Did you see Oppenheimer? The Christopher Nolan film, not the real life bloke. It seems likely that you did. It was one of those films that everyone sort of had to see, for some reason. Even people who couldn't be bothered with films went to see it.
It was like in 1997 when my parents went to see The Full Monty, even though they hadn't been to the cinema since the dawn of the moving image. Such was the buzz about the Sheffield based strippers, they shook off their cobwebs and shambled down to the multiplex to stare at the big screen and marvel at how things had moved on since "Train Arriving at Station".
I didn't like Oppenheimer very much. Putting me in opposition (oppensition?) to most people, it seems. You all loved it, didn't you? You people! Loving things, as if that's cool or something.
Anyway. It annoys me that I didn't like it. I want to like things, and I'm generally inclined to find the positive in things. So why didn't I like this thing? Let's find out together. Here's my reasons for not liking Oppenheimer. And yes, I'm quite likely wrong about all of it.
It was too long
Before the film had started, it had already annoyed me. Three hours? That's too long, for almost everything. Even something amazing will pall if you do it for three hours. Eating a Curly Wurly. Singing along to the chorus of 'Live it Up' by Mental as Anything. Watching the little glow run around the title in the opening credits of "Cheers". All great experiences that would be rendered terrible by going on too long.
Some films do justify a hefty run time, of course. Blade Runner 2049 is nearly three hours, and I bloody love that. Nolan's own Inception is fairly long - also great. And one of my favourite films - Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia - is over three hours. Over!
So it was possible for Oppenheimer to surprise me, and pull off the same magic trick. "Ta daa! I was worth the run time!" But it didn't. It started to tell its story, then wandered off to tell a whole bunch of different stories. Then it had some new characters talk about the story we'd just been told, except now in black and white. And then it looked at its watch and went, "Well, that's three hours. Guess I'll arbitrarily stop now."
A longer film often betrays a lack of discipline in the writing. Focus, people. Focus.
A boy enjoys some falling frogs.
Just one of many reasons to sit through three hours of Magnolia.
Nalon Rehpotsirhc.
Yeah, that was annoying to read wasn't it? Well that's because, rather than just writing Nolan's name out forwards, like a normal human being, I decided to put it backwards for no reason.
Part of my irritation with this film is that I used to love Christopher Nolan films. My first viewing of his second film, Memento, remains one of my greatest ever cinema experiences. I can remember the thrill as I slowly started to see what he was doing with structure, and marvel at the complexity and brilliance of the way he was manipulating time.
A few years ago I would have said that he was one of my favourite directors. I loved the way his films played with narrative, and made us reconsider concepts like motivation, causality and responsibility. He used cinematic storytelling in brilliant, exciting ways and there was a real thread running through his work that was distinctive and - to me - incredibly engaging.
Recently, though, it's all started to feel like this narrative approach is less his signature and more like a sort of catchphrase. Like he can't tell a story without cutting it into chunks and throwing everything up in the air. What was once a powerful and integral part of his message is now a gimmick that everyone, including him, seems to expect.
Memento: Coherent. Focused. Under two hours. Tattoo that on your wrists, Nolan.
I, the Contrarian
As I mentioned above, I don't like not liking things. A self-reflexive concept that Nolan would probably enjoy.
I'm often suspicious when people loudly claim that they don't like a popular thing. You know the kind of behaviour. You'll get something that there's a generally positive buzz about. Sherlock (the TV show). Coldplay (the popular music beat combo). Football (the horrible, boring activity). Stuff like that.
And there they are - the professional contrarian, preening themselves like a peacock and harrumphing to the world that, actually, they most certainly don't like it. Or never watch it. Or whatever is the opposite of what everyone else is doing. Because they, you see, are a dangerous, cool minded thinker.
Don't get me wrong - it's fine not to like stuff. As you may have gleaned from the above, I don't have much time for football. But it's not a personality trait, and I certainly don't need to leap in when other people are enjoying it and make sure they know how different and dangerous I am.
