onto Breakfast TV for a debate, but sadly, a cat-related story led to its cancellation.

The BBC’s Forgotten Dog

I kept typing, or more accurately, Chester insists my fingers and thumbs keep inputting his ideas for HIS blog post. Together, we had morphed into ONE!

HIS first blog goes like this ...

ME AND THE TV

I’m on the couch, minding my affairs: drowsy or sleeping, whatever, and the TV gets turned on. At first, it’s not a problem. Twenty-two men are running around a field chasing ‌a ball with remarkable inefficiency. Nothing untoward happens… yet none of them, bar two, pick it up. In fact, I quite relish it, as I dream of chasing around a grass basin with my tennis ball. Of course, I’ll pick it up! Why not? I may drop it and forget about it anywhere, but who cares, apart from the retriever?

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To add to my overall feeling of happiness and contentment, I can also prod my way onto Alan’s lap: head down, under his arms and into his midriff—easy when you know how—and a healthy pet on my neck or chin. Have I mentioned how my appeal has caught his notice?

Suddenly, a chap called Gary Lineker finishes his ‘football match autopsy‘—as Mrs Right likes to call it—and the atmosphere shifts.

Then the ident, the brief audiovisual sequence used by BBC One to showcase the channel’s signature logo circles, and I see them! My fellow dogs… running through a series of oversized croquet hoops deposited in a perfect circle. One of them misses: Every. Single. Time.

Now humans see branding, but I see a recruitment video. There’s clearly a dog trapped outside the circle:

• Nobody helps.

• Nobody blows a whistle.

• Nobody fetches a producer.

• Nobody has developed a twelve-point rescue strategy.

The poor chap simply wanders about in existential confusion while the others carry on, regardless. It’s like the hard-luck story of coming last in musical chairs, except the dog doesn’t even fight for an available hoop, just meanders hopelessly.

So naturally, I leap at the TV, wanting to organise a rescue mission. I genuinely want to help the disadvantaged mutt and show it how to rejoin the circle, not least because I also wish to take part in the fun and adventure between the rings.

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Alan shouts, “Chester, sit! It’s only an ident!”

“Only?”

• Would he calmly watch the ident with the hippos performing synchronised, balletic circles underwater if the baby drowned?

• Would he have cared if the helicopter landing on the remote Bishop Rock lighthouse in the Isles of Scilly had crashed?

• Would he stand idly by if a biker fell from the open-topped, barrel-shaped wooden vertical walls in the Wall of Death ident?

My point exactly.

As If One Canine Crisis Wasn’t Enough

“Next on BBC One,” the announcer says, “Countryfile.”

(... for those unfamiliar with the quintessential comfort of a British Sunday evening’s light entertainment, Countryfile is a weekly TV magazine featuring people, places, and stories making the news in the British countryside… its uncontroversial views, prepare the UK workforce with some pleasantries and niceness before the beginning of the working week ahead… a mix of #SundayFunday and #MotivationalMonday slipped into the public consciousness from the establishment!)

Or, as I know it...

Two Hundred Reasons To Bark.

Sheep. Ducks. Pigs. Cows. Birds. Rabbits. Farmers. Occasionally, John Craven… a veteran of BBC broadcasting since the early 1970s.

Naturally, I object.

The Gloucestershire Old Spots… known for their gentleness, aptitude, and virility... produce the best kind of pork sausages ever! Yes, the farm animals—and some wild ones too—excite me. I leap up at the TV screen, scratch the furniture, bark uncontrollably… AND provoke the wrath of erstwhile household TV viewers. They’ve usually become so fed up with my antics that they’ve gone to boil the kettle for a good old cup of tea.

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Eventually, I am scolded—not literally with water but in the literary sense with words—and escorted outside. The French doors close. Justice has left the building!

I scratch.

I whimper.

I wait.

I scratch again

Alan imagines he is the pack leader again.

In truth, I’m merely waiting for them to remember who trained whom.

The door opens.

As predicted.

I stroll inside without so much as a glance of acknowledgement. Hahaha. Foolish people!!!

The Attraction Nobody Saw Coming

Alan smiles.

“So… what is the moral of today’s story?” he says.

The moral? There’s none.

I’ve spent the last twenty-seven minutes writing Tweets on politics, theology, economics, identity, media studies, branding, canine sociology and a blog on the metaphysics of BBC idents. During that time, you’ve not noticed… I am the attraction of this post!

Both the real-life and online worlds have collided in an explosion of sincere flattery. Chester reigns supreme! The Teddy-Bear looking dog is a magnet for all.

But throughout all this creative writing time, I have been crossing my back legs with increasing determination.

There is one attraction more powerful than all ‌the followers, tweets, barking and admiration...

The back door.

Because behind it...

...is somewhere I’d very much like to have a wee.

Possibly a poo.

Probably both.

And unlike humans...

I don’t intend to hold a committee meeting about it.

Next, in the last Part Three, Chester’s attraction escapes the house. Wherever Chester goes—parks, cafés, beaches, pubs, complete strangers—the world reorganises itself around him.

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The Family Conspiracy

When the fearful adoption day arrived, I showed up at the breeder in Cheshire and collected the appropriately named Chester, apprehensive at the thought of taking‌ a puppy into our family home. I’d not met him; the children and Mrs Right had chosen him a few weeks before Christmas. But there he was…. huge button eyes and floppy ears. Cute enough to destroy every argument I’d made against getting a dog.

Still, there might be some negative vibes about his arrival, given that Mrs Right and my children had inveigled me into adopting him; after all, I had spent forty years successfully avoiding anything with fur. My family regarded this neither as a medical condition nor the cause of my asthma, but as a personality flaw. How had I succumbed to a Westiepoo?

“Pleeeeeease!” said the children.

“He’s low-shedding. Better for your allergies,” says Mrs Right.

Emotional blackmail... expertly disguised as family discussion, I thought!

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Facebook Knows I’m Finished

I’d tried to prepare for Chester’s arrival so that I didn’t end up doing all the chores. A quick straw poll on Facebook sufficed:

Kids have been told to do all their evening chores until Christmas, and I might think about getting a dog ... am I a good parent or what? Answers on the back of a postcard marked: Lassie Come Home.

I had no idea why other people were so interested in the topic; comments flooded the screen. By comment twenty-three, the majority of my peers agreed with a well-articulated opinion recommending I manoeuvre for a long, extended contract covering:

• Dog walking

• Garden poo picking

• Weekly grooming

• Daily feeding

• Vet bill contribution

• And dog-sitting when we need a break, and they’ve left home!

By comment thirty-seven, someone recommended witness signatures.

By comment forty-one, my oldest friend simply wrote:

YOU’RE TOAST 🍞

But then I’d already realised they’d stop walking the dog after the third week of January, and I’d be doing most of it!

The Facebook contributions were disturbingly confident.

I had to give in anyway! Happy wife, happy life, as the saying goes!

The Contract

“All right, Alan?” Mrs Right says, smiling joyously as I roll up home with Chester, looking perfectly content. The crocheted blanket, less so! His contribution… complementary wee and poo.

“Yes,” I say, and then, remembering my displeasure, I mutter, “He’s all yours, dear.”

“No bother,” she says.

Chester glances up at me as if to say, We’ll circle back to that delusion later.

Annoyingly, Mrs Right begins to settle the dog. Amidst a lively household, she cultivates his confidence.

Traitor, methinks!

“Where will Chester sleep?” I asked, pointing vaguely ‌to the utility room.

“With us!”

It was the shortest negotiation in recorded history. Apparently, ‘discussion’ meant listening while Mrs Right announced the decision… a royal proclamation.

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I pick up my book and read in my favoured armchair in the corner, looking out into the brick-walled garden. I took as long as I could over my reading, hoping that she would change her mind about Chester’s sleeping arrangement. When I eventually went to bed, he was there … spunky, confident, highly intelligent and eager to please. So that was that. Resistance, futile! Chester was truly family now!!!

Even though the first few days would be an adjustment, I kept my obstinacy in mind as I prepared to face the oncoming chaos and Mrs Right’s dog training, as promised in:

THE CONTRACT

Clause 3 stated that I would never train the dog.

Clause 17 guaranteed limited liability in the event of dog misbehaviour.

Clause 29 prohibited emotional attachment.

Operation Alpha Dog

As we all learned, Chester often had an unpredictable Jekyll-and-Hyde-like trait! One minute kind, calm, and sociable, and the next, volatile, aggressive, and cold, especially to black dogs or German Shepherds. Either way, he definitely struck the ladies with his wavy, golden-apricot teddy-bear looks.

“I’ll let you off the leash,” I say one day, determined to stamp my authority on this small pup.

“Woof,” he barked. Translation: Oh, splendid. This should be entertaining!

I stand like a military instructor. “Let’s go!” I say, unclipping the lead with the confidence of a man who had watched three YouTube videos.

We walked around the churchyard a few times.

You WILL:

• Heel …stay… come… leave… wait

• Obey me… respect me… fear me

• Morph into a teddy bear at any given notice

• Attract friends and neighbours!

The aim was simple: to convince Mrs Right that I could keep a five-kilogram puppy alive.

“Do you understand the importance of this training exercise?” I say.

Chester growls, more interested in sniffing pheromones from other dogs on the gravestones through his black button nose. He thinks I hardly know anything about Westiepoo dog training, thinks Chester.

I head back for an unexciting rendezvous with Mrs Right in the town centre. The routine occurrence—a catch-up with her best friend—meant I needn’t curtail this trust-gaining, unplanned exercise posthaste. I therefore ought to find a route where Chester could remain unleashed. But which one?

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The Great Escape

We were about to pass the dentist’s when disaster struck.

“Oi, Chester, wait,” I say, pointing my index finger down. He doesn’t look back. “Stop,” I improvise. I see him shooting off toward the high street.

“Woof Woof Woof.” I hear the complaint: I’m sorry, Alan, Mrs Right’s my mistress; she’s better at instructions. I’m off to where we came from to find her 600 metres this way. Your presence is only background noise.

I sprint down the street while he continues running straight down the middle.

Sprint is perhaps optimistic… I moved with the urgency of a middle-aged man who’d recently discovered running was considerably harder than remembering it. Let’s call it an energetic administrative shuffle.

I watch as a Mini Cooper weaves past parked cars down the centre of the road. It is stylish and a retrofit, and catches my eye because of its sunny-side yellow bodywork, which bursts out from the facades of red brick terrace row housing and black metal railings.

Almost in slow motion, a polished lady pedestrian wearing a light pink textured blazer over a white top begins to pick up Chester assertively, her dark bob and bangs creating a sort of likeness to Mrs Right.

“How irresponsible,” the lady says loudly, more to me than the street.

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I open my mouth to reply as she finally nudges Chester over to me, falling backwards into the Mini-Cooper’s bumper, as the car halts to a stop, her shopping exploding around her. I noticed she’s bought a Warburtons Fruit Loaf with Cinnamon and Raisin, Waitrose strawberries, two avocados, and a leek… I still can’t explain the leek.

“Shit, I’m so sorry,” I say, tying the leash to Chester’s collar.

“Train him properly,” she says. “He’s a teddy bear. He’s so cute.”

Chester stares at me; his look says, I am indeed Alan.

Then I feel a wave of relief. Even pet-despisers like me deserve help, I suppose. I should learn the attraction Chester holds for others, like Mrs Right does, so that I don’t cause anyone else any trouble by my bad ownership. But then, not everyone is as untrained and unprepared as I am.

The Takeover

And... that’s when I begin to understand.

People don’t just see a mischievous puppy.

They see:

• Me insisting I’m in charge.

• Chester swiftly showing me I am mistaken.

• Mrs Right never noticing the battle because she’s already won.

• Me referring to The Contract as if it were an international treaty.

Appendix VII clearly states… in small print so fine that someone inserted it without my noticing that:

1. Every passing lady shall refer to Chester as gorgeous.

2. Every child will stroke him.

3. Strangers risk minor traffic accidents for him.

4. The owner shall initially resist loving him, which is unfortunate because resistance will prove futile.

5. The owner shall undertake all 6 a.m. walks muttering, ‘I never wanted a dog.’

6. The dog shall ignore this because both parties know it is now too late.

That day, I realised Chester wasn’t becoming part of the family—he’d unashamedly become the centre of it.

And next week in Part Two… I am no longer Alan, but ‘the man behind Chester.’

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G’Day, Possum!

Uncle Willie, the Australian swagman, has secretly visited my daughter again. Every evening she eagerly awaits her special visitor—me, in the guise of the ultimate Aussie storyteller—a transient bush labourer… wide-brimmed Akubra hat with dangling corks… rugged checked flannel shorts… moleskin trousers!

A private light aircraft has flown halfway across the world to entertain us, with Uncle Willie piloting it to bring his flair and imagination at my request. According to my legend, he farms swathes of land.

“G’day, possum!” I begin story time in a fake Aussie accent. “Uncle Willie’s flown all the way from the Outback!!!”

