The Closing of the Year

The future year 2015 is stumbling to its end, trying to find its coat and woozily telling everyone it loves them and they should open a pub together. As we wait patiently for it to leave, so we can finally get some sleep, it's time to look back and see what the whole thing was about.

And when I say 'what it was about' I mean, 'What did Rob like best?' There's no point pretending otherwise - I only care about myself and things which give me pleasure. So this probably won't be about explaining the rise of ISIS, unless someone makes an awesome movie about it in the next 8 days.

Let's start somewhere obvious. Television. That's the best thing in the world, isn't it? So that's an ultimate good. Here's some of the TV I've really liked.

I could have just said that to start with, I suppose.

Agent Carter, Daredevil and Jessica Jones

It feels kind of redundant and obvious to say it, but here I go anyway: the Marvel Cinematic Universe is really bloody good. A brilliantly planned, creatively diverse array of stories that has fundamentally changed mainstream cinema and, perhaps more importantly, made excellent, sexy use of Scarlett Johanssen. It hasn't always hit the mark; Incredible Hulk feels a bit of an imposter, Thor: The Dark World is needlessly complicated and Iron Man 2 is made of testicles. But for the most part it's been a series of awesome, exciting and varied wonders.

One of the most enjoyable films of the year has been Ant Man - a playful, zippy movie that made ingenious use of its premise and, in Paul Rudd, gave us yet another example of Marvel's great eye for casting. But far more exciting, for my money, was the arrival of the MCU on the small screen.

Agent Carter is a beautiful period piece, lit up by the luminous Hayley Attwell. She's great - confident, funny and believable - and brings a lightness of touch to a show that could easily become over impressed by its own period detail and (excellent) feminist credentials. The story telling is solid and it looks fantastic.

Daredevil is also powered by a strong performance, but this time it's not really the eponymous hero that thrills. Loki aside, the MCU has struggled to give us a truly great villain. Not any more. Vincent D'Onofrio bristles and thunders at the centre of this show, inhabiting the villainous Wilson Fiske with an astonishing combination of fury, cunning and childlike desperation. There's also some awesome fight choreography, especially in episode 2's already famous corridor battle.

And then there's Jessica Jones. Bloody hell. Just when I was ending the year thinking Agent Carter was going to be the best female action hero and Daredevil had given us the best villain. Along comes this super-confident, amazingly written piece of work. Great performances all round and a strong script give us the most mature and interesting iteration of the MCU yet. The subject matter is dark,
serious stuff yet the show is smart enough to stay witty and human throughout. David Tennant plays Kilgrave as, well, basically an evil version of his Tenth Doctor, and he's quite magnificently creepy - not least because he retains a certain likeability even as he does the most despicable things.

All three series show that the success of the movies is no fluke. This is more than just a canny marketing exercise. Marvel is stepping beyond an (impressive) array of superhero movies and starting to develop genuinely diverse narratives. Free of the need to accommodate the high-stakes plot arcs of the movies, these stories are dealing with more profound and personal issues.

The Infinity Stones may have some huge, universe shattering importance but I find it much harder to care about them than I do about Peggy Carter's struggle to be accepted in a world designed for men, or the emotional consequences of Jessica's abusive relationship with Kilgrave. I'm way more interested in the battle raging within Wilson Fiske than I am in a hundred robots destroying yet another city. This is great television made with heart, passion and real intelligence, and if we're in luck, it's the future.

Sometimes I even forget the song

So, this is about a) religion and b) left wing politics. And, as usual, things that irritate me about both.


Many years ago I used to write worship songs. That is, songs which people in church could sing, all together, on the understanding that God - in Heaven - would hear them and find them pleasing. It's an odd concept, singing to God, but we did it anyway and who knows, maybe God liked it. Or maybe God just stared at us, like you would at a dog that keeps bringing you a horrible, saliva covered stick.

There are in existence thousands of worship songs, called things like "O Lord Be My Salvation" and "You Are the One I Worship". My writing of new songs was not in response to a perceived drought of material. I just found many of the existing songs unsatisfying - cloaked in arcane language or drowning in sentiment - and wanted to make my own contribution.

Among the songs I wrote was a bouncy, daft piece of whimsy called "I Really Like You". It was, as you may already have gathered, not a very serious song. It scampered along like a puppy, taking delight in the impossibility of articulating a meaningful response to the Creator of All Things.

