Diary Days 13.02-05.03.2020

5th March 2020- A State Of Armageddon

This morning I read the BBC online pages. As usual, the headlines of the ‘newspapers’ are featured. The features are dominated by the virus that has travelled the planet in recent weeks. I find myself feeling sad and reflecting on the influences that control our thinking. I have mulled over my worries of governance by headlines in recent years, how those in authority respond by what they read and not by how their conscience guides. It is apparent that measuring the extent of how the virus will impact the nation as a whole is a difficult task. But what is also apparent is the delight that certain elements of the media are taking in spreading alarm. The Daily Mail and The Express, somewhat diverted from telling us of weather extremes that seem to dissipate no sooner than announced, have now warned of a state of Armageddon.

It seems that the media have rights but no responsibilities. Given that their readership is older in demographics one would have thought that such headlining is irresponsible. But given that we live in a world where restraint has been usurped by a free for all race to a cesspit of sensationalism or miss-information, I shouldn’t be surprised. Naturally, we need to be mindful of the pitfalls of a virus that has no vaccine as yet, but we also need to be conscious that life itself presents enough dangers that could hasten our demise without the need to live in fear and anxiety.

Like everyone, I hope this amounts to a minimum of pain and distress beyond that which it has already caused. But I also wish that we lived in a world where those with most influence deliver a re-assuring, and if not possible to offer that, rational and measured assessment of daily challenges.

25th February 2020- The Only Way Is Upper Beeding

The only way is Upper Beeding.

Not a catchy title for a trashy ‘reality’ TV show, but I think I could work with it. Perhaps and old folks sit com, although the area seems to be frequented by young families. Maybe a drama that centres around the pub. Adurenders. Nope, it’s not working.

Anyway, to give a back story, after Dad died I moved back to the family home in Queen’s Park to look after the place during the probate process. It was an emotional period. The final parent had gone, as had my 9 year relationship, and I was very much on my own. This has never really been a problem for me given that I have been a happy loner since a young age (one of the reasons my relationship reached its natural end). I had always wanted to live in the countryside and saw an opportunity. There was a very short window of movement between the exchange of contracts and completion to find somewhere to rent. The added complication was my choice to work in the charitable sector for a minimum wage. Despite pending capital, I was restricted in the level of rent an estate agent would let me go to on a flat. Moving out of Brighton was the only option if I was uncomfortable with paying for a contract up front.

A place came up in Upper Beeding and thus I went- but returned to Queen’s Park six months later. It wasn’t that the rural charms of the local village made me unhappy. It was that I had essentially felt evicted from a place I didn’t want to leave and thus still had a strong emotional tie. So I came back and rented a place in my old block.

But now I feel like I am ready to leave. Thus, as it becomes clear I did like my surroundings in the Adur valley, I look at Upper Beeding again. It’s the only place I want to go to.

Given that I have a general reputation as sensible sort this may seem a little unhinged. I’ve asked myself why I feel this way and the answer keeps returning. Next time I leave it will be on my terms. It will be because I want to rather than have to. I’ve given myself time to mull it over and have purposely delayed the decision till the late spring.

I’m such an emotional creature. But I always have been. I’m not sure if it comes out enough in these ramblings but I know how I can make really sensible decisions and be extremely rash. Sometimes in short periods between each.

Just hope that, if I do go, I’m absolutely sure this time.

19th February 2020- Not Very Priti

Give us a clue ? Not a request over what to pontificate on but a quiz show from the later 70’s and early 80s. Early week evening fare, and a celebrity game of charades. ‘Book, play or film ?’

I guess most folk would remember it because nothing much else happened on a Monday or Tuesday evening. There were only three channels in those days. As a result of this narrow valve of entertainment those who took part became household names- whether they warranted it or not. One regular incumbent was an early middle-aged woman called Una Stubbs. Seemingly benign, effervescent in nature, safe, the stuff we thought television was made of.

But Mum really didn’t like her- and said so, probably on more than one occasion. I mean, she really couldn’t stand her. In fact, apart from Lionel Blair, she’s the only person I remember from that ITV offering. And only because of Mum’s flaming dislike. Having subjected myself to Worzel Gummidge in my formative years I may have joined Mum in the boo crew for a while, but I’m still largely indifferent to Una’s perceived annoyances.

At about 6.30 this morning, having read and written during the small hours and enslaved to my irregular sleeping patterns, I found myself in the Market Diner on Circus Street. It’s a real greasy spoon, I mean really greasy. At that time in the morning the eating area seems to function as a haven for a few homeless folk. The owner doesn’t mind and neither have I. If I did there would be something deeply wrong with me.