“Hey, Uncle Willie,” my daughter says. “What will it be tonight? Skipping kangaroos? Cuddly koalas? Snapping Crocodiles? Or chasing Emus?”

We sing our Men at Work song together…

🎵 Do you come from a land down under 🎵

🎵 Where women glow and men plunder? 🎵

🎵 Can’t you hear, can’t you hear the thunder?🎵

🎵 You better run, you better take cover🎵

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Our evenings pass like this in remarkable style… except whoever chose the carpet before we moved into our new home has selected a vile violet one with flecks of black marking and a dirty, broken felt backing. Such interior furnishings are obstructive to magical storytelling. Never mind… a bunk bed hides much of the floor! Plenty of toys and clothes to cover it, too!!!

Later, I will read a story to my daughter’s older sister, who occupies the top bunk, but for now I simply let my younger daughter lie on the lower bunk’s deck, sniffing her favourite cuddly toy while I sit on the carpet next to her.

A Tale of True Survival

Along the hall, in another bedroom, her mother, Mrs. Right, shouts, “I don’t profess to understand this Uncle Willie.”

I smile.

“Neither does Uncle Willie, but he contains the perfect amount of innocence,” I respond, ‌obviating the need for frequent explanations of how I am pretending affections from a sweet, aged man from down under who whisks our youngest daughter away into a peaceful, dreamlike state. After all, tonight’s story is:

A TALE OF TRUE SURVIVAL.

Uncle Willie has been missing for six days! He has ventured into remote bushland after chasing a feral camel into the Outback! Of all the places in the world, this was not it. I mean, it’s Bear Grylls’ effrontery. Nothing but endless red desert and a campfire.

“I am perfectly roasting my marshmallows,” I continue, impersonating Uncle Willie, “peeling off golden skin to cook repeatedly for ongoing deliciousness when a hungry dingo raids my camp for food.”

“Oh, no! What did you do?” my daughter asks.

“Crickey! I finished me marshmallows first.”

“And?”

“The dingo pinched me sausages, the fire ate me backpack, and I accidentally boiled me waterbag.”

“You mean you had no food or water?”

“Only ashes and bush tucker to eat! Had to scout for water.”

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Meanwhile, downstairs on the television, Bear Grylls leaps heroically from a helicopter, parachuting into a jungle river. Two medics, a satellite phone, six cameras and a make-up artist to ensure he looks windswept accompany him. He has entered one of the world’s harshest environments…

“Turn the telly down,” Uncle Willie shouts. “That’s luxurious child’s play.”

The television announcer continues, “Here, every decision could mean the difference between life and death.”

Uncle Willie nods.

“I had that once.”

“What happened?” my daughter interjects

“Bitten by a highly venomous snake.”

“And you survived?”

“Sure… sat completely still… applied a bite bandage and splint… then injected myself with anti-venom.”

Barack Obama, Channing Tatum, Ben Stiller, Zac Efron, Brie Larson, Roger Federer, Matthew McConaughey, et al., eat your heart out…my daughter and I were the prototype with RUNNING WILD with Uncle Willie!

My Own Survival Story

My daughter stops me. She becomes serious…

“Dad, do you have any real survival stories? I mean proper ones.”

“Well, actually, I have,” I answer. “When I was nineteen, I travelled to a country called India with a bunch of adventurous friends. India is not like any other country in the world.”

I tell her ‌my story…

• Of travelling on a train for 18 hours from Mumbai to Hyderabad.

• Of reaching a rural village in Telangana province.

• Of staying only a few nights.

• Of playing frisbee with the villagers.

“And where is the survival in all that?” she asks, like most young children, directly.

“I haven’t reached that point yet!”

Buy Me a Beer!

An enormous feast awaits us… they expect us to eat what’s before us… the price of free nights on a bed made of dried cow dung is shocking… a whole goat cooked as a celebrated culinary tradition… South Asian spices, yoghurt, and aromatic herbs as well… and the bits the goat had spent its entire life looking through.

“Er, Dad, you didn’t eat an eyeball?”

“Yes, I had to. Only because it was staring at me. I swallowed it with sugary, sickly sweet tea as quickly as possible! But the tea never stopped arriving. I suspected tea wasn’t a drink; it was compulsory.”

“That’s disgusting.”

“Yep. It was.” I respond. “But that wasn’t the worst part of the trip.”

“You mean there’s more?”

“Yes. I made a rookie mistake. I swam in the local canal and had to survive Delhi belly.”

“What’s that? A sandwich from the deli?”

“Oh, no! Sickness and diarrhoea from water contaminated with bacteria and parasites that my tummy wasn’t used to. I spent three days lying in their cow-dung bed. For meal after meal, there was rice, and ridiculous levels of more rice, enough rice to qualify as a geological feature, and eventually a rice barrier.”

“Like, you can’t look at another grain of rice?”

“Exactly. I lay on my own, and no one asked me to eat any more, and I was absolutely fine with that. My friends seemed to enjoy themselves. I assumed this to be the case. They were learning new break-dances, healthy and well. Their appetites looked strong, and they were rehearsing the moves of the dances next to my bed. I’ll never jump into an Indian waterway again. It simply wasn’t worth it, just to impress my friends and cool down.”

“So, you didn’t like India?”

“I didn’t say that. The best bit was hanging out over a ravine, full tilt, as our train crossed a bridge. It was just like an insane pleasure beach ride.”

The Cleverest Survivor

So, back we track to poor Uncle Willie… starving… lonely… without a bedding roll… without a care in the world! There’s no rice barrier, just protein-rich insects and:

• Native fruits such as quandongs… nice if you can find them.

• Roasted wattleseeds… they’re not that bad.

• Witchetty grubs … they’re dreadful.

“Fair dinkum…”, I say, returning to my Aussie accent. “I dug for water in dry creek beds, checked granite outcrops for solas, followed birds like finches and budgies, and used a plastic bag on a tree branch to collect condensation.”

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Six days later, a helicopter circles overhead… Bear Grylls is hanging from a rope… four-wheel drivers circle Uncle Willie’s camp…. a camera crew with Indigenous trackers examines the ground… one tracker studies a footprint. “Our guest went this way,” he says.

Another one studies an empty marshmallow stick.

A third finds burnt sausages.

Uncle Willie is wondering what all the fuss is about.

My daughter’s eyes are heavy with sleep; she pulls too.

“So… Bear Grylls needs helicopters. You need a toilet, and Uncle Willie needs marshmallows.”

“Yes,” I say affectionately.

She cuddles her soft toy.

“I still think Uncle Willie was the clever one.”

“Why?”

“Because he never ate the goat’s eyeballs.”

I quietly remove Uncle Willie’s hat and kiss her forehead goodnight.

“And what about Bear Grylls?” I ask.

“Oh, that’s just TV!”

I smile. The innocence is still there. Uncle Willie disappears back into the bush again.

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Every nickname has an origin story.

Break time at last…

It’s a February morning … as usual, it’s freezing. When I arrive at the playground, twenty school friends are already clustering around the football as if it’s a Cold War summit. They’re talking about the 1980 Winter Olympics. No one appears sure where Lake Placid is, apart from the fact that it’s beyond the bike sheds in America… and the MIRACLE ON ICE has just happened, capturing our imagination.

Fortunately, the football lads accept me; I have long since been ‘one of them’... no mean feat in the pantheon of levels of acceptance… careful passing, regular assists, and the odd stint in goal seal it!

I take off my coat and lay it along with the other coats and bags, and Mike’s homework, in one of the two piles near the wire fencing running next to F Block. Together they form the traditional British school goalposts… FIFA approved, obviously!

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The previous lesson had not gone well. My conversation with the English teacher unsettles me AGAIN. Last time, ‘verbal diarrhoea’; this time, too many subordinating conjunctions... aren’t they the same thing? Apparently not… who knew?

Today’s football is no longer about a gentle kick-around…

It’s a full-blown therapy session with a bunch of unqualified teenagers as therapists! What could possibly go wrong?

“I’ll captain,” I announce, thinking that if I pick a team, at least something today will go according to plan. Besides, I have a personal transfer policy for players that I have developed over the past 3 years. Those who can actually score and defend versus those who offer sweets, help with homework, and tell jokes in class. No contest. Be the best! Or so says the British Army.

How to Improve Football (According to Fourteen-year-old Boys)

Jeremy, the opposing captain, is not happy. “What we need,” he says, “is more Olympic razzmatazz.”

“Yeah. We’ll play football using ice hockey rules!” Andy suggests.

Within seconds, there’s universal approval. Interference, boarding, charging, elbowing, tripping, suspicious shoving, and whatever Gary has just done to Trevor, which may constitute a minor war crime, are acceptable. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you:

HOCKBALL!

We are now at the stage where the Miracle on Ice has evolved. Our teenage brain lobes have reinvented it as the MIRACLE ON ASPHALT. Our teams now represent the USA and the Soviet Union.

“Ian, you’re Mike Eruzione.”

He salutes.

“Tony, Vladimir Krutov.”

Tony attempts a Russian accent. It sounds Welsh.

“Martin, Jim Craig.”

Fair enough. He’s a goalie after all.

“Mike, Boris Mikhailov.”

A close match.

Then every head turns towards me.

“And Alan… you’re Stegginovski.”

“I don’t think there is a Stegginovski,” I say

“There is now.”

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The game starts. Mike Eruzione—aka Ian—instantly scythes my legs with all the restraint of a Zamboni re-surfacing the ice. I become airborne and discover the wire fence is harder than it looks. Still, not as hard as the brick wall I flew into at junior school when I slammed into it playing Aussie Rules… oh yes, somewhere in my archives I have photos of my face in shades of black, purple and blue, almost cosmic in its darkness.

I arose... dignified. Revenge would be mine… not only for the tripping episode but because Ian is also dating my first crush, Sara! Which was worse: the football incident or the major calamity of hanging out with him because of his girlfriend? You decide!

Meanwhile, Hockball is exploding with foul play all over the asphalt. Players are charging one another without the inconvenience of possession of the ball… unquestionably the finest sporting spectacle a Hampshire secondary school has ever hosted... AND, knowing no better, Vladimir Krutov barges Jim Craig out of his goal to allow Boris Mikhailov to score.

A Structural Failure in British Clothing

Then came the boyish laughter. Mike of the Mikhailov alias cheers out loud. There’s no concealment in his glee. Others join in his merriment as he points to my garments.

“Trousers, Steggy!” Mike shouts out. “What’s with the Y-fronts?”

So that was the source of their amusement. Unbelievable. My underpants are visible through a glaringly large hole in my buttock attire… ventilation to anyone with functional eyesight. It was less a hole than an architectural feature.

I sense a chastening to match the veteran Soviets’ “Red Machine” humiliation at the hands of America’s underdog team of determined college players and that of my English teacher!

“It’s deliberate,” I say sharply, the way you explain the punch line to a joke. “It saves Mum ironing—the breeze does half the work.”

Several boys looked bemused.

“What’s the breeze got to do with ironing, Steggy?” Mike asks.

My deflection has not worked.

“If nothing else, at least you know I’m wearing underwear!” I add.

The laughter grows raucously, even frenziedly and deafeningly, like the patriotic crowd in Lake Placid, as the penny drops. They’ll be ribbing me about my mother’s penchant for ironing everything for years to come!

Buy Me A Beer

This, then, is the genesis of Steggy.

One catastrophic trouser failure…. an entirely fictional Soviet ice hockey player!!!

Not Smudge.

Not Smudger Smith.

STEGGY… the athlete whose greatest sporting achievement was exposing a pair of freshly ironed Y-fronts to half a school playground.

Stegginovski leaves Hampshire

I rarely enjoyed the attention of my schoolmates in this show-stopping, cynosure way again. Stegginovski, I assumed, would quietly retire with them as school finished. Its legacy… no stronger than most Olympic mascots. BUT I was wrong. Aged twenty-one, I left to study in Canada and roomed with a complete stranger…

“I’m the talking horse,” the newcomer says as his opening gambit, “Mr Ed. How shall I address you?”

I looked surprised at the ingenuity of his tone. It seemed rude not to respond likewise. There was a slight pause before I answered.

“Aye, I’m Mr Stegginovski, Steggy for short,” I say in my broadest Hampshire accent. This was going to be fun.

“Stegginovski...” he repeats approvingly. “That’s way better than the rest.”

“The rest?”

“The lads on our corridor are not of a similar standard to…” he pauses and pulls the face of a horse … upper teeth protruding over the lower lip… “as Steggy.”

“Oh. They’re alright, I guess... if your standards are reasonable,” I say, nodding. Such humour, such clear, comedic prose. Mr Ed pipes up, as I thought he might, unable to resist an opportunity to name the other four lads.

“Wedgie.”

Perfectly acceptable.

“Fitz”

Traditional for Fitzwilliam.

“Jimbo.”

Predictable.

“Colin.”

