Offensive Weapon

In which The Author has one over the eight

(Written Monday, 29 May 2017)

Facebook very kindly reminded me this morning that it's been exactly eight years since I worked my last ever shift in Waterstone's. (It still had an apostrophe when I started there, so I've kept it for nostalgia's sake.) Before I left the house on that Saturday morning in late spring 2009, I posted a status saying that it was 'the end of an error'.

Funnily enough, I seem to have lost (or gained) about ten days in the intervening years. I was convinced that I'd finished some time in the middle of May, but the Internet never forgets. Maybe I was on Cwm Gwaun Time. (You'll have to look that up, I'm afraid. You have access to the Internet. Go on …)

It certainly was the end of an era. When I was working in the book trade, at least there was a reasonable probability of having an interesting conversation once a month or so.

It's bank holiday weekend.

I made the mistake of waking up on Saturday morning. To be more precise (and armed with two electronic clocks which observe British Summer Time when it's officially summer, and here in Wales when it isn't most of the time, and UTC when it isn't), I woke up in the early hours of Saturday morning. On Friday, there hadn't been a cloud in the sky all day. To mark the occasion, I got my arms out. Owing to various Unexplained Drunken Injuries and the ever-increasing homophobia in Aberdare, my long shapely legs stayed under cover.

At some point on Saturday morning (it was still dark outside), I decided not to look out of the bedroom window because I'd heard a couple of fantastic thunderclaps. Because I've been bingeing the Harry Potter films again, I was scared in case the Dark Mark had appeared over Aberdare Park. I've also reached the M page of the British National Formulary, so anything can happen in the next thirty days or so. The whole storm could just have been a psychedelic episode.

Then the rain started.

Yeah, I know. Torrential rain on a bank holiday weekend in South Wales. Who saw that coming, eh?

Two bands featuring good friends of mine (with some interesting overlaps) were scheduled to play at Aberdare Park in the afternoon. I ruled that out immediately. If I'm going to get drenched at a music festival, I'm going to (at least) pack my tent and spend half a day trekking across country to get there. I'm not going to stop off for chips on the way there and eat them when they're still warm.

Anyway, I needed to go into town to book a day trip to Carmarthen and/or Saundersfoot. I haven't been to Carmarthen for at least twenty-five years. It's much longer since I was in Saundersfoot. If the weather was clement, a breath of sea air would fill a gap between London trips. If not, I could have explored Carmarthen with my camera for a few hours before hitting the pub. I didn't see the advert for the trip until late on Thursday afternoon. Last time I tried booking a day trip, it was pulled at the last minute because of the poor response.

Talking of poor responses: on Thursday evening Steff and I went to an excellent production of The Trials of Oscar Wilde at the Coliseum, together with about forty or so other people who'd decided that a one-off 3D cinema experience (in other words, an actual play, with actual actors, in real time) was a better option than the three millionth episode of EastEnders.

On our way out, one of the ushers handed us a leaflet for forthcoming shows, and commented that they'd had a pretty good turnout for the evening. Apparently, the place is under new management. Well, if I'd recently been appointed to oversee a 620-seat theatre and had sold just fifty tickets for a touring theatre production, I doubt if I'd make it through my probationary period in post.

But I digress …

Back to Saturday. I had some breakfast in Servini's, found out that the Saundersfoot trip had been cancelled owing to lack of interest, and wandered up to the Lighthouse for a pint. I left about two pints later. I couldn't be bothered to stay out among the six times a year (bank holidays, Xmas/New Year, and Black Friday) drinkers, so I made my excuses and left. I did a bit of shopping, made something to eat, and watched Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets again. And so to bed, as the man wrote …

And that was Saturday.

On Sunday, I didn't even bother. I had plenty of graphics prepared for the cycling event I'm planning for next year, so I spent the afternoon half-listening to Radio 4 while preparing a presentation with the other half of my brain. They're doing a two-part broadcast of Pygmalion, which I read years ago but have never seen on stage. I told Hannah and Eirlys ages ago that if the Colstars ever do My Fair Lady, I want to try out for Henry Higgins. We have a great deal in common, after all.

I went to the shop for a pint of milk and a bar of chocolate, watched Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban again, and went to bed in time for some very strange dreams. You can tell I'm a week into my medication, because a) I'm actually sleeping, if only in short bursts, and b) I wake up wondering what the actual fuck has been going on since I put my book down and switched the light off. Maybe Josie should have roped me into her PhD study group when I was starting on a new prescription.

