Say What You See

Whilst traversing through the world we often engage in brief conversations with all manner of people. Most often they are just polite acknowledgements, a cheery “Good morning”, unless it’s the afternoon of course.

We’ve all trod that fine line around midday where we’ve wished a stranger “Good morning” and you realise you’ve engaged with some clock-watching pedant who feels compelled to correct you that it’s now three minutes past twelve and so it should really be “Good afternoon’, whereupon you pick up a stray tree branch and bludgeon them to death, or at the very least wonder why you bothered in the first place. If you stick to “Hello” you should be on safer ground chronologically speaking.

The recent cold snap has meant that certain people I have encountered have felt obliged to go into more depth and ask my opinion on things, which makes me realise that I need to be more conscious of what I’m wearing. You see I’ve been wearing my woolly hat more often, but it is a hat that bears the logo of Southampton Football Club. Therefore, I have found myself in the past couple of weeks being questioned about the recent sacking of our manager, a certain Mr Adkins, and the replacement with one Senor Pochettino.

The problem is that I don’t have a view. Yes, it was surprising, but it’s football. I’m sure he’ll either be good at his job or he won’t. Yes, I care, even more so after an ale or two, but the rest of the time, c’est la vie.

So, after the initial confusion of being asked “What do you think of the new manager?” whilst I’m scraping ice off the car, the conversation doesn’t really have a lot of legs.

The problem gets worse when people strike up a conversation out of nowhere and with no context. There I was in Tesco, trying to get out with my small amount of shopping as quickly and efficiently as possible by using the self service machine when one of the staff caught my eye and said to me, “I like the food there”. I looked down at my basket full of pizza and ice cream and wondered what in particular had caught his eye when he followed this up with “I was there yesterday lunchtime”.

I’m told that my face gives away what I’m saying so he must have seen a face that said “What on earth are you waffling on about?”

He attempted to help, “Do you work there?”

It was only whilst I was forming the words “Work where?” when I realised I was wearing a polo shirt bearing the name of my local pub. I’d got it for free at their 10^th anniversary bash and had slung it on for my brief sojourn for wine and sustenance.

I put him right but he seemed a little disappointed with this response and I went away feeling as if I’d let him down somehow, despite the fact that I never started the damned conversation in the first place.

Finally, this morning I was approached in the gym by a ruddy-faced man with a bushy ginger beard who informed me that he agreed with me.

I momentarily considered the many ill-informed and downright illogical beliefs I hold and wondered which one it was he might agree with. Could it be that he agrees that the universe is just a small particle of dust, like the sort that catches your eye at home when it passes through the sunlight streaming through the window? Maybe he agreed that it’s possible to be trapped inside a dream (it happened to me, but that’s another story)? Or could it be that he agrees that if you drink beer after drinking spirits it will sober you up?

Then I realised that the hairy fellow was looking towards my torso and wasn’t necessarily admiring my newly emerging abdominal muscles that are presently involved in a gruesome and fruitless territorial battle with my stomach, but was in fact staring at my t-shirt, which bore the phrase ‘Running Sucks’.

So, the lesson here is, I need to look in the mirror before I leave the house to remind myself of the talking points that may arise from my choice of clothing and prepare more interesting responses than, “Er…yeah”.

The alternative of course is not to go out, or at least not when sober.

Festive Wisdom

So there it went, faster than an Austrian out of a balloon, the Christmas holidays have zipped by and we are now in the most miserable month of the year, January. The month that generates the most divorces, unwise career moves and (in some cases) suicides is upon us. Happy New Year!

However before we embrace the gloom and realise that going cold turkey on booze and chocolate on the 1^st January is a stupid idea that rarely pans out beyond the first couple of weeks I am taking a quick look back at the important things I learnt during the brief festivities.

Indulge me a little if you will, it’ll put your mind off the fact that the back pain you’ve noticed is in fact your liver screaming for mercy and that the shaking is just a craving for even a Strawberry Cream from the now empty Quality Street tin.