“Colin! What kind of nickname is that other than a Caterpillar?” I say.

He’s never heard of Colin the Caterpillar... too British… too Marks & Spencer!!! And he frowns.

“But Steggy?”

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“Not for the faint-hearted?” I say, granting permission for Steggy’s evolution, several years on, “... it’s from school and ice hockey.”

His face lit up. The way I named hockey implied I knew something about the sport, which Mr Ed, like many Canadians, adored and obsessed over. He looked impressed.

“So you play hockey?”

“Not exactly. Only accidentally. I once survived something similar and tore my trousers.”

“And you are Russian, too?” he asks, stirring the pot for another quip.

“Only on school breaks,” I say. “I came to Canada expecting a few hockey fans; instead, I’ve met a horse. You know what it’s like—you match a stick and puck with a horse and ball and arrive at polo, don’t you? We should have much in common...”

Interior Design by Livestock

A few days later, I return to our room to discover Mr Ed has redecorated the exterior of our dorm door.

There it was, a neat sign reading: MR ED & STEGGY

Beneath it: BLESS THIS MESS

Then: KEEP RIGHT.

A large photo of a horse… reasonable.

But I’m bemused… a cut-out of a pig.

“Why the pig, Mr Ed?”

“It’s for the mess!”

“Oh... that’s a shame... I thought it might be a farm animal theme… a Stegosaurus dwarfed to a pig? Oink, Oink!”

But it’s not the pig that’s the issue here. It’s Steggy. It is now broadcast to the rest of the campus.

Not Alan.

Not Smith.

Steggy

An entirely fictional Soviet international, invented because a group of English schoolboys couldn’t remember the real ones.

The Soviet Union disappeared.

My school trousers did too.

Stegginovski never existed... and somehow outlived them all.

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A hopeless French teacher

Alors…

Another Sunday… I embrace the car boot sale again! I could have stayed at home with the dog. BUT here I am… traipsing around fields, up and down parallel rows of cars. Up and down, up and down… again and again. All the booters’ promise… cracked teapots, broken DVDs, ceramic owls with disturbing expressions. I’ve even been a punter myself once upon a time: folded tables, blankets, unwanted wares!

Good Lord… there it is. One seller had ‘À Vous la France’, a BBC course book for beginners in French, on their table. Price: fifty pence or £3 if I want the ornate owl as well. I almost broke my golden rule: never buy tat!

Still…an entire bank of French memories arrives for FREE!

So let me tell you my French musings, kicking off with Mr Bental, or Mr Mental, as we unkindly called him.‌ This was, after all, a 1970s English secondary modern school. No woke there! A scraggly, grey-haired middle-ager, whose classroom discipline was just as unruly as his mane…

“Un, deux, trois… sit down, Fisher!

…quatre, cinq, six… Bullock, stop shooting that spitball.”

… sept, huit, nerf… NO class, don’t lock me in the store cupboard.”

Deux…”

Let’s be gracious and say that after three years, I learned that French nouns have genders! Le chien. La table. Period, or I suppose technically… période.

An embarrassing aunt

At fourteen, I cross the Channel for the first time… Dad, Mum and Auntie Maz—she who still calls me ‘My Little Sunshine’ despite my being in my sixties, which always feels rather obsolete, uncanny, bizarre even—accompany me. France was unprepared! Me and my luminous golden-yellow Adidas T-shirt with three blue sleeve stripes. I looked like I was straight out of Jacques Cousteau’s yellow submarine. Remember him? I do. His was the first TV programme I watched in colour at home!

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Outside the Hotel de Ville, I look like a right tourist plonker kneeling on a lawn in the middle of a carefully landscaped flower garden next to her. There I am:

• Alan.

• Curly, light brown hair that looked like a bird’s nest

• Utilitarian NHS metal-framed glasses.

• Aloof from my Aunt… escaping from my parents.

• French: non-existent.

• Embarrassed.

• Day-tripper, booze-cruiser…

Except? I’m underage and my Mum’s teetotal!‌

I was learning the techniques of an aspiring international traveller…

“Hello,” Auntie Maz says.

“Bonjour,” says the server.

“HELLO,” Auntie Maz shouts louder.

“Bonjour,” continues the waiter…

“HELLO! DO YOU SPEAK ENGLISH?”

Why? Isn’t that what most Brits do abroad?

Terrifying receptionists

Years later, after I’d finished my education, my work required me to telephone French company directors. And so I turned to “À Vous la France” and evening classes for help:

“I’d like to speak with Monsieur Dupont, thank you,” differed slightly from: “I’d like to book a double room with a shower for two nights!”

The “Je voudrais” bit at the beginning of the sentence was handy… ONLY…the lady on reception replies generously… in rapid-fire French!

“Je parle très peu Francis.” I say, expecting her to speak in English.

She responds with even faster French.

I appear to have accidentally flirted with the French language and the receptionist!‌

Even in my early career, I understood French was the antithesis of English…the expressive, poetic, and melodic phonetic qualities of diplomacy and romance versus the international language of business, science, and entertainment. It got me thinking… had my love life stalled in Calais or in Mr Bental’s classroom? Given my lack of a girlfriend, not learning French at school seemed a poor choice…

Maybe I could then take part in a few educational trips? … to find l’âme sœur… Mme. RIGHT!... Alors:

• I took a weekend trip to Normandy with fellow night schoolers… plenty of history…no sleep… no Mme. RIGHT!

• I spent two weeks youth-hostelling in Paris… my mate drove… met a family with six children… no Mme. RIGHT!

• I took a booze cruise to Dunkirk… a girl I fancied drove… she wasn’t the one… no Mme. RIGHT!

A pattern is emerging.

A furious canoe partner

Finally, I summon the courage to plan a road trip to the south of France alone… Montpellier to be precise… and brush up on the quirks of… PRIORITÉ À DROITE.

French driving, as any experienced driver in France knows, means that vehicles coming from roads on your right have the right of way, even if their road is tiny and yours feels like the main artery… that means yellow submarines on wheels, too.

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And then came Michelle… was she the ONE?

“Canoë? Aimerais-tu faire du canoë avec moi?” she says.

Canoe is a word I didn’t have to look up in my Collins French-English mini-dictionary.

A chance to impress… “Oui” I say

Dark-haired… smiling broadly… wearing a dark baseball cap and a light-coloured sleeveless shirt… Michelle is the only singleton in a group which includes three couples: Philippe and Christelle, Hervé and Marie-Christine, and a second Philippe and Florence.

She has invited me to join them on a day on the river. This was after I helped them move their camping gear during a flash flood.

I had canoed solo before, but this was a tandem canoe with single-bladed paddles. It required teamwork, clear communication, and synchronised paddling. Not exactly ideal when Michelle speaks no English and my French… is, well… as you’ve learned… not up to scratch.

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I sit at the stern. Michelle is in the bow.

The canoe zig-zags down the river and spins in circles near the bank.

“Pourquoi ce canoë ne va-t-il pas droit?” says Michelle crossly.

Our experiment with draws, pries, and forward strokes to run straight is failing miserably.

“Ça doit être de ta faute!” she adds crossly.

Apparently, it’s all my fault.

“Tu comprends?”

Not remotely. The canoe strikes the bank, then a tree, and the bank again.

“Watch out for that overhead branch, Michelle,” I warn. “I’ll lever off the side of the boat.”

“Non. Pas en anglais!” she says, her tone dismissive, fed up even. “Tu ne sers à rien. Va te faire cuire un œuf.”

I must have looked puzzled: What about cooking an egg? I’m thinking to myself.

She turns around, baring her gritted teeth.

“Je vous renvoie. Laissez-moi tranquille.”

This was definitely not flirting.

A few days later, and I’m mixing business with pleasure: my company’s French agent—Dominique—and I are in a restaurant eating steak tartare…

“I don’t know if she likes me, Dominique,” I say. “If she fancies me, she’s probably very doubtful as to my credentials:

UNSTABLE CANOEIST!

If she does—and I sincerely hope so—then I imagine us languishing in a tent on the campsite’s perimeter, immersed in a river of rose petals and champagne, taunted by Aphrodite.”

Dominique laughs… “Or perhaps she simply wants to canoe straight!”

NO Mme. RIGHT then! But wait… here comes Mrs. RIGHT instead…

A honeymoon running out of money

It was late March, several years later. Honeymoon time. However unconvinced Mrs. RIGHT was, the Loire Valley pulled me to book a self-catering holiday in a rural gîte there. And the electricity meter agreed, gulping another coin…

“There goes another Franc”, I say, sighing and turning off the electricity.

“We’ll run out at this rate,” she says.

I felt a flash of desperate pessimism. What if I had listened to her? What if we could move on somewhere else, anywhere else?

“Let’s book a hotel in Tours?” I say.

“Oh, I love you, dear.”

I smile.

“I just hate the French.”

That’s less… reassuring… and her ambivalence is about to be tested to the fullest...

We arrive at a petrol station to fill up. Pas de problème!

EXCEPT... I can’t find my wallet. Not on my person. Nor in my luggage. Nor on the car floor, nor in the compartments, nor in the door pockets.

“Where the f**k is it?” she says.

“Je ne sais pas,” I respond.

“Speak English, man!” She says dismissively, à la Michelle!

I don’t have a Scooby-Doo as to what’s happened to it? And my explanation to the forecourt assistant in my pidgin French lacks conviction when I finally remember something useful from A Vous La France:

“J’ai perdu mon portefeuille!” I say to him meekly.

Mrs RIGHT is unimpressed when I drive back to the hotel to pick up some more Travellers’ cheques and leave her and my passport as collateral for my return.

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Perhaps it was foolhardy, but I made the first move

“It’s only been a week since we wed, I know, but it feels like this honeymoon has been a disastrous start to our marriage. I’m so sorry for my planning, and—”

She cut across me, nice as pie in adoration, loving me deeply and rising to the occasion as newlyweds. That thrilling voice of new beginnings, husband and wife, I remember it like yesterday.

“I know you mean well, darling,” she says longingly. “Look, I suggest we call your friends in Paris and see if we can stay with them for a few days. Maybe spend time with them to save the money we’ve lost?”

“Are you sure they have six kids?”

“Great contraceptive then!” she laughs.

And several decades of misunderstanding France?

After returning home, I discovered what had happened to my wallet. Some kind soul—thank you, whoever you were—found it in the car park at the Château de Chenonceau and handed it in to the local Gendarmerie, who simply posted it back to me. As for À Vous La France… it still sits on the booters’ table.

“Only fifty pence,” repeats the seller.

I pick it up.

“You know what?” I say.

“Buying it?” she asks.

“No, I’ve already had the course!”

• Mr Bental is stuck inside his cupboard.

• Auntie Maz is still shouting, “MY LITTLE SUNSHINE!”

• Michelle brandishes a paddle.

• Mrs. RIGHT fends off a forecourt assistant.

• A gendarme posts the wallet.

“Did it teach you French?” the seller asks.

“Not very much”

“Then what did it teach you?”

“That France is a wonderful country … provided you survive the lessons.”

La fin.

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Most people dream of sailing into a tropical sunset.

Why me? Why now? Why is the dinghy I’m sailing turned turtle in the middle of The Solent?

My latest dream… to have myself ship-shape and ready to sail off into a far-flung sunset and a tropical island requires precise synchronisation between Skip and me… how to learn how to gybe with a spinnaker for the very first time...

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Far greater sailors than I had tried and failed to swap the spinnaker pole from the old mast side to the new one while keeping the kite full, but to capsize the hull as well?

A gust of wind and

WHOOOMP!

There I was, head underwater… lines, rigging, and jib sheet all over me… WITH a desperate need to extricate myself from under the hull.

The Ministry of Dreams—my governing board of future inspiration—called upon Adrenaline to find an escape route. A dive—a plummet?—might JUST do the trick. Ah, breathe. I’m in open water… the yacht is my buoy… the mainmast is stuck in the silt at the sea’s bottom and needs dragging out to a deeper channel... for the rest of the day, I shiver and sway tremulously.

“So what on earth would possess you to want to live on a yacht?” asks the Department for Nightmares, while Hallucination marks my application to be a Yachtmaster:

DECLINED: Topsy-Turvy Decision-Making!

SECONDARY CONCERN: Excessive enthusiasm!!!

Flashback then intervenes… “It wasn’t the first ‘issue’ with this particular skipper, though…was it?” she asks.

“NO”, I respond.

Scottish rocks and Rod Stewart!

Over the course of a sailing holiday around the Isle of Skye in balmy weather, I should have concluded that there was something particularly hazardous about Skip’s captaincy. Being woken up at 5 am and drifting towards rocks, I was minded not to sail with him again. It was only a Harbour Master shouting like an irate sports coach who saved us.

“Wake up. You IDIOTS!” he cries, the force of his megaphone speeding up the wind and pushing the yacht toward danger. “Start that motor and head starboard IMMEDIATELY.”