Sample verse:

I think you're wonderful
Kind of indescribable
You sometimes seem peculiar
But that's alright with me

It seems you know everything
You're completely Omni-something
You can do what you want
But what you choose to do is often quite weird


It was almost impossible for a congregation to sing, but that was part of the delight. When I used to lead the song, I would comment on its impossibility and explain how that was kind of the point: singing a song to God is inherently nonsensical. If we take ourselves very seriously when we sing those songs - if we think we can do this well -  we inflate our own cosmic importance and reduce God to a commonplace thing, a galactic Simon Cowell, impressed by surfaces and acts of skill.

When it went well, it was a joy. The peculiar rhythms of the verse left us tripping over each other and collapsing into a mad sprawl of voices. We stopped trying to be a harmonious choir and became a bunch of flawed individuals, laughing and making mistakes together. The chorus was just about catchy enough to gather us up at the end of every verse, probably because it was more or less stolen from 'Everybody Needs Somebody to Love'. It was daft and fun, but heartfelt and - to my mind - more truthful than many other, more 'harmonious' songs.

Why am I telling you this? Well, obviously to point out how brilliant I am. I hope you got that. I am amazing. You should probably write that down. But also because my memory of this song is rooted in an event which annoyed me at the time and annoys me now. So I thought I'd annoy you with it.

Like all my annoyances, it is petty and almost completely unimportant.

During my reign as an amazing and paradigm-shifting church-song guy, I was asked to lead worship at some kind of Church away day. I can't remember what it was for, but everyone in the church had gone away to some lovely building in the countryside to be together and learn about Jesus and - of course - sing songs.

I played a few songs and encouraged the assembled mass to join in. Some of it was very reverent and quiet. Some of it attempted to be stirring and powerful. And then, to finish off and segue into the more talky bit of the day, I played 'Really Like You'.

It went pretty well, we all had a bit of a laugh, and I sat down. The leader of the talky bit got up. Let's call her Susan.

"Thanks Rob," she said. "Though I'm not sure that really works as a kids' song. I don't think 'Omni-something' would make much sense to children."

She wasn't being mean. It was a light hearted aside. But it irked me nonetheless. From my position in the congregation, I replied.

"It's not a kids' song," I said.

"Oh, of course it is," she smiled, and opened her Bible, ready to get on with the next bit now this was dealt with.

"No," I countered, "it's not written as a kids' song. That's why it has that language in it."

This was, by now, a bit more tense than was appropriate for the large gathering, who had enjoyed the song but were not really up for a debate on the semantics of its symbolism. So I let it go and we got on with the service.

Except, obviously, I didn't let it go, did I? I continued to be annoyed about it for years. It sat in my mind, a festering little speck of irritation which came up whenever I thought of the song. Because Susan's comments had that special quality of all really stupid arguments: it was hard to work out exactly what so irritating about it.

You'll be pleased to know I've worked it out now.

The frustration inherent in Susan's words came in two parts. One: redefining my song as 'a kids' song'. Two: then saying that it didn't work as 'a kids' song'.

First up, then. I say it's not a kids' song, so it isn't a kids' song. I didn't write it for 'kids' and it's my song so I'm right. So why did Susan decide I was wrong? Well that's easy - because it was fast and because it was fun. Like most Western Christians - and indeed most Western people in general - Susan had got locked into that tiny minded idea that a frivolity = youth. If it's fun or loud or colourful, it's for the young. If you want to talk to older people, then you better get serious and calm and quiet. It leads to the nonsensical idea that younger people can't cope with ideas of substance. It draws a false equivalence between serious tones of voice and intelligent, mature thought. 'Growing up' means 'slowing down'. 'Being young' means 'being an idiot'.

It's total horseshit and, worse, it's unchristian. It consigns people to categories. Patronises them. Assigns intellectual worth to slow speech and sensible shoes rather than ever really looking at what things mean. My song was daft, but it was getting at something complicated and true. And that something is this: If you're going to sing to God - God who invented the concepts of light, gravity, space and time - if you're going to sing to God, then 'I Really Like You' is no less ridiculous a thing to say than 'O Lord I Come to You In Awesome Wonder'. They're both just things, said in English to a being who probably doesn't speak English or possibly even exist in time as we understand it. They are both bloody ridiculous. I'm not saying that God might not appreciate it. I'm just saying that if She does listen, She's unlikely to give a toss about the particular class of language employed.