My memories of the affliction of rare antipathy that Ms Stubbs appearances inflicted on Mum resurfaced as I stared at the TV screen near my table. Sky News was broadcasting and Priti Patel was being interviewed. My brain replayed those famous words ‘I can’t stand that woman’ as the Home Secretary told the presenter of the governments’ tough stand on immigration now that we have ‘control’ back. If a breakfast of cardiac challenge wasn’t enough to give me health concerns then general nausea was. There is something that renders me incredulous when I see the daughter of an immigrant talking of valuable workers and citizens from overseas in such a thinly veiled disparaging way. The superior and smug look on Ms Patel’s face is something we will have to familiarise ourselves with after the nation wasn’t careful for what it wished for.

I should now go and order the box set of Give Us A Clue. Follow it up with Worzel, and finish off with a bit of Alf Garnett. I’d sooner watch Una for eternity than listen to another minute of Priti Patel.

Forty years on, Mum, I get your pain.

18th February 2020-Precious Possessions

Folk may often make mention of their most precious possessions. Naturally, such attachments are often emotionally based. For others it may be due to monetary value, something that has always been bemusing to me. There is a sub-conscious code within me, although conscious in its telling, that it is not good to hold on to things of great value or at least pay great homage to them. In fact, due to fear of loss, I try not to place great attachment to much. So here we have a person who sees life and relatedness as temporary. Quite what the origins of this are I know not. But it is part of my psychology-excepted for a couple of items. Both, unless they had not been deemed to be preserved in my final testimony, would merely end up in the flat clearance when I depart. One is the watch my parents gave me around my seventh birthday, the other, shown here, a little orange transistor radio.

My attachment to this amplitude modulation comfort blanket dates back to the late 1970s. I’m don’t recall its receipt, most likely as a gift, but it has been in permanent residence during my existence. I have embraced the digital age wholeheartedly, but nothing will replace ‘Benkson’, so named after the manufacturer.

Tonight I watched the European Champions League match between Atletico Madrid and Liverpool. As always, my mind wanders back to the nights of my childhood. I would be in bed before the end of games, under the covers, listening on the esteemed gadget. It wasn’t just football I listened to, there were other stations. I discovered Radio Luxembourg around that time. The crackly signals and wavering output delivering the sounds of the age. As time went on, and my new found love of cricket took root, the early morning TMS from Australia would see me awake hours after I should have dropped off to open the batting with Boycott in dreams I wished not to wake from.

In 1979, and my most vivid memory of communion with the airwaves, Arsenal played Sheffield Wednesday in an epic third round FA Cup tie. The replays came thick and fast as each match saw the ill-suited teams at deadlock. It felt like the commentary was there for me and me only. Doubtless the legendary tones of Peter Jones or Bryon Butler were the directors of the night. It was my moment, just me and the picture my mind, or their voices, created. Magical.

At Christmas I bought a battery for the radio and when I woke on Christmas Day carefully placed it in. The radio worked. Listening to Johnny Mathis and his eternal number of the season brought back the memories of yesteryear. Just like the European nights I still sometimes listen to. As much as life is a journey there are still signposts visible from afar. And sometimes its good to re-visit those places.

17th February 2020- Park Life

Grim weather continues and I’m forced (woe is me…) to collect a parcel from the post office in the centre of town. I like walking but not when there are lots of folk around. When I worked at the harbour in Portslade I would use my feet for the four miles home rather than catch the bus. The beach path was always a dream, especially during the autumn and winter months when less people used it. There was something wonderfully therapeutic after a day in the office about attaching my headphones and getting lost in an archive of old music. It extracted me from the rat race, something that has bothered me all my life. Such daily servitude to the grind reduced me to a constructed form, like I am a cog in an ever-turning wheel, duty bound to live out a pre-determined existence.

The parcel for collection was in fact a poster. The best I could do for a sweet picture I took of the park last year. There is something both splendid and lonely about it. The colours of late spring suffocating an empty park bench. I wonder of the folk who have perched upon it. All strands of society, gazing out upon the pond and its inhabitants, an urban oasis of wonderment.

I’d found a frame in the downstairs cupboards for it and set about lining it up and sealing it. Naturally it took half an hour as the frame, for all its appealing presentation, was a pretty cheap affair. Still it’s proudly done now, a little piece of park life in the flat. I rather expect to look at it one morning and see someone sitting on the bench. And there would be another story.