All of which is to say... I'm suspicious of my own dislike, here. I knew, before I went in, that everyone was coming out of this film saying it was amazing. Admiring it seemed like a foregone conclusion. What if my dislike is not based on a critical appraisal of the film at all, but rather a subconscious desire to stand apart - to be that iconoclast who sees things for how they really are?
You see, that's why Nolan's earlier films are so good. They present characters who seem to be noble and well motivated, and then undermine them through narrative revelations, challenging that most basic of human beliefs: that we know who we are and why we do things.
I guess there's some of that in Oppenheimer too. Maybe if it wasn't so bloody muddied by all the extra pointless detail, then I'd have seen it.
"Dear everyone who likes football. I won't be watching, because I don't like it. It is important that you know this for some reason."
Oh, so worthy
Not all my reasons for disliking this film are fair, as you'll have seen. And this last one is possibly the least fair of all: I don't like it because it's so very, very Awards Friendly.
I'm writing this before both the BAFTAs and the Oscars - both events where Oppenheimer might sweep across the board, destroying everything that lay before it like... well, you know. And for some reason that annoys me.
It's not that it's a film without cinematic merit. There are some amazing visual ideas in there, and only a fool would argue that Nolan is a bad director. The sequence of the bomb test is incredible, and there's real power to the scene where Oppenheimer visualises the flesh-shredding effects of his work on the faces of those he knows.
But that's not what's going on with these nominations, I don't think. Plenty of films have demonstrated this kind of innovative, cinematic flair, and failed to get so much as a mention. No, what's being rewarded here is the importance of the subject matter. The atom bomb. The Destroyer Of Worlds.
And I sort of get that. This is a super important subject, and people should know more about it. And it's a timely tale, of how our actions are part of a wider tapestry, of accountability and consequences. I can see why that's a message that needs shouting out in the current political climate.
But we're not rewarding essays here. This is about film. A visual, kinetic experience that engages us on a primal level. The message is part of that, yes, but it should arise from the storytelling, and that storytelling should be cinematic. The importance of the message is not an excuse for failings in those other areas. On the contrary - if your message is that profound, focus yourself in the bloody telling of it.
I am very here for the universe where this wins all the awards. But I bet it won't.
So there we go. Like I say, I'm probably wrong about everything. I might well watch the film a second time and go, "Hey, you know what - I missed so many things and actually this is ace. " But if I do, I'll leave this little rant as it is.
One thing Christopher Nolan's films have made me think about - his earlier, funnier films - is the way we can never be fully sure of where we stand. Our beliefs and opinions don't spring from some pure, righteous source within us, born of rigorous logic and self knowledge.
We're subject to past experiences, unconscious prejudices, the people around us and the things we read... millions of things that nibble away at us every day, altering our perspectives in ways we don't even see.
The people who are most dangerous are those who are sure of what they think, and won't be budged on that opinion. Maybe the real destroyer of worlds is not a bomb, but rather, that state of being where we are utterly certain of the rightness of our own opinion.
Yeah?
Yeah?
Nah. It was that bomb. Did you see it go off? Try arguing with that on social media.
You know music, right? That ethereal, drifty magic that wanders through our lives, giving meaning and focus to our every emotion? Well.
Imagine if you could take that elemental, uncontrollable force and stuff it onto a 90 minute cassette tape. That'd be amazing, wouldn't it? You could play it whenever you want. In the car, as you're driving people about. In the kitchen, while they're trying to read a book. You could even take it to someone else's house, eject their stupid boring music, and insist that everyone enjoy yours instead.
Reader, you'll be delighted to know that, once upon a time, it was indeed possible to do this and - better - I did it. For years and years I created dozens of mixtapes: thrilling collections of the tunes that I considered to be the greatest ever written, for all the world to enjoy.
The actual tapes are long gone, of course. But that doesn't mean you can just run away, shouting, "Oh well never mind then". Because I kept meticulous lists of their contents and, because I love you, I am recreating them here. On the internet. With notes!
