Bob Geldof was right – I’m irritating
I once shared a taxi with Bob Geldof.
I don’t recall the whys or wherefores. But I do remember that the problem for Bob, on that particular journey, was not the taxi-driver’s airing of classic taxi-driver’s views, but the views expounded by his fellow passenger – namely me.
Within a very short space of time, Bob had cottoned on to a truth expressed by my late father, Godfrey, that I am ‘a permanent victim of the idée fixe’. Like a dog with a bone, once I start on a topic, I just can’t give it a rest.
And yet I find the chatty habit in others insufferable. The main reason for my unbroken record of not visiting London for three months is my fear of Mary’s unfortunate habit of striking up conversations with taxi-drivers.
I know where this failing comes from – it was engrained during her provincial upbringing in Ulster, where the craic was woven into the social fabric.
She paints a jolly picture of her childhood, characterised by milkmen, coalmen, clerics and factory bosses all enjoying the craic as they ‘laughed till their sides ached’. Mary sees all personal encounters as a chance for craic.
But in my more stand-offish English book, with taxi-drivers it’s best to maintain a formal relationship.
‘Give them an inch and they’ll take a mile’ has become my rule, as I’ve noted how often conversations have turned into monologues, as the driver seizes the chance to inflict his resentments on a captive audience.
Besides, these days, I am busy at home in the cottage. The gardening has had to go on a temporary back-boiler, as I recover from a shoulder injury. So I have achieved a much more efficient work/life balance.
It was a pop-up gardener – who did a better job of clipping shrubs into agreeable, broccoli-floret shapes, and in half the time it took me – who really forced me to undergo a paradigm shift in time use.
I now use Mondays to recover from the weekend and recharge my batteries. I remind Mary of one of the favourite sayings of her late guru Betty Parsons: ‘You are never wasting time when you are recharging your batteries.’
The time released through not performing mindless outdoor chores could technically be redirected towards my neglected art career and tackling long-overdue commissions.
Yet I have chosen to redirect this time instead towards self-education and consciousness-raising.
For various reasons, I missed out on university. The Open University would be one option for insatiably curious folk like me – but there’s an even easier option at the click of a remote control.
With all three female members of my family cohort refusing to engage in discussion of breaking news stories, at least one of us needs to be grounded in the reality of the turbulent world we live in. It therefore falls on me to keep tuned in to the stories behind the scenes, via innumerable YouTube channels.
Yes, I know of the addictive nature of this facility, the temptation to see patterns where there is none, to become obsessed by the idea of puppet masters and conspiracies, only to be found, three weeks later, curtains drawn, drinking water from the dog’s bowl.
That could never happen to me. The dog needs exercising and Mary needs feeding if she’s to keep on ‘working’ to help pay for the streaming services that can anaesthetise her by night, having wound me up by day.
No reality check can beat the slap in the face administered by the plain-speaking ex-US Army Col Douglas Macgregor, as he delivers his measured responses to what are surely the most unthinkable scenarios being enacted in the Middle East.
For light relief, I skip to a classical review channel on YouTube. A light Monday lunch of crumpets, Serrano ham and Heinz tomato soup provides the sustenance for the afternoon summit: an Oxford debate featuring three giants – Rory Stewart, George Monbiot and Mark Cocker. The latter can be relied on to never pull his punches on environmental matters.
Although the debate – ‘The Battle of the Countryside: Britain Should Rewild Its Uplands’ – took place four years ago, it features all the cross-currents of current thinking about the UK policy for the upland environment. It’s better than being there in person, because if your mind wanders, you can rewind!
Mary is increasingly inviting people to lunch in the cottage – in a bid, I suspect, to dilute the intensity of my own rolling news bulletins.
I have begun to welcome the company of these people – some of them strangers to me. Where else will I find a politely receptive audience for my new range of idées fixes?
