I’m really not the guy from Radio Shack. I was round Sarah’s again this evening trying to get this telly up and running. It took me about an hour before I worked out where the “on” button was. Now I’ve got the thing refusing to bring up any menus and instead saying “No Teletext” no matter which button I push and I hated it so much I told her I was gonna rain-check. I’m glad I didn’t flog the damn thing on eBay as it’s fucked.
Now I’m home. It’s 11pm. It’s raining and my sash window is bleeding cold air in behind me. In the street below someone has decided now is the correct time for a pneumatic drill. He’s holding down the button longer than people normally do. Guddaguddagudda and I want to go downstairs in a dressing gown and say “Do you have any idea what time this is?” but my hair isn’t grey enough and I’ve got a chin. So I’m just waiting and watching as slow vans full of traffic cones roll through the horrid evening. I suspect it’s gonna be a bad one tonight. A London night. Roadworks and shouting. At least they might stop the traffic.
Meantime my WhatsApp has started buzzing off the chain trying to help organise the funeral for my mum’s boyfriend. He’s the guy whose body I went and sat with the other day. A powerful force for good in the world, a complicated presence in my life. He was very much himself at all times. An authentic voice. I want to try and help his funeral be something that reflected his remarkable life. He was put in charge of mum’s funeral and we were all so traumatised it was a total mess, and contributed to alienating me from mum’s friends. I never really knew what happened to them. It’s sad. But here is his life, and his very real achievements, and a chance to put aside all the “you’re not my dad” stuff. He was still a maverick, the same sort of age as pa, but with a less catastrophic set of lifestyle choices. He made old bones, with the inevitable crumbling at the end that comes with such longevity. The last few years he wasn’t really sure who anyone was, and I found it hard enough to be with him that I likely could be accused of neglecting my duties.
So. Lives. Sic Transit Gloria Mundi and all that. The drilling has stopped. The cold persists. Lou is whacked out from heat in Goa and I’m so so envious. Just one day of being so hot I can’t think. That’s all I ask…
AlBarclay 