This is a tape I made in September 1994, when the world was younger and thinner and had more hair. You can find the whole thing on this playlist, starting at track 130. Or you can just click the videos as you read along. Or make up your own tunes in your head. It's a free country.
Here comes track one!
Joke - I'm Laughing - Eddi Reader
Eddi Reader is in the charts sporadically at this point in time, in the wake of the beautiful 'Patience of Angels'. That means that her singles are a regular feature in the Holy Well that is the Our Price Bargain Basket. I am still working minimum wage at this point, so my taste in music is defined primarily by "How cheap is it?", with "Does it have any artistic merit?" a distant second.
This is lovely, though, isn't it? Very nicely produced and shimmering with feeling. This bodes well for the rest of the tape; anyone listening will probably assume they're in for a lovely, soulful time.
Fergus Sings the Blues - Deacon Blue
Well I'm very sorry. Things have instantly taken a turn and now everyone is angry with me. Where did the delicate sounds of the lady go? Why is this slightly plasticky pop happening to me?
I'll be honest, I still do very much enjoy this song. I don't love it - it's a bit staccato and there's something quite flat about the production that undermines the whole 'massive soul sound' thing they're going for. But there's a joy to it that I can't deny and their melodies still stick in my head for ages.
I never said I was cool, alright? I mean, what would have been the point?
One - U2
As if to prove the whole 'not cool' thing, here comes some pretty solid evidence.
Achtung Baby has been a constant supplier of songs for my playlists for quite a while by 1994. It has taken a while, though, for me to include this, maybe its most famous track. Because, even though it's a song I very much like, it has never really felt like mine.
I think it's down to ubiquity. There are some songs - Bohemian Rhapsody, Vienna, the majority of Beatles songs, that kind of thing - where you hear them so often that it becomes impossible to feel proper 'ownership'. Why would you ever decide to play them, when they are always on anyway?
Which matters here, I guess, because these playlists are always meant to be expressions of my personality. For better or worse, when I play these at people, I am saying, "Here's me, rendered through a carefully sequenced playlist of other people's creations."
What does "One" say? Nothing, really, except that I like that song that most other mainstream people like, and which will probably be on the radio anyway if we turn the tape off.
Running Down a Dream - Tom Petty
Someone in the shared house I live in in 1994 must own Full Moon Fever on CD, because there's a lot of Tom Petty on these mid 90s playlists. I wonder who I have stolen it from? Probably Andrew. His tastes are even more mainstream than mine, if you can imagine such a thing.
Tom Petty always felt kind of vibrant and exciting when I was young, and that feeling lingers now. I've never been particularly carefree or wild. I played guitar, but I did it like I did everything else - overthinking it and rarely able to really cut loose. So it was exciting to imagine making music this free and seemingly uncomplicated.
The open roads and wind-in-your-hair freedom of this seemed a long way from the grey skies and rain-darkened brick of Yorkshire, and I guess that's why they sold songs like this to people like me.
Birdhouse in your Soul - They Might Be Giants
Now we're talking. Simply one of the most delightful pieces of music ever. A bouncy, madcap ride full of thrills and nonsense. So melodic and full of life that it accidentally made TMBG a 'pop act' for a while, despite them being a very long way away from being anything so humdrum.
Unlike a lot of songs on this mixtape, 'Birdhouse' has remained a part of my life. It peeks out at various points through the years, exploding with sunshine and joy for a few minutes and then darting away...
...hearing it on the car radio in the early 1990s and thinking, "What is this?"...
...bouncing up and down at their gig in Vancouver (that's right, Vancouver - I'm basically James Bond)...
...singing it at open mic spots and seeing that most coveted of reactions: people would never have predicted this in a million years, but are delighted beyond measure when they realise what it is...
...and more recently, howling along to it in the kitchen as we all chopped veg and prepared dinner. Pure joy and the uncanny ability to remember the most peculiar lyrics. Filibuster indeed. You scamps, They Might Be Giants. You scamps!