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Skip looks mortified. His seamanship is seriously degrading in our and the rest of the Scottish sailing fraternity’s eyes… BUT it’s the last morning of seven days, and in only a couple of hours we’ll be in the car heading home safely… whereupon came Rod Stewart on the radio and the fatal song:

🎵 I am sailing, I am sailing🎵

🎵 Home again ‘cross the sea 🎵

🎵 I am sailing stormy waters 🎵

🎵 To be near you, to be free 🎵

Under the circumstances, I felt like improvising with alternative lyrics:

🎵 I am drifting, I am drifting 🎵

🎵 Away again ‘toward the rocks 🎵

🎵 I am drifting without tidal anchors 🎵

🎵 To be far from you, to meet a tree 🎵

Canal-boat propaganda

Something else is troubling me, though. Adam—my mate from work—is carrying canal-boat brochures and suggests canal living is far more pleasurable than the open seas; like the amble on an inland barge at walking pace, while ducks overtake is more attractive than ventures far at sea with a glamorous superyacht slicing through blue ocean waters.

The boat business, or leisure cruising—as it’s unapologetically called—is all about dreams, and landlubbers could perceive Adam’s fondness for narrow boats as idyllic.

As if by magic…. Abracadabra… the Ministry of Dreams reappears.

“Gentlemen, present your fantasies,” the Ministers say.

“Canals are better,” says Adam.

“Canals are puddles with management,” I respond.

I am under no illusions. In terms of workplace banter, Adam is a master, and I am… I don’t know what I am. Not a master, certainly. Of course, I hoped he would see beyond his prejudices, take a deeper look at the luxuries of a super yacht… dolphins… exotic locations … sunset anchorages… beach barbecues... BUT that said, I knew his bias would require him to dream of kettles, waterways and green fields.

So I suggest that if ever the Ministry grants our dreams, we engage in an epic race. I sail around the British coast from Liverpool to London... and he, having invested in a canal boat, ventures lock to lock.

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“I’ll sail 900 nautical miles, while you traverse the canals,” I say.

Adam grins. “Oh, I have thousands of jokes stored up for you. You’ll end up in either Morris’s Marina, like in your car fire (see previous posts), or Salty Towers.”

“Ha,” I counter, “250 to 300 miles cruising six to eight hours per day will take you three to four weeks. I’ll be there in less than two.”

The Great British Boat Race That Wasn’t

Outside the appropriately named Titanic Hotel in Stanley Dock, where both of our separate modes of transport are moored, the Ministry of Dreams signals the race start with a gunshot.

Adam instantly suffers from inertia. Four locks to traverse up the Stanley Flight. The first hour alone features… sticky, grinding locks… misaligned doorframes… dirty mechanisms… worn keys. Only another 250 or more to go on the direct route.

“Good luck, Adam!” I radioed across.

My own difficulties still await:

• Often, rough waters off the Welsh coast

• Atlantic gales rounding the southwestern tip of England

• The notorious, busy shipping lane of the English Channel, with its powerful tides.

• AND the pubs and bars of Milford Haven, Falmouth and Brighton.

I can already tell what you’re thinking… Aesop’s Fable…The Tortoise and The Hare! My crawling competitor will usurp my foolish overconfidence… a drunken night or two ashore and then lost at sea!

But I am not that complacent, yet! I have checked the tide charts for the River Mersey up to the Irish Sea, and they are favourable. Oh, who cares? Let’s go!

Adam calls through on the radio, “Alan, what have you got for lunch?”

“I actually have a box of Emmental, Red Leicester and strong mature Cheddar cheese to make a sourdough three-cheese toastie.”

“Oh, that’s a shame. I’m at Aintree Racecourse watching the gee-gees and eating a four-course luncheon with wine,” he says cheerily.

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“No, you’re not. You’re on your canal boat, eating sandwiches and smoking a cigarette. Aintree hospitality is not your forte.”

I can hear a PA system in the background. “And the next race is the Grand National.”

This has got to be some kind of hoax… surely he’s not there… he’s trivialising this race already.

“Well. I’m only making a pleasant observation,” Adam banters on.

“You make plenty of observations,” I say begrudgingly.

I’m smarting and furious. Still, when I’ve got the sail up, I sit down and brew a cuppa. The weather is well… not very English. Balmy and STILL. And for once, I’m unhappy the sun is out. It’s hardly going to win me the race. I’m also worried that the Ministry of Dreams is fulfilling my other wishes for tranquillity and the chance to catch a few rays of sun, too seriously.

I lodge an objection

Two weeks later, after a relentless storm off Penzance, I humbly arrive in London. I’ve lost communication with Adam and don’t know why. Last I knew, he was still on the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, still elevating through the Pennines.

The Ministry of Dreams was delighted to receive me.

“Outstanding,” declared the Chief Minister. “The applicant has survived weather, shipping traffic, and his own decision-making.”

Then Adam called.

“Where are you?” I ask.

“London.”

My stomach sank.

“How? It’s impossible.”

“Well, there was a slight administrative change.”

“What do you mean?”

Adam coughed.

“There was an escape clause in the Ministry’s terms, so I changed allegiance to the Council of Happiness and sold my boat to a bookmaker.”

“You abandoned the race?”

“No.”

“What happened?”

“I had an epiphany… I bought a train ticket… and spent fourteen days in a pub waiting for you.”

To this day, the banter lives on…

• I maintain I won because I completed the course.

• Adam maintains he won because he arrived first.

• The Ministry claims it won because it didn’t have to ‌resort to explaining Aesop’s fable.

And, annoyingly, all three arguments are correct.

Tired of television murders, I take Sherlock Holmes on a tour of Leicester.

I’m eating my fish and chips supper, newspaper spread across my lap, when the evening’s routine begins… a classic British whodunit on the box. The opening music starts… a picturesque English village… a duck pond… a suspicious butcher… a body. Murder in — no! Please, NO…not:

• Miss Marple…well, my dear…. the worst is so often true!

• Poirot… I have little grey cells!

• Vera… I’ve got on an oversized trench coat!

• Morse…I’m obsessed with Wagner and opera!

Me… I’ve got indigestion!!!

Not again? I amuse myself. You people, solve murders… I struggle to solve three-letter crossword clues!

One can bear the whodunits if, unlike me, you can put the ducks in a row and solve the murder before the ad breaks… AND I simply can’t. So today, dear readers, I’m going to escape the televisual onslaught into something safer… my own comic mayhem. A tour… AND not any old tour… a criminal tour of my current abode: LEH-ster with the chief of detectives himself.

Yes, that’s right. You heard it here first: roll call… the greatest sleuth himself, ‌Sherlock Holmes, will be in observance of my little party and me! And indeed, it’s evident that he’s already deduced that Leicester never pronounces the ICE! To ensure local authenticity, he has eliminated the American variety from his investigations!

In steps… Benedict Cumberbatch, no less, carrying a tote bag …

“I attended the reinterment of King Richard III. Does that count as a Leicester connection?” he asks.

“No.”

“I once ate a Red Leicester sandwich.”

I shake my head and ask him to take a seat… outside HMP Leicester, which …. FUN FACT … looks more like a medieval dragon castle than a prison.

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→Tanky Smith thinks Sherlock is overrated.

So I turn to our first guest speaker, Tanky Smith, for his input. He’s a tall, intelligent, well-read man who grew up in the streets of Victorian Leicester. Well, not him exactly… his ghost!

“Leicester was full of thieves, robbers and pickpockets until I turned up,” Tanky comments. “I infiltrated the city’s inns, taverns and other houses of ill repute with my many disguises… eavesdropping on conversations… doing the real detective work… putting criminals behind bars… reducing crime… AND not to boast, becoming the most successful constable in the Leicester Borough Force.”

He sounds like a politician running for election as the next Police Commissioner… Commissioner Gordon, eat your heart out.

Our very own Batman, Sherlock, notices a commemorative blue plaque mounted on the wall of Top Hat Terrace. Useful for names and dates. It reads:

FRANCIS ”TANKY” SMITH d. 1888 - Leicester’s first private detective.

Hmmm… Sherlock hyperventilates… he needs some microscopic detail on the plaque that nobody else notices:

• A ceramic crack or chip.

• Some paint-spray from vandalism.

• Harsh chemical cleaner causing discolouration.

• Building works around the plaque.

As you might tell, I’m quite apprehensive about Sherlock believing Tanky is the real-life inspiration for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. His exceptional sleuthing skills and mastery of disguises are quite beguiling.

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→Sir Alec Jeffreys proves Sherlock isn't always right.

I’m keen to move the tour on to the University of Leicester. Sir Alec Jeffreys joins us here to discuss forensic science. There’s a plaque about him, too — from the Royal Society of Chemistry — commemorating his ‘eureka moment’... his discovery of DNA fingerprinting.

Sherlock’s gonna love this! Maybe he’s not so much the expert as he thinks. Ha… jealousy… it’ll be worse than sharing Watson’s attention with others… BUT it’s too late … he’s already texting Watson:

NOBODY APPRECIATES ME!

(Forgive me, but this bit’s not so comical)...

“In 1986, Colin Pitchfork, a local baker, raped and murdered two 15-year-old girls,” Sir Alec says… nothing to joke about here. “The police arrested and charged a suspect — Richard Buckland — who confessed to one murder. Yet when I ran the DNA tests, the crime scene samples did not match the suspect’s DNA. The hypothesis that the police had the right person failed to account for the DNA evidence. Instead, the evidence pointed to an unknown suspect.”

The crowd is silent.

Sherlock is now whistling under his breath… “You need Inference to the Best Explanation and abductive reasoning, clever clogs.”

“To keep it simple,” Sir Alec continues, “We used a reasoning method where scientists evaluate competing hypotheses and conclude that the one which best accounts for all the evidence is the most likely to be true.”

“Drat, drat and double drat!” Sherlock mutters.

“Sorry, did you say something, Sherlock?” I ask.

“I invented this kind of stuff… in the late 19th Century,” he boasts. “With vibes.”

I ignore Sherlock’s antics. He’s being annoying now. The brilliant detective is clearly struggling.

“So what happened to Pitchfork? Did he get pitchforked?” a member of our tour party asks.

“The police used a genetic dragnet of local men. Although he tried to evade the test by having a friend provide a sample in his place, the police caught his deception. The hypothesis that Colin Pitchfork committed the crimes was the only explanation that accommodated the new DNA evidence, his evasive behaviour, and the crime scene facts.”

One murderer, hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, caught since. Who needs TV detectives when one has Sir Alec? RESULT, I’d say!!!

Sherlock is probably still seeking a blister on a foot or an indented mark from a ball to suggest the local hoodlum is a footballer.

“Oh, look…” another tour member shouts. “Is that Helen Mirren over there?”

As far as I knew, Helen was more likely to be in Leicester Square than Leicester… though my party members have become distracted. They take out their phones and snap wildly. Sherlock isn’t.

I wonder if Sherlock is going through a process of elimination. Helen Mirren or not?

Buy Me a Beer

→Jackie Malton reveals the reality behind TV policing.

We’re outside the ex-Charles Street police station now. Pedestrians are travelling on foot. Some use mobility aids or wheelchairs. The Art déco architecture of the building in front of us is straight out of Poirot. An elderly lady, possibly retired, approaches.

“Ladies and gentlemen…” I announce. “I hope you weren’t fooled… Jackie Malton is here!”

“Jackie who?” a person demands.

“Never heard of her!” another grumbles.

“Oh, this tour is shite!!!” says a third.

“Sir,” I reply, “we’ve Sherlock Holmes, DNA fingerprinting and a Victorian detective.”

“Yes,” he says. “But where’s the Space Centre?”

I turn to Sherlock: “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?” I quote him verbatim. “Tell the ladies and gentlemen who this lady is.”

Sherlock stands aloof… analytical, almost.

“I believe it is the real-life inspiration for DCI Jane Tennison in the iconic TV drama Prime Suspect,” he says, bored and restless.

“Bravo, Sherlock… you’ve eliminated Helen Mirren and DCI Jane Tennison to reveal Jackie Malton. At one time, the youngest ever Sergeant in Leicester and Rutland Constabulary and one of the first female DCIs at the Met.‌ Tell us your story, Jackie,...”

Sherlock looks depressed. He’s spent over 100 years becoming the world’s most famous detective, and now everybody is listening to real people. He texts again:

WATSON RESCUE ME!

“Thank you, Alan… when I joined the police in 1970, I discovered my nickname was ‘Cocky Chops’ because I was gay and hadn’t met the right man. I could hardly have imagined that one day I would become the model for a hit television drama series.”

See… this is a better tour than you thought! Right?

“… in that building, two officers grabbed my arms while a third put his hands up my skirt, pulled down my knickers and stamped my bottom with the CID ink stamp while others looked on. It was utterly humiliating… and with that and many other incidents, I made sure the Prime Suspect writer, Lynda La Plante, wrote sexism into her storylines.”