(Yes, 'She'. I don't know. He? She? Could be anything. Probably neither. But let's do a tiny bit to redress thousands of years of patriarchy, shall we?)

Anyway. There's that. And then there's the other, weirder part of this. Having incorrectly defined my song as a 'kids' song', Susan then goes on to say that it doesn't work as a kids' song. I mean... what? Huh?

I KNOW IT DOESN'T WORK AS A KIDS' SONG! THAT'S BECAUSE THAT'S NOT WHAT IT IS!

The only one calling it a kids' song - is you! You, Susan, with your idiotic lack of understanding of how we begin to define things. You may as well look at a car and say "Well, that would be terrible for cleaning your teeth!  It has no bristles, it's too heavy and I'm afraid it's far too big to go in my mouth! This thing is a failure!" And then, when someone points out that this is a car, you smile a patronising smile and shake your head."Oh dear, no, this is a toothbrush. I've decided."

It's possible, at this stage, that you are starting to fear for my mental health. You may also remember, way back at the start of this, I promised some kind of left-wing politics.

Well, here it is. The story above is all true, and it does irritate me. But it was brought to mind recently, when observing the Labour leadership fiasco. Plenty of people have pledged their support to Labour in recent months, hoping to take part in the process of selecting a new leader.

Plenty of those people have been told they cannot vote, because they 'do not support the values of the Labour party.' Many of these are people who have supported Labour for years. The reason given by Labour is that they fear the party is being infiltrated by people who will subvert the true cause of the party.

It does not sit well with me. It feels like the definition of 'true Labour values' might have come adrift. My story above now feels like a parable.

Susan's arbitrary definition of my song, used to dismiss its value.

My frustration that my voice got lost.

And a sense that real meaning is slipping away, redefined by people who have lost perspective. That's a kids' song. That's a toothbrush. These are True Labour Values.




The chorus of my song goes like this. It might not mean anything, of course.


That's not to say sometimes you don't freak me out
That's not to say I don't have my doubts
I'm only human after all

That's not to say sometimes I don't get it wrong
That's not to say I don't sometimes forget the words
Sometimes I even forget the song

Say hello to my little friends...

People have spoken many lies about me. I'm not sure why. Perhaps it comes with being such a cool, interesting, centre-of-attention kind of celebrity kind of guy. Perhaps it's because I used to spend a lot with a certain type of Christian - the type who are convinced the world is full of sin and so invent stories to back up their convictions. Or maybe everyone tells lies about everyone and that's just how things work.

Either way, it doesn't really matter. What are far more interesting are the true things people say about each other. Of all the true things said about me, the following remains my favourite.

I was 18 and, having spectacularly failed my A-Levels due to the discovery of snakebite and black, was working in a pub in Bradford. The pub in question  - The Ring O'Bells - is now, sadly, gone, replaced by a Tesco which must surely be haunted by the ghosts of beer and late 80s karaoke. It makes me sad that it is gone. It was the first place I ever performed a song in public and now it's just a little brick shop. Where will they put the blue plaque when I become incredibly famous? Near the fish fingers? That seems disrespectful.

Here's my band, outside the pub, before they destroyed it.

Note the awesome cut and paste job which seamlessly works

our band name into the pub name. I am in white.

Anyway. 18. Young, thin, spotty and terribly stupid. The bar was quiet so I was amusing myself by making a wine bottle opener do a little dance. I imagine you've done this - you pull the corkscrew bit down and make its 'arms' wave about as if it were praising Jesus or trying to stop an aeroplane landing in Die Hard 2: Die Harder.

I probably gave the little fellow a voice, too, because I am amusing. Maybe I made it sing a little song. Maybe, more disturbingly, I was having a conversation with it. "What are you doing with your life, Rob?" it would croak, like Danny's little finger in The Shining. "I'm not sure," I'd reply, tears pricking in my eyes. "What should I do, corky? Please don't say murder. Murder is your answer to everything."

Whatever it was, it drew the attention of a young woman called Sadie. She worked at the pub too and she was as scary as she was sexy, which is to say 'lots'. Faced with my hilarious corkscrew-based improvisations she gave me a look of hatred and/or affection and delivered this assessment of my character: "Everything's got legs to you, hasn't it?"