Happy Worker - Tori Amos
You remember the film 'Toys'? No - of course you don't. No-one does, and with good reason. It's a weird little Robin Williams film that doesn't seem to have the first clue what to do with itself and makes little impact, beyond everyone going, "What was that, and why did anyone make it?"
Except. The soundtrack is amazing. Well, sort of. Like the film, the soundtrack is a peculiar beast that doesn't quite hang together. But, also like the film, it contains some really interesting ideas. Like this overblown Frankenstein's monster of a track.
My love of film is still properly developing at this time, and I am fascinated by Toys and its soundtrack. Why is it so glossy and joyful in all its imagery, but so sad at its core? Why do the songs sound like they've watched me dancing and tried to write music that would fit? And why is there nothing else like this? How can you develop a taste for a genre if there's only one thing in it?
Anyway. Here's the song. I'm so sorry. Or, you're welcome. Whichever.
Tears in Heaven - Eric Clapton
And now this! It's like I'm trying to catch people out. Imagine listening to this tape back in the 90s. Maybe I'm driving you somewhere, and so you're forced to politely listen along. You'd be terrified. What if my driving choices were like my music selection? We'd be going off a cliff any minute.
Anyway. Here's a song, and you know the song, and you have your opinion of it. Clapton has done himself no favours recently and it's hard to look at him without bringing a certain degree of irritation to the table. But this was massive at the time, and though it's certainly saccharine, it's about his dead kid so I'm inclined to allow a certain latitude.
At the time, I was super into this song. This was, if I remember correctly, the first big MTV Unplugged thing. Hard to appreciate now, when literally every song that ever existed has been stripped down and acoustified for a bank advert. But back in the mid 90s, where young Rob is sitting on his bed, surrounded by CDs and blank cassettes, it's a big deal. So let's leave off him, eh? He's enough to deal with, what with that haircut.
I've deliberately linked to a slightly fuzzy copy of the MTV concert, rather than the much cleaner 'official single' version. That's where this song comes from, for me. I watched that MTV concert with my dad, again and again. I'd never been into Clapton, but repetition really burned this into me, and made it special in a way it might not have been otherwise.
Real Gone Kid - Deacon Blue
Again, all I can do is apologise. You deserve better.
But, you know what? I still sometimes stick this on a playlist, and though people might look a bit "What?", we'll still all have a perfectly pleasant time, and find ourselves humming bits of it later on. It's perfectly decent pop. It's not 'Stuck on You by Huey Lewis and the News' decent. But it never hurt anyone.
Can't Do A Thing To Stop Me - Chris Isaak
It's very hard to know what my thinking is here. Apart from "I liked Wicked Game by Chris Isaak, and I saw he had another album out, and so I bought it because Radio 1 has, frankly, left me behind, and I have no idea how to make musical choices any more."
Musically, it's OK, Nice and drifty. Lyrically, well... I'm not sure you'd write a song like this now. It feels just a little bit stalkery and obsessive, and the sort of thing that someone might write to you shortly before you had to start googling 'restraining orders and how to get them'. It's up there with 'I Drove All Night' as a song to which the only answer is 'Please stop doing all the things you are doing and seek professional help."
Keep Talking - Pink Floyd
This was the big single for Pink Floyd in 1994, so of course it's here. It's unintrusive, well produced stuff, but not massively interesting.
On the occasions where I've owned an electric guitar over the years, I've found this quite fun to play along to. Not in a "I studied what they were playing and tried to emulate it" kind of way. More in a "I worked out what key it was in and thrashed excitedly about through a distort pedal, until someone asked me to please, please, please, for the love of God, stop."
October - U2
Here's something you'll never get with a Spotify playlist: the fear that you're getting close to the end of the tape, but without any real way of measuring exactly how close. It's the nearest most of us will ever get to the Russian Roulette scene from The Deer Hunter, and I'll not have anyone tell me it's any less thrilling.