Jackie goes on to talk lucidly about corruption, homophobia, politicians, alcohol abuse, criminal justice and prisons. She concludes that La Plante’s creation had a major impact on police dramas by foregrounding a woman officer. GO GIRLS GO!

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→Gary Lineker leaves a trail no detective can ignore.

Benedict Cumberbatch puts his hand up.

“Yes, Benedict,” I say, wishing they’d locked him up inside the prison.

“This is all very well and good,” he smiles quirkily. “But why is there a pair of white underpants on the flag mask over there?”

“That’s elementary, dear Cumberbatch!” steps in Sherlock. “You see, but you do not observe!”

“How do you mean, Sherlock?” I say.

“There is a terrible criminal lurking in this district… but first I must lay my trap. Does anyone have a pack of Walkers Crisps?”

A member of the public has a pack in their rucksack. This is Leicester, home of the world’s largest potato chip factory… The odds were excellent!

“Good. We will need to lay a trail of crisps back to Top Hat Terrace, the original 221B Baker Street.”

We all scamper back to 113 London Road, dropping even the smallest of crumbs. Britain has lowered its standards yet again!

The villain scurries along, hiding behind street furniture.

Seconds later, I wake up from snoozing through the whodunnit… Gary Lineker is appearing in a TV ad. Yeah… he of Walkers Crisps. The famous English footballer who kept his promise to wear his undies on live TV if Leicester City won the Premier League.

“Hey, Gary, move on… Sherlock is about to guide us through his step-by-step logical deduction and reconstruction of a crime… the culprit is entirely outmanoeuvred… he’ll be unable to deny the facts.”

But it’s too late… the footballer has left his mark all over the city… undies, strands of leather, lost footballs behind bins, golden boots… all over the city.

And what crime had Gary committed? Any guesses?

• His notoriously big ears?

• His reputation as a clean player?

• His Salt & Linekar crisps?

No, the evidence is overwhelming.

Motive. Opportunity. Means.

Sherlock adjusts his deerstalker.

“Case closed.”

“What is the crime?” I ask.

Sherlock sighs.

“Abandoning his Mr Nice Guy image.”

Even Moriarty wouldn’t stoop that low.

Alfred the Great has spent eleven centuries being mocked for cakes… now he wants his side of the story.

When, as a boy, I sat unbelted in the back of my Grandfather’s Morris 1800, he would point out the statue of King Alfred the Great in Winchester’s Broadway and take great pleasure in recounting the story of Alfred’s burning of ‌the ‘cakes’.

From then on, Alfred — “the greatest Englishman to ever live,” to quote Sir Winston Churchill — became some kind of mystic hero to me… BUT I never really understood why everyone cared so much about some burnt cakes.

So years later, I decided to investigate this underrated medieval legend, whose statue looks just like a machine-gun-toting, baddie-dispatching, film-fronting hero of a previous millennium…

Cue Bruce Willis energy …

Yippee-ki-yay, motherf***er!

Now I have a machine gun. Ho ho ho!

Welcome to the Party, Pal!

Just as I sit down to dig into my research, a shadow falls over my pub garden bench.

“Erm, Alan?” a voice says.

A man appears on horseback. He’s wearing a traditional Anglo-Saxon tunic, royal cloak, a crown over a battle helmet, and carries a sword and shield… as if he’s accidentally ridden out of the ninth century.

“Yes — Alan — I am he.”

Alfred leans slightly from the saddle.

“I’m Alfred, King of Wessex, Defender of the Saxons, Burner of Alleged Cakes,” he says in Old English, electronically translated by Google Translate with all the calm authority of a confused sat-nav.

I awkwardly offer a handshake upward, but he has absolutely no idea of my custom… evidence of the lamentable standards of casual, everyday greetings among Anglo-Saxons.

“What strange ritual is this?” he asks.

“A handshake.”

“I only clasp hands when my subjects seal an oath of loyalty,” he replies. By now, his language is almost comprehensible…

(I ALWAYS like a word ending in ‘ible,’ like in pool or snooker, where every ball is ‘pot… ible’. No such word. Still, the sports commentators persist!)

I shuffle aside to allow Alfred to dismount, but he squints at the modern pub sign:

THE SIR WALTER TYRELL

“Who is this man?” he asks.

I’m somewhat familiar with the story behind this pub, so I advise my new guest that I believe Sir Walter accidentally killed one of his descendants — William II — during a hunting party… a stray arrow through the heart... how terrible — another proper ‘ible’ — to be the bearer of bad news… awful really.

“ORF WITH HIS HEAD!”

Alfred is reassured to know that the monarchy has changed little over the centuries.

→I just wanted a quiet pint.

“Fancy a pint?” I say attempting to ameliorate Alfred before he orders another execution. I head toward the bar to order two more pints of ale; there was little point offering a medieval ‘Great’, a cocktail or Pimm’s, was there?

“Betty, two pints of Old Thumper, please,” I say to the landlady.

It amuses Alfred to learn that Old Thumper is named after a boar. It reminds him of hunting, violence, high status… and of delicacies at grand feasts. Finally—something culturally familiar.

He steps to the bar, humming along (appropriately) to the music, a Paul Simon tune:

🎵 If you’ll be my bodyguard 🎵

🎵 I can be your long-lost pal 🎵

🎵 I can call you Betty 🎵

🎵 And Betty, when you call me, you can call me Al 🎵

It’s one of my favourites, too… any guesses why?

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Betty raises an eyebrow: “Is there a reenactment nearby?” she asks me nervously.

“At least, I sincerely hope not.” I reply, “I think the Bureau of Imagination has summoned Alfred to explain the cake burning.”

Alfred shrugs. “Gīse, hit is swā,” he says, which roughly translates to: Okey dokey, but I don’t do media interviews.

“Would you care for some lunch, too?” I ask Alfred.

“Cakes, please,” he replies. “Wheaten hearth. Baked in the embers of the fire… but not burnt.”

At last, the grievance emerges.

I couldn’t ignore his request. “Betty, can I order a platter to share with my new friend? Plenty of flatbread.”

“No raisins,” he says, sounding pleased at last. “They’re pagan.”

→Alfred the Great wants to clear his name.

We head back outside, carrying our pints into the glorious summer sun. Ponies and donkeys graze the open fields, and trees sway in full view… who would believe it? A real-life conversation with a monarch officially dubbed “the Great” and celebrated as the saviour of Anglo-Saxon England from the Vikings.

“You know there’s no actual evidence to prove I burned the cakes.” Alfred kicks off. “You should check me out on Wikipedia. They made that up long after my death. Frankly, it’s defamatory!”

Actually, don’t bother; I — the other Al — already have, so you don’t have to! Still… he must have noticed my disbelieving expression. “You’re saying historians slandered you?”

Yes. One rogue monk with a quill. A hundred years later, and I’m suddenly ‘Alfred the Cake-Burner’ for a thousand years. They invented the story after my death to highlight my humility and the immense pressure I faced.

“What? Grandad Smith swore it was TRUE.”

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At this point, Alfred is becoming distracted by Betty. She’s bringing out the lunch and bending over to reveal her cleavage... ninth-century Wessex turns out not to have adequately prepared him for low-cut summer knitwear. He spills his beer!

“So… what year is this maiden from he asks me. The Bureau of Imagination estimates post-modern from her attire.”

“No, love. 2026,” Betty interjects, all hot and flustered.

Alfred looks alarmed, as though civilisation has perhaps continued longer than intended. “Right. Your manner is unlike that of the peasant woman who left me in charge of the cakes and scolded me when I ruined them. Brut of a lady!”

“Ta, love. Nice of you to say so!” she says, lapping up the banter and setting the food on the table.

Alfred, less distracted, clears his throat and grows more serious.

“I was hiding in a shepherd’s hut. In the marshes of the Somerset Levels…. the shepherd was out, minding his flocks… but his wife had to pop outside for another bucket of water from the stream. She had NO IDEA WHO I WAS. Anyhow. I was preoccupied with the defence of my kingdom… plotting how to rally my army and retake Wessex from the Vikings, when… I forgot the cakes!”

The smell of charcoal and, faintly, of burnt oats wafts toward me. Sharp, I thought.

“The Vikings had a fierce reputation for their raiding parties, axes, swords, and spears. Tell me, Alan… do you know them?”

“From battle?” I seek clarification.

“Yes!”

“No. Not personally. I know their Lego!” I say, trying to make light. “Tiny plastic longboats. Very painful to stand on!!!”

Buy Me a Beer

Alfred stares blankly, misunderstanding my humour.

“Your century is weak and cursed,” he says, waving his flatbread. “My story is not really about cakes… it’s about my heroic image... of standing among soldiers… a legendary king:

• Humble.

• Relatable.

• Deeply focused

• Also mildly incompetent at baking?”

By the time Alfred finishes his meal, I’ve heard the gist of his historical significance… of saving England from the Viking conquest… AND laying the foundations of a united England.

I raise a glass.

“To burnt cakes,” I propose.

“To Lego,” he counters!

For a moment, across eleven centuries, king and commoner achieve complete diplomatic understanding.

“Thank you for your explanation, Alfred,” I said as he clasped the bench and heaved himself to his feet.

“No bother, Alan. See you around!”

“And BTW… You can’t just wander around modern Hampshire dressed like that.”

“I literally founded England. I’ll risk it.”

Alfred secures his helmet with a strange, tight-lipped smirk and rides off into the New Forest.

“Anglo-Saxon warriors always smile as though they’ve just hidden an axe in your oven,” Betty says as she clears the plates.

I’m alone in the beer garden once more, finishing my Old Thumper in silence. The vista is perfect. Somewhere, though, across time, Alfred the Great is probably still arguing about cakes. Possibly arguing with a teenager in Greggs* over the bakery!

(* Other bakery brands, feel free to complain!)

→Grandad Smith may have accidentally rewritten England.

Then, a familiar white Morris 1800 pulls up in the pub’s car park.

SCREEEEEECH

The window rolls down. Grandad Smith leans out casually.

“There you are, lad,” he says.

“Grandad?”

He’s gesturing towards the horizon with one hand while smoking his pipe with the other.

“Hop in. The Bureau’s Historical Pairing Party starts in half an hour…. King John — of Magna Carta infamy — is about to lose his crown in a swamp… and I have an appointment to discuss my grievances about the Second World War with Sir Winston.”

I climb into the Morris.

“Wait… you’ve heard of the Bureau?”

“Course I do. Who do you think started the rumours about the cakes?”

“YOU WHAT?!”

“It’s actually a funny story. Alfred burned just one.”

“ONE?!”

“A cake’s worst nightmare.”

Meanwhile, in Winchester, an English Greggs has issued a ban on Alfred the Great. Not for burning the cakes… BUT for repeatedly appealing the decision.

I whistle:

🎵 And Betty, when you call me, you can call me Al 🎵

Previously on Roundabouts, Ruin & Reckless Youth (Part I)

• I bought a Morris Marina coupé for £300.

• Went to Reading to watch footie… where the car caught fire.

• Julian towed me home, causing a diplomatic breakdown between our families.

• And despite everything, I sold the Marina without major issues… which remains one of the least defensible statements I have ever made.

Next, I fancied a glamour shot of black…

I envisioned myself posing with a shiny black Datsun 160J SSS, financed by a tidal wave of teenage optimism AND a bank manager who considered me someone else’s problem. In my mind, the spoiler added 40 horsepower, while the stereo blasted the soundtrack of a glorious, synthesiser-and-drum-machine future. Every journey felt like a Gary Numan concert held in a Halfords’ branch.

Cue—

🎵 HERE IN MY CAR…🎵

🎵 I FEEL SAFEST OF ALL… 🎵

🎵 I CAN LOCK ALL MY DOORS… 🎵

🎵 IT’S THE ONLY WAY TO LIVE… IN CARS…🎵

The bank manager had the calm expression of a man confident that the problem would resolve itself!

Like the Mark 2 Ford Escort, the Datsun became my lower-middle-class hero. I approved of its speed and rally pedigree. Almost as good as the Finnish World Rally Champions’ Audi Quattro, whose garage answered the phone in Four Rings... I know, a lame joke (but bear with me)!

Anyhow… we went along together nicely.

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The BLACK DAM roundabout became easy prey… followed by the rest of Doughnut City.

Yes, roundabouts make up my hometown, Basingstoke, entirely. Whispers suggest the town’s planners indulged in too many doughnuts, leaving traces of jam upon their engineering diagrams.

OR

Maybe they were Audi drivers, fond of rings… which explains my terrible joke! Get it? Bet you’re creasing yourself with LOLs!!! NO?

Oh well, I press on… many of Basingstoke’s roundabouts sound faintly threatening…

• BLACK DAM

• Great BIN… FIELDS of Destiny

• HACKWOOD to Death

• CROCK… FORD of no return.

You didn’t simply drive through Basingstoke… you survived it.

Sadly, the Datsun became too expensive for an inexperienced driver. Petrol would be my downfall. Twenty miles per gallon. TWENTY!!!