It's stayed with me, that phrase. Everything's got legs. However I've changed over the years, this has remained constant. Every object is, potentially, a new and excellent friend, a receptacle for a tiny part of my personality. Every pencil does a dance, every fridge welcomes my entrance to the room with a song. Computers, obviously, come in for a lot of attention, being not only inanimate objects but also whores, idiots and bastards who live to thwart me. I talk to them a lot.

Cars, in particular, seem alive.  I actually made myself cry, once, as I said goodbye to a car I had just sold to a dealer. As I drove away in my new car, I gave the old car a desolate, confused little voice. "Where are you going daddy? Will you be back soon? I hope so. I love you daddy!" It was an anthropomorphic step too far and I nearly drove into a fence with grief.

Look at that little face and tell me he's not alive.

This love of cars, though, seems to be a more socially acceptable form of my condition. People love their cars, give them names, refer to them with personal pronouns, that kind of thing. And so, when we drive, we see not metal and plastic, but personalities. Extensions of people. And, I'll be honest, what this reveals about us makes me despair.

It's not just the BMW drivers, though obviously I hate them. Man, the personality of the drivers shines out of those metallic bastards. And that personality is, invariably, 'inconsiderate twat who thinks he owns the road.' I assume the thought process is quite natural:

i)     I have a BMW because I earn lots of money
ii)    I earn this money by being in charge of people and telling them what to do.
iii)   By extension, this means I am very important in every aspect of life and can tell people what to do everywhere I go.
iv)   By further extension, my car is a cool sexy kind of guy called 'Captain Shark-Dick'
v)    Thus, indicating is for wankers and I can drive as fast as I like and get pissed at you for being in my way.

So yeah, I hate those guys. But there's other, more subtle stuff. Like this.

I hate traffic. All those tossers, getting in my way with their stupid cars. Selfishly driving places and thus making me late home. Don't they know I'm trying to watch all the episodes of Doctor Who, in order, from the start? Yes,  including the ones that got wiped and now I have to watch fuzzy photographs taken by nerds in the 1960s. That's going to take ages. Why are you all in my way?

And, of course, the entire issue about which I am becoming mindlessly enraged is a product of many people doing exactly the same thing I'm doing.  Our lovely car, Henry, is not an innocent victim of other, more brutish cars. He's a constituent part of the problem.

 He's part of me alright. He's the part of me that can't see my own complicity in how stupid the world is. The bit that doesn't draw a connection between my own bad mood and how unreasonable everyone else is suddenly being, including traffic lights, people on the radio and weather. The part of me that theoretically opposes capitalism while constantly filling my house with new things. I got a Facebook message the other day and four different electronic devices all tried to let me know about it, all jumping up and down like children, bleeping and clicking for all their worth. Four! There's no need for that. Yet here I am, tutting away at the behaviours of the very same companies that rely upon my consumption to keep them afloat.

What's that, wine? Drink all of you? Because it would

make you happy? OK, wine. Anything for you,

 

 

The other thing I've noticed about traffic is the stupid desire we have to be just that little bit further forward in a queue. I take great, spiteful satisfaction when some speed merchant lurches excitedly around me, as if in the pre-credits sequence of a James Bond movie, successfully pulling ahead, only to then sit still in the same queue, but a few feet forward. What a dick, I invariably think.

But that's all of us. Scrabbling ahead, desperate to be further forward. Desperate to win. And somewhere within us knowing that we only win in relation to others. We're further forward in the traffic, but we're still in the traffic. We still are the traffic. Our victory is only defined against those not doing so well, and they're not doing so well because of us.

That's why those BMW drivers irritate me. Because I know that, for some of them at least, their Fuck You attitude behind the wheel is the same as their attitude behind a desk. "I'm ahead of you. that's all that matters." A culture of entitlement and superiority, validated through cars and suits and how nice your house is. And that's who we all want to be. Behind that desk, calling the shots, being a selfish dick. I'm assuming that's why so many people voted conservative in the last election. Not because it makes our lives better - it manifestly doesn't - but because we think that maybe, if we could only get a little further forward in the traffic, then we would be happier and life would be better. So let's support the traffic.

Or something. It's not a perfect metaphor.