Here, therefore, is a very short song by U2. It's quite decent, and harks back to a time when they didn't feel the need to make every song epic. If they wrote it now, rather than coming to a soft, sweet end at 2.20, it would, instead, explode into a frenzied mass of guitars and fireworks and international politics.
Depending on You - Tom Petty
And so we end side one, with another slice of affable, jangly guitar pop from Tom Petty. There's a kind of unpretentious charm to it that was probably undermined, on the original tape, by it suddenly cutting out half way through. Sorry Tom.
Cover My Eyes (live) - Marillion
Side two introduces itself with this: a B-Side from a Marillion single. So we're all annoyed now, aren't we? You, because you hate Marillion at the best of times, and now here they are in an even more ramshackle form.
And me because they've released a single where the B-side is a live track. Boring. Literally the only reason for buying a CD single from an album I already own is the prospect of some new material on tracks 2 and 3. Live versions always felt lazy. Write some more songs, you musicians! It's your main thing!
Luckily, I really like this song, and have fond memories of howling tunelessly along to the "Way-ay-ay-ay-ayyyyy" bit at their concert a couple of years previously. So I tolerate their betrayal. As they knew I would. They're not dumb - they know that anyone easily irritated would have parted company years ago.
Not Alone Any More - The Traveling Wilburys
Another legacy from listening to music with my dad. I visited home less and less frequently at this point, and so there was a certain warmth to the music that made me think of being there.
September 94 sees us entering the second year 'out of university', and so Wakefield is less 'the place you stop for a bit while you work out what to do' and more 'maybe the place you just live now'. University is odd - you live in one place, but 'home' still means the town where your parents live. In retrospect, these years saw a slow transition away from that.
I probably would have still called my parents' house "home" at that point. But I would have been lying. Here, in the shared house where we argued about washing up and stole each others CDs, was where the heart was.
I'll Never Fall In Love Again - Deacon Blue
Now then. Having been quite rude to Deacon Blue earlier, I have to confess to being very fond of this. I mean, it's an amazing song in the first place, so I guess a lot of the credit goes there. But I really love this version.
I think I'm still working my way through the Deacon Blue best of CD at this point. I've used the obvious big hitters - the singles I recognised from the radio in the late 80s - but now I'm discovering the slower, less obvious songs, like this one.
This may even have been my first real exposure to "Never Fall in Love" in any form. That seems mad, but I suppose that's how things went, in the world before streaming flattened everything out. If it wasn't on the radio, and your parents didn't play it, you had to sort of reverse engineer your music knowledge through stuff like this.
Or maybe hang out in much cooler circles than I did. That might have helped too.
Dirty Day - U2
Ha. You thought you were safe from U2, didn't you? You thought - he's done "One", that should have satisfied him. And then there was that weird little piano bit at the end of side one. Surely no-one is dumb enough to think anyone else wants to hear anything else. Certainly not a slightly half-arsed track from the tail end of their more experimental follow up album.
Well, that just shows how little you know me. Or would have known my 23 year old self. He loves U2, and he plays them all the time, and he reads books on them, and if you stand still long enough he will bob up to you and try to engage you in conversation about them.
Doctor Who wasn't on in the 90s, you see. So what else was I meant to do in lieu of a personality?
The Wrong Band - Tori Amos
We're heading to that part of the tape when my choices basically admit, "Oh no - I don't have enough songs to fill a 90 minutes cassette!"
Nothing wrong with this, though. It's Tori, and it's lovely to hear her voice and imagine her beautiful, elfin face. But it's an album track, and it has precisely zero resonance for me. Sorry, future historians.
No-One Can - Marillion
Now I've been pretty self-effacing so far, trying my best to recognise the narrow and relatively conservative nature of my younger self's tastes.
But I'll hear nothing bad about this song. Yes, it's a very basic piece of radio friendly, MOR pop with nothing you might call an 'edge'. If it was a pair of scissors, they would be safety scissors. If it was a curry, it would be the one your dad would eat, albeit suspiciously.