This morning I decided to head to Thereisnospoon for breakfast, if only to see some friendly faces behind the bar. I was making very good progress with the Cycling Project when my pal Simeon came in and asked if he could join me. Simeon and I are very similar, in that we respect each other's personal space and don't force ourselves to make conversation when we're not in the mood. We chatted for a couple of minutes; he got his notebook out and started sketching, while I carried out building my presentation. We made our excuses and left at about 3.30. Simeon was going home for lunch. I was heading to the Lighthouse for Performance and Cock-ups.

And I needn't have bothered.

A few weeks I primed Gareth the DJ that we're approaching the fiftieth anniversary of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, so I asked him if he could source most (if not all) of the backing tracks in time for this weekend. I'd planned to sing the entire LP set in the right order, with Clare helping out from time to time, interspersed with the other regulars and whoever else fancied having a knock.

In the event, nobody else fancied having a knock.

It wasn't a complete write-off, though. Having sung the title song (a bit high for me), With a Little Help from my Friends (which needs work), A Day in the Life (with way more reverb than the original) and Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds alone and without a leader, I confidently predict that Clare and I will absolutely smash the entire set in time for the sixtieth anniversary.

But the youngsters were coming in. They aren't into karaoke. They come in to play pool – but I think they really want to be playing golf, to judge from the number of times the white ball shot across the room. Fed up of being in the firing line, I made my excuses and left.

About ten minutes into my pint in the Prince, I realised that I should have caught the late-running bus to Trecynon instead. A couple in their late fifties started dancing to some fucking techno shite on the jukebox, while everyone else (all three of them – one at the bar, one a few feet from the bar, and the last one by the window, some twenty feet away) started 'arguing' loudly precisely because they all agreed with the Daily Star view on 'fucking immigrants'. The only real debate was over which of them could be the most xenophobic.

(None of them came close to Nigel, the Pissed Dalek, on Saturday, though. After telling everyone who cared to listen – and the rest of the pub, needless to say – that, if he was 'in charge', he'd 'deport the lot of them', he canvassed everyone's opinion as to where he could buy the best kebab. Maybe 'Istanbul' would have been the correct answer. You can't have your baklava and eat it, after all.)

So I returned to the Lighthouse, simply to check my emails and update my Twitter feed. In fact, Twitter asks you 'What's happening?' when you go to update your status. I'd flattened my battery by replying, 'It's Aberdare on a bank holiday Monday. Fuck all's happening #stupidquestion', so I needed to add an extra pinch of vitriol to the potion that's been fermenting slowly for the last eight years.

And one of the golfers shouted over, 'Where have you been, Steve?'

Talk about a soft target.

'I've just come back from a fortnight in Bournemouth,' I called back. 'Express trains, rapid hotel service – it's amazing what you can fit into an hour these days.'

I'll never come up to Oscar Wilde's standards, but I like to think that I can reply to a stupid question with an equally stupid answer. Needless to say, my rapid response was lost on the barbint, but it was also lost on the Pool Golfer. Even after I repeated it for the third time, the penny still failed to drop.

I wasn't surprised in the least. I doubt if he's read a book in his adult life. There's no room for irony or cynicism in modern pop music, which I guess is his primary contact with his native language. In fact, I doubt if he engages with language to any great extent. His main concern is where he can score 'a ten bag' on a Tuesday night in Aberdare. You can do that with rudimentary sign language. I strongly suspect that his main motive for learning my name is that he thinks that a long-haired guy in his early forties (I'm older than I look, remember) with an interesting taste in music might be a new channel for his commerce in illegal drugs.

Failing that, he's hoping that I'll step aside and let him have a shot at Clare. Go for it – we're just good friends, remember …

After maybe the fifth attempt at the punchline, he came over and said, 'Sorry if I've offended you.'

No, you haven't offended me by not finding my off the cuff reply unfunny. Nor have you Labour-voting fuckwits who've spent all day mouthing off about 'the fucking ragheads' and all that jazz offended me. You've offended many of my friends, but I'll leave my friends to sort that out. Nor have you, the homophobic, steroid-guzzling, gym-going, closet queens, offended me simply by having a go at the way I choose to dress. You're the fashion victims who look as though you've just been thrown into G.A.Y. by the door staff, after all.

You have, however, offended me in a whole host of ways: by throwing away ten years' worth of compulsory education in favour of computer games and vacuous, meaningless pop music; by deciding that the only people you want to know are those whom you think you can add to your drug-dealing network; by never travelling further than your Stagecoach Megarider will take you in case you might meet someone interesting from a different background who will turn your fucking head around …

Actually, I'm going to stop here.

Since I won't be in Carmarthen and/or Saundersfoot tomorow, I might as well do what I should have done all weekend and stay in fucking bed. At least by doing that, the chances that I will summarily execute a random Aberdare fuckwit are reduced to very nearly zero.

Nearly …