I’m fairly confident the fuel gauge moved even though the engine was off.

Glug, Glug, Glug.

Still, I reminded myself as the car sauntered to a local sauna; it was worth it! Vorsprung durch Technik, only the Japanese equivalent or possibly Finnish!

→Then Dad intervened.

“Now then,” he said, “what you need is less image…”

He paused, looked at my youth, then corrected himself…

“... less speed, less showing off, and less gas-guzzling.”

He unveiled a dark chocolate coloured Talbot Samba… Tiny. Common sense. Economical. Humiliatingly practical…. The automotive equivalent of being told to put a beige cardigan on and stop dreaming.

It sat apologetically on the forecourt of a dealership on the West Ham Roundabout — nowhere near 🎵 I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles 🎵 Football Club — although, like West Ham United, it inspired feelings of despair, as if I had become ostracised and sent to Coventry 🎵 Let’s all sing together, Play up Sky Blues 🎵 in deep shame.

The Samba wasn’t a car you drove. It was a lesson in humility on four wheels.

I stared, grudgingly grateful for wheels again.

“I suppose sensible wouldn’t kill me, Dad. I’ll take it for a spin… OK?”

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→History was prepared to disagree.

So I ventured out to… well, to the Venture Roundabout — where else would you want to go for an ill-advised venture in Hampshire? — AND, with a mixture of excitement and foreboding, head out on the Alton Road for a paintball skirmish near Lasham Airfield. I was already late for ‘kick-off’ at the fake combat and — fuelled by a kick-ass week of tax form filling, psycho-dramas and unresolved masculinity — drove mildly!!!

THEN came the ingredients for catastrophe:

• A single-lane road

• Sharp bends

• Light rain after a dry spell

• One slow crawler in an Austin Allegro in front of me, moving at tectonic speeds.

🎵Come on, Samba, Come on! 🎵

The Samba swings out heroically, like the bumpy, rigid geometry of a traditional chocolate bar.

WHEEEEEEEEEEE… the fluid dynamics of an imperfect flow of solid chocolate.

I overtook the All-Aggro with the confidence of a man who had never studied the consequences of too much cocoa.

A right and then a left curve and full speed ahead to…

• A vanishing ten seconds of memory loss and AMNESIA.

• A world of… abstract glass, notional windscreen wipers, metaphysical bodywork and an intangible ditch.

• Indescribable disbelief, bewilderment, and brain fog

• Feelings of waking from anaesthesia during a medical emergency.

→BTW… this is all true (Honest Guv’)!

Where am I? Why am I facing the direction from which I came? Is this true?

I attempt to open the car door. The door, unsurprisingly, declines, BUT somehow — miraculously — the small, chocolate-coloured fridge of a 3-door hatchback has SAVED MY LIFE!

The driver’s compartment remains intact. My legs still work. My head still functions… more or less. I am conscious enough to know I made an overtaking manoeuvre less than five minutes ago… someone should be along to rescue me shortly. Still, I stare vacantly at the windscreen-less road ahead, hopeful this hasn’t happened. Behind me, and unnoticeable, is a Volvo heavy-duty truck buried in a hedge like a defeated tank.

A stranger is first on the scene, all muscle as he hauls me through the vacant car side window.

“I feared you were dead. You collided with that truck,” he says, pointing to it.

“I can’t have hit it. I don’t remember a truck,” I say.

He frowns.

“Well, one of you certainly hit the other.”

Fair point.

“Sorry,” he continues. “What speed were you doing?”

“Just the speed limit.” I mutter, “60 mph.”

The stranger looks at the wreckage, mentally calculating my recklessness using advanced mathematics.

“The Truck at 40. You at 60. Combined impact speed: one hundred miles per hour.”

I should be soup. The laws of physics should lodge a formal complaint!

“And the rain after the dry spell?”

Even my concussion couldn’t shield me from a roadside lecture from a traffic safety researcher, announcing his latest skid pad brainwave (well… this bit might be embellishment).

I replayed the incident in my mind. The same void where my common sense used to live…. a total blank…

• No memory of sliding

• No memory of a truck

• No memory of the impact with the offside front axle

• No memory of spinning 180° into a ditch.

“Must have been oil on the road,” he says finally. “The emergency services will be here shortly.”

Buy me a Beer

→Shock was taking charge

No sooner than he said it, police traffic officers arrived and had me sit in the back of their vehicle, bruised, battered, and slowly realising my exclusion from the lifelong clean driving licence club had just taken effect, and an insurance underwriter experienced a sudden sharp pain… my journey toward automotive shame and exile was now fully underway.

Coventry, I thought miserably… here I come!

Then a face appeared at the window.

“GOOD LORD YOU’RE ALIVE!” says a man poking his face through the window. “I recognised your car.”

It’s Julian. He’s dressed in camouflage fatigues splattered with reddish/orange paint. Less a soldier… more a man returned from La Tomatina ‌and the world’s largest food fight.

“I’ll call your parents and let them know you’re on the way to the hospital,” Julian says, finally ending the Great Marina Schism (see Part I).

The blue lights stop flashing as I stare out of the ambulance. My body hurts — A LOT — but the paramedics reassure me I’ll survive! The aches and pains would end.

• No broken bones

• No brain damage

• No permanent injuries

• Just bruises, concussion… and one chipped incisor.

• ..nothing that would interfere with future poor decisions!

→The quiet aftermath

When I left A&E after observation, I felt the force of the law. A police interview at home. A charge of driving without due care and attention and a guilty plea.

A few days later, I visited the scrapyard where both the Talbot Samba and the Volvo truck sat immobilised and written off. I went to collect my personal effects and take photos. The Volvo looked hardly scratched; my car was ruined. It’s like modern inconvenience meets modern art. And standing there among twisted metal and broken glass, one thought finally hit me:

“If that truck had been pulling a trailer... would I still be here to tell this story?”

And what of the truck driver?

I never saw, spoke to, or heard of him again; I just know he survived, too.

Somewhere in the distance, though, I could almost hear the Morris Marina clearing its throat.

“MISS ME?” it asks.

Honestly?

A little.

At least the Marina tried to kill me at a standstill.

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I bought my first car for £300. It looked harmless enough.

A rainy Thursday afternoon outside Mr Lubbock’s Basingstoke newsagent in the early 1980s, I, a 17-year-old college student, exit holding a thick copy of AUTO-TRADER magazine,... featuring grainy black-and-white car photos and tiny classified ads coded like military intelligence.

Now that I’d passed my driving test, I simply had to buy a car, mainly to avoid the bike and British Rail. Nothing glamorous or fast, just something capable of getting me from A to B! Was this too big a request?

I flip through pages of car adverts — a procrastination from revision and job application forms — while, outside, in the driveway, sat the answer. A purple Morris Marina coupé… a disaster about to happen, as you’re about to find out. I’d already been borrowing the ticking TIME BOMB from my parents for months and was familiar with the usual questions:

• Where are you GOING?

• Will there be JAZZ?

• Who will be THERE?

• And what TIME will you be back?

Honestly, I roll my eyes, holding the car keys… the constant interrogations… like the Stasi, detailing and capturing everything in microscopic detail. It’s not like I’d be breaking Cold War rules OR kicking footballs over the Berlin Wall!

I just wanted freedom. Freedom to drive around with my mates. Freedom to watch or play football. Goals. Mud. Adrenaline.

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My parents understood from very early on… FOOTBALL MATTERED. The quickest route to a young boy’s heart was a Roy of the Rovers FA Cup final-winning goal, beautifully struck from outside the box. Still, the constant sibling rivalry with my brother likely exhausted them more than extra time and penalties ever could.

“Shoot! (The Footie Mag) Is miles better!” I’d argue.

“No, Goal is better,” my brother replied instantly.

OR THE CLASSIC TRIBAL WARFARE VIA FOOTIE SONGS…

🎵Marching on Together,... We love you, Leeds, Leeds, Leeds, 🎵

🎵Glory, Glory, Tottenham Hotspur.🎵

So, anyhow, they sold me the Marina… a snip at a mere £300. A bargain … like buying discounted dynamite.

Still, ownership changed everything, so I drove my brother, a devoted singer of:

🎵Oh, When the Spurs Go Marching In! 🎵

But NOW fully converted to…

🎵Play Up Pompey, Pompey Play Up🎵,

… and two mates to watch:

🎵 We love you, Reading, we do! 🎵

→The football was forgettable. The journey home achieved immortality.

Inside the stadium, the crowd is bored. Scoreboard reads 0-0 — a game so dull that the grass looked more likely to score than either team —, but the REAL entertainment awaits heading home…

The Marina, in auto mode, pulls out the wrong way from a one-way street. No idea how it was so clever before driverless vehicles, but this stupid car engineered an autonomous disaster. There we were… stuck trying to turn right against the traffic on a busy thoroughfare, when… the super 1.3-litre engine stalled. I turn the ignition…

CHK—CHK—CHK.

Nothing.

Again: KRAK-KRAK..

Still nothing. The traffic builds. Panic rises.

🎵Come on, Marina, Come on! 🎵

I turn the key again… AND AGAIN

Then—

WHOOMPH!

Flames burst from under the bonnet like a James Bond stunt sequence…

“BLOODY HELL!... EVERBODY OUT!!!

→Somewhere in Reading, a Morris Marina has created a public spectacle.

We scatter onto the pavement while smoke billows upward like the election of a new Pope.

A Takeaway shop owner sprints over, carrying a fire extinguisher. He’s still wearing his apron; it reads… “It’s not BURNT… It’s grilled to a perfect crisp.”

Foam blasts over his steaks … I mean, my engine.

#FSSSSHHHHH#

Chemical white sludge oozes from the ruined engine bay.

“You alright, lads?” the man says. “You’ll never know when a Marina might catch fire!”

Wonderful. Now, I’m embarrassed beyond belief as complete strangers observe my incompetence. A woman in a Volvo shakes her head in pity… a cyclist applauds… a dog barks. They all think, Who is this idiot who:

• Drives the wrong way down one-way streets.

• Nearly incinerates his passengers.

• ‌Trusts ‌Morris Marina and British Leyland engineering!

“I only just bought it from my parents a few days ago…” I go defensive.

Which, somehow, only makes me sound guiltier.

My mates stare at the blackened engine wreckage, when my brother chips in with the knockout blow… “Thankfully, our baby sister wasn’t in the back.”

What a thoughtful, kind, sensitive… Oh, NO. I can’t say that… he’s my favourite headache. “We’ll take the train home, shall we, lads?” he added, abandoning me to contend with… the wreck, the Takeaway man, the traffic, the recovery plans, my humiliation… and well, everything, REALLY.

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→In the 1980s, roadside assistance was usually a mate called Julian.

I trudge to a phone booth and feed it coins. It smelt of damp newspapers, cigarettes and despair.

“Dad,” I said, “Any chance of asking Julian to tow me home? “The Marina has exploded in Reading!”

Now Julian — my schoolmate — was one of those young men already competent in life. His father actually allowed him to build a mechanic’s pit in their garage, where he repaired and restored cars as a hobby. According to my Mum… he was mature for his years!‌ She’s said that for… well, as long as I’ve known him… a tow back to Basingstoke was right up his alley.

Soon enough, Julian arrives to tow the Marina back to Basingstoke.

“Thank you so much, you’ve been extremely kind as usual, Julian,” I say as he ties a rope to the Marina. Julian nods with the quiet confidence of a man destined to thrive in adulthood. Naturally, this peaceful moment doesn’t last the fifteen-mile journey home.

Dad — who has joined the rescue mission as a passenger and Health & Safety inspector — leans out of my window, yelling, “Hey, Julian! Don’t pull out onto a roundabout when there’s traffic turning. Drivers can’t SEE the rope!”

Julian looks furious as he delivers the Marina onto our driveway, but Dad can’t help himself and starts one of his many lectures… “It’s not an invisible rope prank where idiots pretend to stretch a rope across a road. This has REAL consequences.”

I sink lower into my seat. Julian is bound to create a feud between our families and complicate Christmas card diplomacy.

Indeed, later that night, someone knocked on the front door.

“Good evening, Peter,” says Julian’s father — also called Peter — a local comprehensive headteacher. “Julian’s upset with your comments during the tow.”

Dad folds his arms stubbornly.

“As a non-driver, you’re hardly able to criticise,” says the other Peter. ”I think Julian deserves an apology.”

Dad says absolutely nothing. I hoped he would bite the bullet… And serve as an exemplar for expressing remorse. The door shuts… BUT Dad never says sorry. And thus begins… the Great Marina Schism.

Our families exchanged only stiff nods and Cold War diplomacy at church and around town.

By Me A Beer

→The Marina lives again, to present a monstrous moral dilemma.