But I absolutely adore this song and for this reason: it sounds nice and it makes me happy. Great chorus. Lovely guitar sounds. Lush keyboards. These are things I've neither tired of, nor grown out of.
In a more just world, this would have got loads of airplay and everyone would have loved it. But then I'd have just been here complaining that everyone jumped on the bandwagon and it doesn't feel special any more and what has happened to the magic of Marillion? So I guess it's for the best.
Lady Writer - Dire Straits
Ha ha. You thought I'd gone as mainstream as I could, didn't you? Well in your face, you lovely reader. I had this waiting for you all along.
People are kinder to Dire Straits now than they were in the 90s. It would be impossible to be less kind, really. I think they existed in that 'Sting/Bono/Live Aid' kind of orbit that seemed to represent everything that was wrong with music back then, and became a target for everyone who wanted to prove how hip they were.
Fair enough, I guess. I can see it. But I still like this, and would happily put it on a playlist now.
Chocolate Girl - Deacon Blue
I'm not sure what this song is about, but it sparked a certain resonance for me, back there in the mid 90s. I had a girlfriend, but I was not treating her very well. Not quite as badly as the guy in this song seems to treat his partner, but not far off.
I was very close, at this point, to ending that relationship. I think she knew it, and her sadness was evident to everyone in our social circle. Quite why she was sad I don't know. You've heard the kind of music she had to put up with. But the heart wants what the heart wants, I suppose, even if what it wants comes with a side order of Marillion and Dire Straits.
Another Time, Another Place - U2
Amazing. Another U2 song. Have I no shame?
This is a good one, though. Right back from the first album, with spikes and edges and shot through with a wide eyed kind of wonder that still appeals.
I had a dream, years before even this mixtape, which this song soundtracked. In it I met a girl. She knocked on the window of my attic and invited me to play on the roof in the evening sun, running across the tiles. And I loved her, but all the time I knew she was going to die, because the dream had started with the moment of her death, before flashing back to the beginning.
So this song has always made me think of that. A weird, sad dream from when I was a teenager. Interpretations welcome.
Jigsaw - Marillion
Oh, I really am going to break up with that girlfriend, aren't I? This hasn't found its way here by accident. A massive song about saying goodbye.
Marillion, in their early days, were all about the break ups and the sadness. Losing love sounded epic and heroic and sort of weirdly nourishing. I do wonder how much I brought about disasters just to have something approaching the feelings these songs evoked.
Anyway. This is also here because my mate Ian - the reason I was into Marillion in the first place so blame him - was getting married. And I was his best man, and so I was due a gift from him. What did I ask for? Well, the same thing anyone would ask for - the first three Marillion albums on CD.
The girl I finished with is pretty happy these days, by all accounts.
Handle With Care - The Travelling Wilburys
We're near the end here, and boy you can tell. We're basically using up whatever tracks we can from CDs we used earlier. That said, this is a great song and a smarter man would have put it way sooner on the disc. I am, as you will have noticed, not that man.
The guys in the Wilburys seemed impossibly old at the time. They seem so very young, now.
Twist and Shout - Deacon Blue
Ending with this is a bit like saying, "Thanks for coming - please never come back." What am I thinking?
Anyway, that's the end of this tape. I hope it's given you a valuable insight into the kind of fun you could have had if you hung around with me in the mid 90s.
If you enjoyed this - and there's surely at least a statistical possibility of that - then you could go back to visit some similar writing about what I was listening to on the previous tape, in Summer 1994. Link here.
The conclusion of a tale in three parts. Though in fairness you could probably just read this one and it would make as much sense. However, if you are so compelled, here's part one, and here's part two.
John Butcher is swaying in front of me, ready for a fight.
He makes some kind of jeering attempt to goad me - probably an insult about my glasses, or my stupid hair, or maybe my hilarious name. In fairness to John, there are many fun reasons to bully me. Name-calling is, however, a total waste of his time. For one, he’s clearly already decided we are going to fight, so it doesn’t really matter whether I respond. And secondly, I am such a colossal coward that I can’t really image what you’d have to say to me to tempt me into fisticuffs.