I don't know why, for me, everything has legs. Maybe I'm just a child, and I hate grown ups because they don't like to play. I guess I'm also scared that, as I finally have a bit of money, I'm creeping towards being that idiot who genuinely thinks he matters more than others because he has an awesome sofa. I do have an awesome sofa. I haven't given him a name yet, which is something I'll be thankful for should I ever have to throw him away. It. Not him. Damnation.

However. There's a bit of me that likes to remember that all the stuff that surrounds us is important. Whether we give them voices or not, our possessions talk about who we are, the choices we've made and how they affect the world we live in.

My things are always doing a dance and singing a song, but often I'm surprised at the true stuff they say.

Emotionally... erect.

Great news everyone! I’ve worked out why we’re all so unhappy!

OK, not all of us. Not you there, stuffing your face with a sausage and egg sandwich. Not you, sir, striding purposefully down the street like Amelia Earhart on her way to the toy shop. And not you, madam, driving your BMW like all the other cars are butter and you are a big, expensive knife. Screw those other cars! They’re not as cool as you! You rule!

You lot aren’t even a bit unhappy. You’re made of joy and satisfaction. And, in the case of the BMW driver, a deep seated contempt for all humanity.

No. I mean the rest of us. Those of us who don’t have a lovely sandwich, or time to go to the toy shop, or can’t afford a massive shiny car to career around in, making other road users feel miserable like a giant ignorant penis. Our lives are stupid and made of nonsense.

I’m not talking about real misery, of course. Our lives may be stupid, but they’re far too pleasant for that. The fact that you’re looking at my nonsense words suggests that your days are relatively free of true distress. You have time to read, so you’re not working every hour god sends or walking five miles just to get water. You can afford electricity, so you’re not eating fluff to survive. Best of all, you have the freedom to look at my inconsequential witterings, so you probably don’t spend your days hiding in rubble, on the run from a terrifying militia of child soldiers.

This is a very specific kind of unhappiness and, annoyingly, it comes from being quite happy. It’s what some people would call first world problems, and that’s very hard to deny. This is a kind of unhappiness that can only exist in relation to comfort and joy. Let me try to explain.

One of my favourite films is LA Story. It’s not a great film and many people probably dislike it, but it has a special place in my heart and if it’s ever on TV I have to watch it. Oh, turns out I’m lying. I just looked on Rotten Tomatoes and it has a 94% approval. Turns out it is very popular. Dammit, I thought it was my special film. Turns out everyone likes it. I was going to recommend it, but now I realise you probably own it, and love it too.

See what I mean about my life being miserable?

LA Story. You should watch it.

Anyway. There’s a lovely line in the film spoken by Steve Martin’s character Harris Telemacher. Describing his life, he says,

“I was deeply unhappy, but I didn’t know it, because I was so happy all the time.”

It’s always struck me as a strange line. It’s meant as comedy, of course, and I generally took it as something that was just meant to be absurd. But as I’ve got older, I’ve kept coming back to that line and I think maybe it’s more meaningful. In fact a quick check online tells me that when Steve Martin made the film he was about 45. That’s very nearly my age now. Maybe that’s why it has started to make sense.

I am, for the most part, very happy indeed. I live in a lovely house that is often full of friends and wine. Said friends are an excellent bunch of people who make me laugh and – more importantly – laugh at my jokes. I have a job which pleases me and money to buy toys. In short, I rule.

And yet. Very occasionally, under the surface, there’s this weird sense of dislocation that’s never been there before. Something I don’t have a name for. A weird, unusual flavour of emotion that exists in direct relation to the pleasure and delight of life.

I don’t think it means that the real happiness is false. I just think that there’s a kind of unhappy that exists alongside it, rather than opposed to it. It might need a new name.

I have been unhappy, in the past. Properly, actually unhappy. Shortly after the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Centre I fell off a ladder and broke my shoulder. That sucked, because it hurt, and I was self-employed and had no money, and everyone seemed much more concerned with world events that with my constant moaning about how I couldn’t play guitar anymore. 

There was school. That sucked. Everyone was bigger than me and everyone was mean and boy did I look like a jerk. And I’m pretty sure it always rained.

And there was that time that my ex fiancée tried to steal several thousand pounds from me and told loads of lies about me and acted like the world’s biggest, greediest, most deceitful bitch. That was miserable too.

But that’s not what I feel now. Now I often stand in my lovely kitchen, drinking a glass of wine while dinner cooks, listening to music as sunlight pours through the window. Miles away from all that horrible rubbish and as happy as can be.