16th February 2020- Windy Night

I suppose the objection response to smoking is a pretty weak one, that being it is a social pastime. Today I meet the same neighbour outside who talks of the 1987 hurricane in these parts. He has little recollection being only about six at the time. I slept through most of its howling anger, waking up briefly. I enjoy my sleep and its unlikely that Armageddon would stop it- well, perhaps briefly it might.

The following day I walked the four miles to work in a show of unnecessary loyalty. The gardens through the central area of town were a sight of shocking natural destruction. But nature had turned upon itself. A tree, aged, strong and cemented into a large concrete base had been thrown from its residence, as if pulled by a mighty arm and tossed asunder in disdain. It felt as if the Almighty was on the rampage.

Over the following weeks tales of near misses emerge. Some doubtless true, others probably growing taller with the telling. It’s events like this that are the sustenance of folklore.

15th February 2020- The Way It Was

Giving up smoking is said to be one of the most important decisions a person will make. I’ve done it- a few times. I managed it for five years till the inevitable works Christmas evening and a lowering of resistance levels. I gave up for four weeks quite recently and jumped in with an emotional setback to force its resurrection. It’s a very social thing and today I meet a neighbour in solidarity under the stairs out the back as we shelter from the inclement conditions.

He tells me how the flats remind him of the Barbican, although I fail to see any similarities. The block was built in 1972 so it’s been here almost as long as my residency in the area. I’ve always known this estate, situated as it is on the site of the old Xaverian College. I recollect to him the times of the various other constructions at which he shows much interest. The Lower flats nearer the park were completed around 1978 and for a couple of years prior the derelict area had been this inquisitive child’s dream. Health and safety quotes would be met with a confused countenance. ‘Danger keep out’ merely an invitation to treat.

In the early 80s, we used to sit on the wall opposite the south-east corner of the flats. Around the estate we played a game called ‘Peg it’ which was basically ‘It’ under another name. When the chaser came into view we would jump the eight feet onto the concrete below. Looking over the edge now, and one foot taller, it seems far more daunting than it did then. The top of the wall is covered in anti-vandal paint. Too late to ruin my memories of that perch.

The James Gray collection hosts some splendid old images of the town. Including a few from the area described above.

https://www.regencysociety-jamesgray.com/

14th February 2020- Unhappy Valentine’s Day

I’ve had a message saying ‘Happy Valentine’s Day’ and there’s one or two in Facebook as well. Being unattached these days my ‘meh’ attitude could be put down to a feeling of disconnection, or perhaps even bitterness. I protest that I am neither.

Even when I was attached, I had a dismissive view of the 14^th February. Yet it was an occasion when I felt compelled to buy a card that would tell my other half what I should have been saying on every other day of the year. Apparently 25 million of them are sent in the UK each year. I wonder how many under duress. Valentine’s Day reminds folk that they have to spend money, and other folk that they are single.

..

The small green by the Pepperpot is a muddy mess. I know it’s causing annoyance for some folk and I’m a bit torn about it. Every Saturday a van turns up that sells fresh local produce. It’s obviously popular as it is now a resident weekend feature. It’s the type of neighbourhood that indulges itself. I’d hate the van to be expelled through NIMBY attitudes, but folk do have a point. I won’t be signing any petitions.

..

Another mad VAR decision in the Premier League tonight. Looks like a heel offside. The problem is that I saw a goal in a second division match which was absurdly offside a couple of nights ago and wondered where VAR was. Can’t have it both ways.

13th February 2020- Local Convenience

Over the road we have a group of perfect shops, as if created by the writer of Trumpton, although the fire station is further in town. The Post Office is an ever present, I’ve been a regular forever. Next door we have the doctor’s surgery. It’s paradoxical presence reminds me of mortality. A number of doctors have passed since I first set foot, or was rather carried in there, as a child. A strategically placed chemist adjoined to that, its been there just as long. The family who once owned it have long gone, it’s name kept to somehow maintain its respected status.

I hardly ever visit the burger joint on the corner these days. Not because of any disapproval at past experience of its fare, but because its quite expensive due to its high-end quality. It was once a spit and sawdust affair that was as cheap as chips… I still can’t work out how they made money. Perhaps they didn’t. Having transformed overnight from a disabled caterpillar to a bling clad butterfly, it moved up in the world- and my bank balance moved south. It’s lauded as one of the best in the region, which it is.

When dad was in his later years and I proposed that he might want to move to more appropriate accommodation he elected to stay. The area he lived in all his life was far too cosy and convenient. Sometimes, in fact always, I realise that I’m the same. Although I suspect that will change at some stage in the future. As far as there is convenience here there is also elsewhere. It’s doesn’t serve well to be married to memories. They compete with life itself.