So I just kind of stare at him, quite scared of the oncoming likelihood of pain and embarrassment, but without any real strategy beyond “stand there letting time pass until eventually this isn’t happening any more.” This almost accidentally works as an avoidance tactic. With no response to his insults, John seems unclear as to how best to proceed - like a computer stuck in a loop until it gets sufficient input. Clearly his algorithm has a ‘pause for response’ condition, and for a few moments I wondered if I’ve defeated the basic programming inside his head.
I have not. A crowd has gathered now, ready for the latest instalment of ‘John Butcher - Random Punchist’. His antics are pretty routine by now and hardly the stuff of novelty. But there is a little extra excitement this morning, as John is facing up to the absolute softest kid in the school. It is quite possible that there’ll be blood, tears and maybe even a death. John registers the crowd, and remembers his purpose.
Having never been in a fight before, I don’t know the protocol. From the outside it’s always looked like a complicated set of moves are made by both combatants, almost chess-like in their precision; fists and boots moving faster than the human eye can track. I wonder what it will look like from the inside.
What it looks like is this. John lunges towards me with all the precision and grace of a pantomime horse. Unexpectedly to me, he chooses to lead with his face - wobbling it violently towards me as he draws his fist back. I wonder briefly if there’s some kind of protocol at work here: “You must not hit a face when it is presented so obviously and easily as a target.” It does seem unsporting.
Luckily, this super-polite part of my brain is over-ridden by a previously unknown bit of lizard-brain survival instinct. I watch as my right arm raises to my side, as if hailing a bus. My fist clenches, and then - as John’s gormless face continues its slow motion advance towards me - my whole body pivots on its axis, my fist arcing round like a pencil on a compass.
I watch, as surprised as everyone else, as my fist connects with John’s idiot mouth. His eyes briefly register the new, unexpected data, as shock waves ripple through what passes for his brain. Then - time speeds up. He careens off, spinning away from me and collapsing to the ground.
I stop and behold in amazement the work of my hands. There lays my fallen foe, hurt and bewildered. The crowd of kids around explode in a cheer of surprised delight. This is amazing - they’ve got to see someone being caused pain, which is obviously brilliant regardless of context. But also, they’ve seen something totally unexpected: the kid who looks like he might blow away on a windy day has somehow murdered the kid who looks like an angry slab of meat. This is the greatest Tuesday ever!
It would be great if this story represented a new era, for me, of a self confident boy who luxuriates in the respect of his peers. Sadly, I remain the same nervous little bug, skipping about relying on jokes and weirdness to survive the horrors of my school years. Maybe that’s a good thing.
As for John.. well I honestly can’t remember ever hearing about him again. Maybe I killed him with my amazing fist. And the teachers covered it all up, glad to have a slightly more peaceful maths class, and relieved that they lived in the 1970s where people didn’t check your paperwork so often.
Or maybe he just wandered grimly on to whoever came next in the alphabet, sleeves rolled up for more pointless pugilism. Or, maybe, he grew out of this behaviour and became a totally different person. That would be better, wouldn’t it?
I’ve changed his name, because even though that child I knew was an absolute cretin, he was just a 9 year old boy. There’s every possibility that he became a brilliant, gentle, inspirational human being. He may be out there now, changing the lives of people for the better, one day at a time. Perhaps he’s even reading this, in his office, between meetings, sipping on a coffee and marvelling at the distance between the people we were, and the people we can become.
I hope so. All the best, John. And sorry for totally owning you, like a boss, in the most compelling victory one human has ever had over another. Please don’t find me and hit me back.
I’ve always been small, and that’s part of it, but I think there’s something more fundamental at work. I’ve seen plenty of lads who were smaller than me but great at fighting. Wild terriers, possessed of the most unearthly anger, leaping and bouncing and snarling at the world around them. Some of them jumped and snarled at me, and I can tell you for sure - their punches hurt just fine.