I think of Harris Telemacher’s words. Unhappy, but not realising it because of happiness. I don’t think it’s quite true, but there’s a something. A something that exists alongside the deep, genuine pleasure that life gives me.

Some happiness, yesterday.

Here’s what I think it is. That moment I just described – me in my kitchen with my wine and my music – is beautiful. But part of my brain knows that there is a way in which it could be more beautiful. No, not if Anna Kendrick was there too. Well, maybe a little, although she seems a bit high maintenance and would probably want to turn the music down or have some of my wine or something.

No. The way in which that moment will become more beautiful is when it is gone, and gone forever, and I can’t have it any more.

If it all goes wrong. If I wreck all my relationships. Lose my job. Get hurled out of my house and have to live in a skip, eating bees. If I wake up each morning to a grey damp world of loneliness and misery and my best friend is a sock called “Toothless Jim”. Just imagine the place my previous happiness will hold in my memories: The day I stood happily in that kitchen, enjoying that wine, loving that life – it’ll be more than good. It will seem like heaven itself.

I think about this sort of thing quite often and I’m starting to think it’s part of what being really happy is about. Everything I have gains value when I think about what it would be like to not have it anymore. My hands moving on this keyboard – imagine a time when these fingers are stiff with age and pain, and suddenly their fluid movement seems wonderful and insanely precious. Everything I see looks like art when I think that one day I might go blind. And when I let my mind wander and create a world where the people around me are gone forever, I think how much I’d long to have just five more minutes in their company.

If this sounds like a clichéd ‘be grateful for what you have’ kind of thing, that’s probably not far from the truth. I don’t pretend this is massively insightful. It’s just a way of helping me recognise the true beauty of what’s going on around me, all the time. I can sometimes sit and sulk about the things I don’t have, like a PlayStation 4 or a swimming pool or an Anna Kendrick or a bottle of wine that was just a little closer… But the more I recognise this feeling – this happiness that contains within it unhappiness – the more I’m grateful for the stuff I do have. Take these things away and I’d be very poor… so I must be rich.

So, where does that leave us? Well, I imagine you probably have the strong desire for a sausage and egg sandwich. And some wine. You might also have become involuntarily aroused by the thought of Anna Kendrick. And we have, of course, all learnt a valuable lesson about not taking things for granted.

Most of all, though, I imagine you probably think I’m just inventing a nonsensical new kind of ontological maths to justify my constant state of emotional confusion. And you’d probably be right. But look on the bright side. Eventually we’ll all be dead. And then we’ll really see what’s what.

Now go watch LA Story.

The Naked Now

I’m about to ruin the next five minutes of your day. Here goes.

You are blinking. Constantly. With your eyes. There you are. Blinking. Eyelids battering away at your face. How do you even see properly?

Oh! And swallow. You have to swallow too.

How often do you swallow? Well – you’re going to find out. Because now you’re acutely aware of it. And so, as I type, am I. And now it’s taking an effort to do it. What’s that about? How was I doing that a second ago without realising, and now it’s like heaving a great lug of muscle about inside my head. Help!

It’s OK – it’ll be gone in a little while. Soon you’ll be distracted by a kitten or a sandwich or a terrorist atrocity and the whole blinky-swallowy festival of noise and effort will recede into the background, managed by your body like Norton antivirus doing a check for porn. Which is good, because (gulp) it’s a horrible (blink) effort, isn’t it? Gulp. Blink. Let my body deal with it.

But it’s also kind of more scary, I think, that we do forget about it. It’s a weird reminder that our bodies get on with loads of this stuff all the time and don’t even ask us. My heart beats while I sleep, chugging happily away like a fat little monster. Wounds heal. Food digests. Blood wanders up and down my arms and legs, asking if everything is OK and if anyone needs anything from the shops.

People talk about ‘knowing themselves’, especially as they get older. I’ve done it. “The great thing about being in your forties is that you really start to know yourself.” But, like so much I say, it’s absolute nonsense. Imagine the horrible reality of actually knowing yourself. Becoming suddenly aware of every blink, every swallow and every beat of your heart. Feeling the blood charging up and down your veins. Realising the constant fizz of neurons firing, the constant chatter of your brain micromanaging every tiny operation that keeps your nervous system from collapsing like lazy spaghetti. And no respite. No letting it fade into the background. An eternal hell of being aware of yourself.