Meanwhile, I scavenge scrapyard parts searching for extinct Marina organs: seals and gaskets, second-hand electrical wiring and filters — and perhaps, misplaced optimism and miracles — and bit by bit, another friendly mechanic and I stitch together disparate parts to return the Marina to life… Frankenstein-esque… the soot and chemical damage under the bonnet, remaining a sure sign of its Gothic Appeal.

Finally, the car looks roadworthy again… at least from twenty feet away, and I advertise it in AUTO-TRADER… less like a smoking Morris Marina death trap and more like a restored classic… an old 1960s E-Type Jag, a Lamborghini Miura, a Ford Mustang. Anything is possible in fine print!

And I rehearse my sales strategy:

DO:

• Mention reliability

• Mention mileage

• Say “Starts first time”

• Distract the buyer with football talk.

DON’T:

• Mention flames.

• Mention towing rope.

• Mention the Great Marina Schism.

• Open the bonnet unless legally required.

Then a buyer arrives wearing a Monster T-shirt… apt, I thought. The irony was overwhelming. Frankenstein had arrived to purchase his monster.

“Any major issues?” he asks.

I pause.

Sale vs Conscience… racing heart, sweaty palms, dry mouth, shaking voice.

“NO!”

Technically … true.

Under the strictest legal sense imaginable, the car was no longer actively on fire… just a slight aroma of electrical apocalypse beneath the bonnet, which I considered more “character” than “fault.”

Besides, if the Marina had taught me anything, it was this: honesty is important…

BUT transport home is also important.

To be continued next time in Part II…

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Professional flat-pack assembly with fewer tears than doing it yourself.

At the customer’s house, there is a palpable sense of anticipation… and NOT from the meatballs, although they’re only just back from IKEA. No, this concerns my arrival and the ceremonial assembly of their new wardrobe named ARGUMENTSTARTARE™, which in Swedish translates into… Biff! Pow! Boom!

I stand there, favourite tool bag in hand, colluding with humanity’s greatest lie that somehow… “This flat-pack job will be easier than the last one.”

Meanwhile, the packs lie there neatly stacked against a wall with enough cardboard to dam a Scandinavian fjord. Nearby, my Stanley knife is ready for action — despite IKEA insisting their customers use their fingernails and positive thinking.

And after years of experience, I assume the customer believes I know exactly what I’m doing. But might they be wrong?

Because, like every flat-pack veteran, I eventually encounter what I dub:

→The Dreaded 50/50™

You know the one. Those choices where the instructions are clear as mud, and you’re forced to decide whether a Panel D goes left-side-up, upside-down or backwards, inside-out. In 10 steps, the furniture exacts its revenge…

• The dowels are in the wrong holes.

• The cam lock fasteners mock you.

• Nothing fits.

Leading to… emotional destruction.

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Nowadays, though, I stay calm. Plan ahead. I anticipate making at least one terrible error. If I mess up, I can dismantle and rebuild a wardrobe with the speed and precision of an F1 pit crew during a pit stop.

It wasn’t always this way, though...

Once, I proudly assembled an entire set of wardrobes — doors, rails, shelves, internal mechanisms, the lot — convinced I’d smashed it. Only near completion did I unpack the last pieces, which I assumed were mere mysterious Swedish gubbins… only to discover the customer had ordered a 10 cm platform for the wardrobe to sit on, making it an exact floor-to-ceiling fit.

At that moment of horror, I realised I had essentially spent an entire day assembling diddly squat. I’d have to take the whole bloody lot apart and start over again. The thought crossed my mind to smash it literally!

So remember:

→ALWAYS, ALWAYS unpack EVERYTHING before you start.

(Free Substack wisdom worth at least three reluctant subscribers)

One day, however, I should decide to become a flat-pack designer myself. After all, I now possess forbidden knowledge. I understand the ‘tricks.’ The suffering. The species, when its Allen keys repeatedly slip from its grasp, falls beneath the bed or skirting board, and insists everything is FINE!

Sure, I’d design the usual cheap “Made for Idiots” stuff — you know, the furniture made from low-grade, thin chipboard that bows and chips and sags over time and folds like a pack of cards, but with any luck, mine would assemble perfectly. There’d be:

• NO backward panels.

• NO misaligned doors

• NO leftover screws.

• NO sudden outbursts of violence.

In short… NO FRUSTRATION™

I’d revolutionise the experience, making flat-pack building as simple as doing a puzzle, like a leisurely winter’s evening pastime. The Ravensburger — for those who know their puzzles — of flat-pack…

→Role play

“Right then…,” I announce to Mrs Knøckerström, who is attempting to lean over her instruction manual but scattering dowels across the floor with her impressive frontage. “Let’s NOT get you puzzled.”

“Bold words,” she responds, “from a man who doesn’t even unpack all the pieces first.”

A fair point, I admit.

“The question,” she continues, “is whether your instructions will be tiny, vague and written in divisive Scandinavian erotica?”

I snort.

“You know,” I begin arrogantly. “When you bought this furniture, after you requested I spare you hardship, I said I would explain how to deal with the Dreaded 50/50™, correct? Well… here it is… Alan’s flat-pack called HÅBSOLYT SYCCESS™. Riddle-Free. Cryptic diagram-less. Works for exhausted couples on a bank holiday weekend!”

Mrs Knøckerström smiles, “Does it self-assemble?”

I sigh.

“Not exactly. Mine’s more… flat-pack bingo. Assembly by numbers — a 3-D dot-to-dot coloured puzzle with a complimentary soft hammer.”

“Ah,” laughs Mrs Knøckerström. “To knock out Mr Knøckerström!”

I couldn’t disagree with her Punch and Judy philosophy. I often imagined a Philip K. Dick dystopian-like solution in which advanced bio-engineered servant robots assembled furniture, while humans threw punches at each other.

Mrs Knøckerström interrupts my fantasy. “You know,” she says, “robots have already mastered IKEA furniture.”

“I read about it,” I reply. “They dropped pins, let go of parts too soon, and dismantled the furniture rather than assembling it. It took them a few attempts to get it right.”

“So, exactly like you?”

“Touché!”

“Anyway,” she says, half-insulting me, “I haven’t bought four kits so I can smash a few pieces. At what point does my confidence in your flat-pack design disappear, causing me to hate you, my partner, and my cat?”

I reflect..

“The missing backing panel?”… Reasonable.

“The extremely important leftover screw?”... Fair

“When all the panels look identical and time loses meaning?”... Classic

“Abusive language and irrational temper?”… Normal

“That’s a shame, Mrs Knøckerström,” I say, flirting a little. “I assumed after finishing your wonderful wardrobe, you’d take me for a congratulatory drink. Maybe get hammered! Go Clubbing!!!”

Buy Me A Beer

“You’re so funny, Alan,” she replies. “No, I’ll be off to IKEA like a shot. Go back and buy something supported by IkeaBot.”

“Oh,” I said, “I don’t think my designs are much weirder or more random than IKEA’s or Wayfair’s, or Argos’, to be fair.”

Mrs Knøckerström sniggers.

“HÅBSOLYT SYCCESS™,” she says. “More like NO CHÅNCE™.”

I laughed myself at that one, actually.

→🎵 Back to Life; Back to Reality 🎵

Flat-packing was never supposed to become a career. It filled a financial gap while I awaited the BIG pay cheque from writing my 130,000-word novel — a manuscript heavy on self-pity and internal complaining. What a cheerful person I turned out to be (no comments, please)!

Back in my fifties, the idea of lifting heavy top panels onto gigantic wardrobes alone, while ensuring the dowels and cam locks fit, still felt doable. Now in my Sixties, something less physically demanding seems more responsible.

So I’ve scaled down to assembling beds.

Beds! (Yes, you remember BEDTOPIA. I build and sell them!)

Compared with IKEA furniture, beds are practically holidays.

The work is lighter. Softer. Gentler on my muscle mass. It’s less likely I’ll end up trapped in a half-built wardrobe, yelling for help.

And as for Mrs Knøckerström — she remains entirely fictional, of course… a silly innuendo invented because of a certain connection between soft hammers and a renowned Swedish furniture manufacturer!

I would NEVER flirt with customers.

I’m happily married to a British Gujarati woman whom I met via Zoosk almost a decade ago.

→Still…

One evening, there came a gentle knocking at my front door.

I opened it cautiously.

There stood Mrs Knøckerström.

Prim. Proper. Hot.

Behind her, in the pickup truck beside the unmistakable view of collapsed chipboard, stood Mr Knøckerström looking defeated.

“At last,” Mrs Knøckerström cried.

“He’s bought proper furniture!”

I made the classic mistake and fell in love with Canada.

Once upon a time, I studied in Canada. Whilst there, I developed an itch. Not a medical itch. Not the sort solved by creams or awkward pharmacist conversations. An unpatriotic British itch to… become one with maple syrup… build a cabin... marry Shania Twain!

Before long, I was scratching to adopt ‘O Canada’ as my home and LIVE THERE permanently. The dream comprised wearing an oversized park ranger hat, paddling a canoe encircling beavers, running wild from bears, and saluting a glowing Wayne Gretzky forever on a lake of ice.

Cue Monty Python —

🎵 I’M A LUMBERJACK, AND I’M OKAY.🎵

🎵I SLEEP ALL NIGHT, AND I WORK ALL DAY.🎵

My destination: British Columbia. Super, natural and blessed with snow-capped mountains, pine forests, and sun-rain-snow all happening at once. The possibilities for outdoor adventure… well, endless. Skiing! Kayaking! Bear avoidance! Politely apologising to trees after walking into them!

The more I scratched, the harder it became to LET GO, and that made matters worse. SOON, I was writing to friends for accommodation, researching for jobs and buying airline tickets: Air Canada, of course.

As usual, my dreams behaved irresponsibly! They did that thing where they inspired my imagination and fueled my ambition, leading to the proverbial ‘biting off more than you can chew’ scenario. So naturally, I followed the dream. Except reality knocked at the door when Immigration Canada stamped my application… UNWANTED WASP!

Subtle.

Not even a complimentary maple cream cookie.

Enter→The Ministry of Dreams

The Ministry of Dreams soon reappeared, perhaps… to enjoy me questioning life decisions again?

“What can we do for you this time, Alan?” they asked, filling out my applications for BBC’s Race Across the World… magically, the dreams endorsed the documents with glowing media references:

• “Excellent at panicking.”

• “Can identify Canadians from quite far away.”

• “Emotionally available during ice storms.”

“Fame,” I told them. “I’ve been a nobody.”

“How long have you suffered obscurity like this?” the Ministry said in unison.

“A lifetime,” I told them.

They laughed, not unkindly, like a reassuring nurse.

“I think I know what’s causing it,” I said, “but I wanted to get your opinion.”

The dreams stopped, finally recognising fresh forms of escapism.

“Why do you think you cannot achieve fame, Alan?”

“I think it’s my wheels, Dreams,” I told them.

“Your wheels?”

“Yes,” I said. “You see, I’ve weighed them on the scales, and I’m out of fortune — their combined value is less than the price of a lottery ticket and half a cookie!”

The Dreams smirked at me, lucidly.

“That’s catastrophic luck, isn’t it?” I continued, “I mean, if you lost all your money, you’d be a sad tyre, wouldn’t you?”

The dreams whispered among themselves...

• “He’s oddly specific again.”

• “Write that down… depression = car maintenance.”

• “How… how did he...?”

“Lived off my wits (and gas and air) for a year,” I said, nodding. “I just sort of … inflated my tyres as best I could. Pressured them up: 2.4 bar on the front axle, 2.6 on the back. Didn’t pay for the air. I assumed the universe owed me some happiness at some point, but—”

“The Ministry can offer you £1 MILLION and a complimentary air pump, Alan,” they said, magically pulling out an iPad from a sleeve.

“I’ll take more, please,” I said firmly. “POWER. AND A MYSTERIOUS ALLURE.”

The dreams froze. “We can do Dare cookies.”

“Also,” I added, “another recurring dream… of mine is to be a successful author!”

The dreams fell silent. One gulped.

“That requires hard work, discipline, consistency, rejection, resilience, and dedication to a… LOST CAUSE, Alan.”

“Right,” I said. “So that’s a yes then — one day in my dreams.”

PING.

My banking app has a notification: YOU HAVE RECEIVED A BANK TRANSFER.

Immediately, an orchestra plays the Hockey Night in Canada theme tune in my head for no reason whatsoever. Wayne Gretzky is shaking my hand and congratulating me on my success.

I nod humbly, naturally.

The transfer is probably £12.47 and a refunded parking charge.

Suddenly, the atmosphere darkened.

The Ministry of Dreams becomes embroiled in heated discussions with Hallucination about tyre-tracking alignment. That’s the only downside to fantasies… they have a terrible habit of hitting potholes and kerbs. The Ministry becomes… THE DEPARTMENT OF NIGHTMARES.

“Goodbye then, Dreams,” I said. “Delightful nonsense, as always.”

→The trouble with dreams is that they never learn.