So, in no particular order:

      1.    When it comes to presents I’m still a kid. Out of all the sensible presents I received, the ones that I keep coming back to are the remote controlled helicopter, the yo-yo, and the magic trick where the bug disappears. All of these things took me back to being 8 years old again. Joyful.

      2.     When it comes to presents, sensible is the best way forward. OK, so there’s a balance and I get equal joy from socks and shirts, and slippers, and smellies, and beer. Lots of beer. I think it comes down to the fact that it saves me from buying them myself. You know, that self satisfied feeling when you consider that you won’t have to buy any shower gel until at least March. Wonderful.

      3.     Invite less people for Christmas dinner. Oh, don’t get me wrong, it’s lovely to have the family over, everyone coming together and laughing and eating and singing, and……well, no that’s not the reality is it?

I mean, in a larger house where we had a staff of chefs, butlers, and housekeepers maybe, but the cold hard reality is that I am usually to be found outside freezing my arse off on Christmas morning, cleaning garden furniture so that it can be brought into our comparatively modest lounge so that everyone can sit down. Of course by the time I get inside my efforts are rewarded by the fact that everyone have sat themselves on the nice chairs and I’m perched on a stool at the far end of the room wondering where all the sprouts have gone. We didn’t do that this Christmas.

No, this Christmas it was just the present and future Mrs Haywards for dinner (the latter of whom was entertainingly hungover) and it was easy and blissful. Yes, we saw family later at the outlaws’ house and that was great, but not having a houseful for dinner at Chez Hayward meant that I didn’t get frostbite and I could gorge myself on sprouts until my heart’s content.

      4.     Biscuits are the new Milk Tray. The previous Christmas we received, from numerous sources, about twenty-three boxes of Milk Tray. As welcome as they were we didn’t really know why we received so much Milk Tray in particular. I guess there was an offer on, although amusingly every box was of a different shape and size. This year, not one offering of Milk Tray emerged from underneath any shiny wrapping paper, although we did receive biscuits. Many tins of biscuits.

Initially I thought this to be curious, as I’ve never been bought biscuits in my life. Then I realised the genius of it. Biscuits do not suffer at the hands of the New Year purge. They are acceptable to keep so that I am now well stocked in biscuits until at least the middle of February when I deign to consider the Custard Cream or anything with fruit in it. Beware, because if I don’t know what to get you next Christmas I will be following suit and buying biscuits, by the droves. So, if you’re not a friend of the shortcake finger then tell me now. That’s not a euphemism by the way.

      5.     Rock Lobster is a very long song indeed. 6 minutes and 50 seconds to be precise, which I hadn’t realised. You see, as I mentioned, we saw family later on Christmas Day and one of the younger members dragged me off the sofa to play on Just Dance or Let’s Dance, or some such Wii based dancing game. I perused the options available and realised quickly that I am less au fait with current chart hits then I had realised. I therefore plumped from something I knew of from back in the day.

On came 'Rock Lobster' and off I went, expending all my energy in the first minute, not realising that there were still another six agonising minutes of swaying, and hopping, and jumping to go. Given this was early evening and I’d been drinking since 10am (well, it was Christmas Day) I’m surprised I could even move and more surprised still that all the peanuts and crisps and cheese from the night before didn’t bring on some sort of snack food based seizure.

Suggestions that “I do another one” were ignored as I sweatily resumed my place in some comfortable furnishings and enjoyed my father-in-law’s interpretation of 'Jailhouse Rock', which should have scored many marks for enthusiasm and entertainment but lost a shedload for technique.

So that, as they say, is that. All of Christmas in a nutshell. I can now hibernate for at least eight months until I see a hint of tinsel in a shop or the merest suggestion that Noddy Holder is about to announce “It’s Christmas!” through a shop’s PA system.

Now, in the meantime, what the hell am I going to do with all these un-drunk bottles of Mulled Wine and Advocaat?