No, it’s not really a size thing. I reckon that even if I’d grown up big and tall, my body developing upwards and outwards with the physique of a Greek god, I’d have still been reluctant to throw a punch.
Is that true? Maybe I’m kidding myself. Maybe if we looked into alternative time, we’d find mirror-universe Rob, six foot tall and rippling with muscles, swaggering about the world like a king, smacking people round the head every time they got a fact wrong about Doctor Who. “No, it wasn’t Tom Baker in the One With the Maggots you tosser. It was Jon Pertwee, and its proper title is ‘The Green Death’. Now give me your lunch money.”
Maybe the reality of being tough would change the paths along which my personality developed, and I’m just a slave to circumstance. Like that time I bought my first car with a two litre engine and discovered that, far from being a thoughtful and considerate driver as I’d always imagined, I was in fact the same kind of aggressive speed freak as everyone else - I’d just never had a powerful enough car to see that side of myself.
Hmm. Anyway. Back to this universe: specifically the bit of it that contains my school playground in the late 1970s.
There’s me, small and weak and glum, staring at the tarmac. Tuesday morning break. For twenty minutes we are cast outside into the miserable, cold, concrete deathtrap that surrounds the school, away from the nice, warm, good bit, inside, where the books live. Most of the kids charge into the break like an army of berserker demons. They love it, and go appropriately insane with noisy joy. I don’t know why. Kids are idiots, and the sooner I don’t have to hang out with them, the better.
As if things aren’t bad enough already, it soon becomes worse because there, in front of me is John Butcher. I don’t remember him approaching me, he just seems to pop into existence a few feet away, as if in a dream or a particularly depressing video game. He wears the same kind of cunning, leering anticipation that a dog might have when considering eating whatever’s in your hand, even if the thing in your hand is a glove, or a book, or one of its own paws.
So this is it. The idiot king of the pugilists has finally got to ‘R’ in his mental inventory of “People I must punch, at least once”. And now, we have to fight.
I never knew John Butcher to speak to. We were very different kids.
I was, as you’d expect, all books and glasses and mumbles. I hung around the edges of the playground with a bunch of similarly minded geeks, giggling at the fantasy worlds we’d concocted to escape the grey reality of the 1970s in the North of England. Occasionally we’d see John, tumbling through another ill conceived fist fight in the middle of the yard, sometimes surrounded by a little crowd of excited onlookers.
The size of the crowd varied depending on whom John had chosen as his adversary. Sometimes he’d pick on one of the big lads, and that would be guaranteed to draw the numbers. The big lads rarely fought, because they didn’t need to. They were the superstars of the middle school ecosystem - famous because they were famous, their prowess in the arts of combat often spoken of but rarely seen. No-one in our mortal sphere would be so daft as to challenge them, and they didn’t fight each other. They weren’t friends, I don’t think, but they were smart enough to know how to sustain a reputation - and that meant not scrabbling around in the dirt at playtime over a bag of crisps.
John didn’t care about any of this. He’d fight one of them as easily as he’d fight one of us. I still remember that rainy Wednesday when John loped up behind Big Raj, bobbing up and smacking him across the back of the head. He called Raj a name that you certainly wouldn’t use now, and even then in the 70s was pretty risky behaviour for a lumpy little white lad. Raj didn’t turn round, for a second, and it was like raindrops sparkled, suspended in the air for a moment. John just kind of stood there, his gormless face excited and proud at this frankly insane thing he’d just done.
And then time just seemed to jump; Raj’s arm pumped out and back faster than you could think, and John was on the floor. Raj turned back to his mates and carried on talking, sort of smiling I guess but also almost totally unconcerned, as if nothing had happened. Describing it now feels like he was in his 20s or something, but he must have been at most eleven. John crawled to his feet and stumbled off, grimly satisfied that he’d hit his quota.
It seemed like John was on a mission, and that mission was as beautiful in its clarity as it was stupid in its conception. He was going to fight every other boy in the school, at least once.
One rainy Tuesday, it was my go at being his 'once'.