The Canadian dream faded. Aeons ago now. After that particular bus departed, life rained on my parade. My business collapsed like the failure of Trudeauism, one whimper at a time. The nightmares made good progress… and, one day decades on, I trudged to court, miserably, to declare BANKRUPTCY.

• No maple syrup soundtrack.

• No heroic comeback montage.

• Just me, reality… and paperwork.

And — because life enjoys its drama — I inadvertently carried an old penknife from a bygone era, hidden in a pocket of an old, disused briefcase, into court. So there… It’s official. It’s not just me who refuses to LET GO of the past; my baggage does too!

Apparently, bringing a bladed article to a civil court — which is also a criminal court — is frowned upon and may cause a four-year prison sentence.

WHO KNEW? The Department of Nightmares, probably! They really should’ve included that in the welcome brochure.

Thankfully, I woke up… in the nick of time before Hallucination joined the security team.

I can still picture him slowly unclipping the briefcase while The Department of Nightmares nods approvingly in the background.

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→And now? As Retirement looms.

Eventually, the dreams returned for another adventure. And this time, they brought Love with them.

When Love saw my photo online, she just knew. There I was, kneeling informally in a field, one hand tucked underneath my chin in a casual pose. Thoughtful. Respectful. Mildly philosophical. Wondering what happens to broken dreams.

But that’s not what hooked her. Oh no…

My other hand rested gently on the DOG beside me.

The Dreams exchanged knowing glances immediately.

“Classic,” they whispered.

Not just any old dog, either — a ridiculously cute teddy-bear-looking dog who drew the ladies’ attention and garnered more followers than I ever did. Even outperformed me on X.

• Cuddly? YES.

• Trustworthy? DEBATABLE.

• Capable of looking innocent? ABSOLUTELY.

The Dreams knew immediately who the REAL STAR was … and it wasn’t me. Except, just like me, he had a ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ side that could be unpredictable… like owner, like dog. But in the end, NOT SO predictable me won out.

And somehow — against all odds, paperwork, cookies, and bureaucratic dream entities— I won out.

Astonishingly, I became “husband material” again.

Which, frankly, is more miraculous than anything the Ministry ever offered.

Someone just Broadcast My Grievance on the BBC. I’d Like it Back!

The other day — living the dream and driving home from another electrifying shift at BEDTOPIA (Yes, my bed showroom, where I’m Caesar, if Caesar sold orthopaedic mattresses. Try to contain your awe) — I’m listening to BBC Radio 5 Live when a presenter describes how one of his school teachers called a piece of his work ‘verbal diarrhoea‘.

Excuse me?

That’s MY grievance.

“SNAP, SNAP, SNAP,” I shout at the radio. It’s too late. Chris Warburton has already aired it on national radio. He hasn’t just taken my emotional card; he’s won my WHOLE deck, the box and table.

Jammy so-and-so.

I MUST respond immediately.

I pull over to set the record straight, composing the angriest text with emojis to send to their programme’s phone-in:

How dare you air my personal gripe 😡😡😡? I’m the sole gatekeeper for broadcasting that cursed phrase. The trademark is pending under Substack’s jurisdiction. CEASE AND DESIST.

Except I sent it to the wrong number… your text message has failed to send. Damn, I can’t stop again and resend it!

→This goes back a long way.

The phrase stuck, of course. Credit to my school’s English department, specifically the Lord of the Red Ink, who once branded one of my essays — on Nineteen Eighty-Four, The Day of the Triffids, or Of Mice and Men (all three blurred into one) — as suffering from nothing less than ‘verbal diarrhoea.’

And yet a smell lingered. The expression became a metaphorical stain, a persistent itch, a sort of figurative discomfort in my literary underpants, to which I have always whispered, “Prove him completely and utterly wrong…” STOP FOLLOWING ME. YOU LOOSE TURD OF A METAPHOR. My writing never STANK!!!

→School had me all figured out.

But perhaps the issue wasn’t my essay… maybe I just didn’t care for English. Turns out, at school, they considered me a ‘numbers person’, destined to be a beautiful statistician juggling graphs, or a balanced accountant hugging a giant ledger, or an insightful analyst riding a pie chart like a horse.

Take another π, for example. Which would you choose?

22 ÷ 7 forever equalling 3.142857? Relentless decimal places. Zero personality. Certain outcomes.

OR

Life of Pi, and Yann Martel’s Man Booker Prize-winning tale of a young Indian boy who survives the sinking of a cargo ship with a female orangutan and a 450-pound Royal Bengal tiger. Tedious at times, but creative, enduring and moving.

I know which I’d have preferred given the choice back then. BUT. Something went adrift with my assumptions… I refused to be defined by sequences and logic, formulaic black-and-white numbers, or precise right-or-wrong answers. It took me a long time to figure (excuse the pun) this out… but I did.

→ So what changed?

Maturity. Confidence. The workplace.

Crucially, people started doing something extraordinary: they asked me to write. Then — brace yourselves — they paid me actual money for WORDS, SENTENCES, PARAGRAPHS and COPYTEXT of what I once classified as ‘verbal diarrhoea.’

I wrote copy. I then ran a business writing copy. I wrote and wrote and wrote some more until, and at some point, I accidentally produced a 130,000-word novel. Which still needs ‘a bit of editing.’

Anyhow, look at me now, on Substack, voicing my opinions, venting my wrath at all and sundry, smirking at the radio like a man who has weaponised his own WAFFLE.

Somewhere out there, possibly from the grave, who knows, the Lord of the Red Ink may still mark papers. Still circle words and underline sentences, still mutter, “This… is verbal diarrhoea.”

To which I would reply:

“Yes. But now it’s called authorship.”

Beat.

Pause.

And people can pay for it.

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I Sell Beds (and Apparently Ruin Holidays)

When people ask me what I do for a living — on holiday at the beach bar, drink in hand, making small talk — I tell them I sell beds. This is where it usually goes wrong: they grab me by the shoulders, their eyes glowing. One says, “My mattress has a dip; it’s worse on one side,” while the next claims, “Memory foam is a scam; pocket springs are best.” NO. NO. NO. I don’t want to discuss your comfort issues… that’s for work, er, I’m holidaying!

→ You already know how this goes

Apart from vacations, my work reality has been to ask people to… well, precisely... go lie down. Unlike at a doctor’s surgery, the cry goes up: “I might fall asleep!” Ha ha ha. Brilliant. Original. Not heard that one in the last TEN years!

I’ll turn off the lights, close the blinds, and bring you breakfast in the morning, shall I?, imagining multiple customers now living on my beds: one reading, one eating takeaway, one playing computer games, another wrapped in a duvet like a Roman Senator.

BEDTOPIA is in progress!

“That’s fine,” I respond deadpan, “I’ll kick you out at closing time…” This either lands beautifully with a laugh or not, like I've just cancelled Christmas.

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I have my beds arranged like a city-state. Nice, neat streets and avenues. “Take your time. Support must be absolute. Comfort is freedom!” Hopefully, by now, customers can decide I’m not that pushy mattress bloke, and I fit their sense of humour. Honestly, just lie down... I’d rather avoid the sales pitch entirely.

NB: Serious point — and I do mean it “in all sincerity,” usually a clue in the word that it’s not, but on this occasion, actually is: The purpose of a mattress is to sleep on. DON’T JUST poke it with your fingers or perch on the edge. You don’t sleep with your HAND or your BUM alone!”

→ Every couple does this

Once lying on a bed, coats off, shoes on, a couple deeply serious, I’ll discuss comfort. But this, too, comes with its hazards. “It’s too firm for me.” “No, No. It’s too soft.” I stand awkwardly nearby, pretending to IGNORE their arguments. The divisions may not immediately threaten their sex life… but it’s far closer than I ever planned to be. They should train me in diplomacy or, better still, couples counselling…RelateWithYourMattress.com — saving couples, one argument at a time.

My favourite customers are the ones explaining away their 15-year-old mattress and why they haven’t replaced it. They begin by counting their excuses:

1. Still comfortable.

2. Turn it regularly.

3. Got used to it.

4. It’s got character.

Right, why are you here then? Just looking, are we? Curious about BEDTOPIA? Oh, I'll soon have your bedroom full of cherished mattresses!

Nothing, though, EVER beats my trump card: my parents have slept on the same mattress for their entire married lives. Sixty-plus years of sleep bliss. I may even have been conceived on it (DON’T ASK!) Boom. Game over. End discussion. Shake hands. I won, you lost!!!

→ You will say this one day

Then you have the older folks. Done it all. Seen it all. Slept through most of it. Tell them their mattress guarantee is for FIVE years or more, and their favourite line is.. “That’ll see me out!” Give me a pound for every time I’ve heard it, and I’d be a rich man — and bought a better mattress.

In my early days in bed sales, I worked for a national chain. Dave of the … yesterday marked the worst results we’ve delivered so far; your key performance indicators are a disgrace… infamy employed me. “Behold the Comfort Machine™,” he said. It inflated similarly to an air mattress and glowed with pressure-point graphics like a NASA computer screen. WOW! Let’s use this as, er, er, er… an icebreaker? “I’m a number 2, soft”, she says. The man demands a “5 Extra Firm.” THE UNION FRACTURES! Oh no. Not again… CouplesAndComfort.co.uk — now accepting emergency bookings.

Eventually, I escaped to an independent store. No KPIs. No glowing machines. Just me in the corner with my sales desk, picking up the mattresses’ chorus: “No more KPIs. No more Machines.”

Peace at last, I nod off on the mattress hidden in the back room, dreaming of The Sovereign State of Bedtopia with its indestructible comfort, perfect support, and zero mattress debates STILL in progress.

Until then…

I’ll be here.

Selling beds.

And quietly singing:

“If I were a rich man, Ya ba dibba dibba dibba dibba dibba dibba dum”

Sweet Dreams.

So, what does your mug say about you?

You can tell a lot about a person from their mug collection. Mine contains various slogans:

• “INCREDIBLE DAD”… paternal greatness, [insert tick]

• “DAD, YOU’RE TOP DOG — I Woof You”… not sure how I became the father of a dog, but anyway, here we go!

• … And a big Disney Robin Hood mug… Oo-de-lally, Or-de-lally, golly, what a day!

Happily, none of the sublimation ink contains the word: “Nerd”, more so “Nerditis”, the condition of the most extreme nerdiness imaginable.

I see no issue with being introverted, having some social awkwardness, and possessing obsessive interests. I’ll proudly wear the “nerd” badge so long as it doesn’t transcend into my social media feeds. Who needs “THE ALGORITHM” predicting my nerdy interests through its unavoidable reels of doom, fake news, and attention-grabbing clickbait? One more swipe… You paused for 0.3 seconds, you liked it! ARGH Ads …Hey, old man. They say age is just a number. Hot Singles. Date Now! Click Here! Regret Later!!!

My childhood had none of this Big Brother stuff. No surveillance. No feeds. Just… existence. Just sunny childhood memories: dressing up as pirates. Beach football with an orange-and-black ball before a stranger’s dog deflated it. First bike with and then without stabilisers. Shelling peas with Grandma on the lawn. Rowing boats with Dad and Grandad. Not even the curated, perfect lives of others. Just bright, youth-filled days!

Where did my old friends go? Escaped to real life, deleted Apps and achieved peace, became influencers elsewhere, OR abducted by THE ALGORITHM?

At what point does scrolling stop being a habit… and start becoming a diagnosis?

Back to scrolling. Same ads, same faces, looping endlessly. CLICK. SCROLL. REPEAT.

It’s so addictive. I should stop. Ping. Another dopamine-loop.

FACT: I’m now a social media nerd. Will it become Advanced Nerditis? Like some digital Armageddon, a terminal medical condition where I outright refuse human determination and become a bot.

At what point does scrolling stop being a habit?

Oh wait. Incoming message from. Oh, I don’t want to see this. @f*ck_me_sofia of Latina Women — age no limits, the women are the first to write — wants my soul (or my money).

As pulchritudinous as Sofia appears to be, she’s no doubt

1. AI-generated

2. Uses a stolen image

3. Speaks in chatbot formulaic language

4. Originates in Indonesia, Nigeria, or Colombia, etc., etc.

I don’t normally contact people on here, but your profile really caught my eye. What profile? I didn’t create one!

Clock + phone usage stats: 6 HOURS TODAY. Suppose I subtract an hour for reading a book, that’s still 5 hours: YouTube, the Beeb, FB, IG, X, and any other combination of letters on the OLED (Organic Light-Emitting Diode) screen — that’s the nerd talking Apple technical blurb.

I tell myself (Robin Hood Mug in hand), I must avoid irrelevant facts to prevent reader boredom. Besides, Apple doesn’t need me to advertise for them. They spend over $0.75 billion annually to hype new product releases and generate excitement and urgency. That’s BILLION, not million. 750,000,000 smackeroo. Too big to comprehend on my tuppence.

Maybe the mugs were right all along? Maybe I should just be an incredible Dad, a top dog. Nerdy but functional IRL.