You’d go mad. A great deal of what we do relies upon a cheerful ignorance of how any of our actions actually happen. How am I standing up? I mean, I know it’s theoretically about balance and positioning and stuff but that’s just what I’d write if I suddenly had to show my working in an exam. In reality, I just kind of… do it. I tell my body to stand, and somewhere a team of brain cells get it together to carry out what I can only assume is a terrifically complicated set of sums. And even that’s a lie. I don’t tell my body to stand at all. I just assume it will know what I want and let it get on with it.

I guess what I’m saying is, thank goodness for a certain level of ignorance. And I guess I’m saying it because recently I’ve had a number of really weird moments  - moments where I felt like I lost that ignorance. Moments where I became suddenly, horribly aware that I was existing in the present tense. And I’ll tell you what – it freaked the hell out of me.

Most of the time I’m not really in the present. I’m sort of vaguely aware of what’s happening, but it’s all perceived through this weird mist. At any one time I’m remembering some events, looking forward to others and imagining alternatives where things are different and I have a cowboy hat or a flat in Cardiff Bay. The present is buffered by expectations, memories and daydreams and rarely has the chance to impact meaningfully upon my psyche.

Then, occasionally, for whatever reason, the real, actual moment scrapes through. Dreams and memories melt away. I look around and I think, “This is happening now. These people are talking to me in real time. Shit! What do I do?”

I have little information on this aspect of life. It’s not some future event that I’m imagining happening, like my wedding day or what I’ll say if I ever meet Tom Baker – things I’ve considered in great detail. The first involves smashing through a window like Billy Idol, landing on a motorbike and riding up the aisle, playing electric guitar. The second features me crying like a child and saying thank you until he goes away.

And it’s not a thing that happened in the past, like that time I tried to explain widescreen aspect ratios to Andrew Brown and wanted to weep with frustration at his lack of comprehension. “Why are there black bars at the top and bottom of the TV?” he kept saying. “Why don’t they fill those bits in?” Because that’s the shape of a cinema screen you cretin! "But why don't they just make it the same shape?" How would they do that? Where would that extra visual information come from? Aaaaarrrrgg!

Idiot. Where was I?

Oh yes. It’s really weird looking at someone talking to you and becoming aware that the conversation is actually happening in the present. My subconscious is so used to my complete lack of interest in things that it usually takes care of it all for me. I just hear words tumbling out of my mouth and kind of casually observe the process as if I’m watching TV. “Hmm,” I think, “That was surprisingly sexist. Ooh, listen, I’m claiming to like jazz.”

On the rare occasions that I am slammed without warning into the unvarnished present, I have no idea what to do. I panic. For a start, I’m never 100% sure that I’m not just remembering this in super high definition detail. Then I feel utterly terrified at the responsibility of being present, in time. Who’s allowing this? I could do anything. What if I punch the person I’m talking to? What if they tell me something sad and I just laugh and say “I’m glad that happened to you - I hope it happens again.”? What if I stand up in church and shout “You’re all a bunch of bastards”?

I’m not even exaggerating. The power of realisation is blistering. If this is ‘now’, then nothing is set. I can disrupt all of this so easily. Without the comforting numbness of temporal dislocation I have no framework, no reference. There’s a reason why memory and fantasy combine to couch the present in cotton wool. I need to be kept confused and slightly out of synch.

And then there’s eternity.

Once in a while I will lie in bed and remember that I exist in time. And that either I will die and be dead forever or the afterlife exists and I will live forever. And that both are impossible to fit into my tiny mind. A terrifying chasm of existential fear opens up around me and I freak out completely. How can I not-exist forever? How can I not not-exist? How is anything meaningful unless it ends? And what happens after it ends?

And then, salvation. Sleep claims me. My thoughts drift and now I’m in a hotel and Tom Baker is eating cheese at the next table. Andrew Brown’s wife is stroking my face and I feel both guilty and delighted. I try to tell her about his inability to understand aspect ratios but my voice comes out like birdsong. And now I’m due on stage, and have to play saxophone… I can’t play saxophone…

I dream. Or some of me does. Elsewhere, the rest of me keeps it all running. Heart beating, blood moving, swallowing.


Goodnight. If you can.