Do you Know Who I Am?

In which The Author (and his friends) are the victims of mistaken identity

Yesterday afternoon, to mark the successful completion of another book by Christian Cameron (the third historical novel of his which I've copy-edited), I popped into the Glosters for a pint. Wayne L., the guvnor, was behind the bar, and we were chatting when a young woman walked in. She said hello to us both, and I said hello back – even though I had no idea who the hell she was. I recognised her, certainly, but placing her was a different matter entirely.

Anyway, she and Wayne were talking just out of sight when I heard her mention 'Sensodyne' and 'bleach' and 'teeth', and the penny dropped. She's one of the nurses in the dental surgery next door to the pub.

The dental surgery I attend regularly.

As a rule I only see her when she's wearing her work uniform. Seeing her in jeans and a jacket over a black top meant that she was completely out of context.

After she'd gone, Wayne said, 'I felt a bit embarrassed then, because I couldn't remember her bloody name.'

I said, 'You're one up on me, mate. I didn't even recognise her with her clothes on.'

We went on to talk about similar experiences we've had over the years. I told Wayne about the time I was walking through Queen's Arcade in Cardiff, on a Saturday lunchtime a couple of weeks before Xmas. A chap in his fifties (probably), walking through the arcade with his family, said hello as we passed each other. I said hello back, and spent the rest of my day racking my brains to try and remember where I knew him from. Was he someone who called into the bookshop regularly? Or someone I knew from the pub? Or even a former teacher whom I hadn't seen since my A levels? Maybe he'd been in the Cynon Valley Quiz League, or some other social group I'd been involved with in my younger days.

The mystery was solved on the Monday morning, when I boarded the X7 to Cardiff and he was sitting behind the wheel. Trevor had taken us to Cardiff every weekday (barring holidays) for at least the previous year. Out of his Shamrock uniform and outside his cab, his face just didn't register in my mind. Odd, isn't it?

I was thinking about similar episodes last night. A couple of weeks ago, I was in Jac's Music Venue in Aberdare, chatting to Barrie and Amanda (the managers) over a pint. My phone beeped to signal the arrival of a text message. Since only about half a dozen people have my current number, I was a bit surprised to see only a number instead of a name in the 'Sender' field.

I was even more surprised when I opened the message. It said something like 'Hi Hayley, sorry but Josh won't be able to come to Molly's party tomorrow, he's a bit under the weather.'

I read it out to Barrie and Amanda, and then said, 'There literally is no answer to that.'

I expect this accidental mis-delivery has caused poor Josh to be friendzoned by an angry Molly. (Get used to it, mate. Bitches be crazy!)

I was having a pint in Kitty Flynn's in Cardiff, on a Saturday afternoon about halfway through my second first year at university. A chap I'd never seen before came over to me, told me how much he liked my guitar playing, and offered to buy the next drink. I thanked him and told him I was only killing time between trains (which was true). I couldn't accept a drink on false pretences, could I?

I don't know who this mysterious guitarist actually is, but I was walking through Aberdare a few months ago and someone came up to me out of the blue. He'd obviously had a few (or maybe something stronger and less legally available), but he started ranting on at me about a gig I'd played in Swansea where I'd apparently pissed him off. I told him I hadn't picked up a guitar in public for well over twenty years, but he wouldn't have it. Eventually, I think I said, 'Fuck off, you stupid wanker!' (or words to that effect) and walked away rather quickly.

One of the reps who used to call into the bookshop was a very nice guy called Julian Cooper. He and his partner Glynis lived in South Devon (Newton Abbot, if memory serves), and would come to Cardiff a couple of times a year. Between them they carried an eclectic set of lists, both books and stationery. Julian would visit the bookshops, Glynis would do the stationers', and between them they could do a city centre in a day's visit. We became great friends, and we'd always have a good chat before getting down to the serious business of buying books.

Julian was born in the very early 1950s, and was a bit of a hippy in his younger days. (I think he still was, at heart.) He'd always be very smartly dressed in a suit, but with an open-necked shirt. His wavy hair was greying, but still long enough to identify him as slightly bohemian. He's also about my height and build.

One of his visits was a couple of days after our annual stocktake. We'd always take on a large group of students to help out on the day (and night), and some would stay on for a few days afterwards. Two such were named Ruth and Rebecca, and they were helping to make the shop shipshape (try saying that after a few pints) when Julian walked up the stairs. I was behind the counter, so he strolled over, shook my hand, and we started chatting as usual. As we went to find a quiet corner, we noticed that the girls were whispering to each other and glancing over at us. We didn't think anything of it at the time.

After Julian had gone, Rebecca walked over to me and said, 'Was that your father you were talking to?'

I don't think the possible resemblance had ever crossed my mind (or Julian's) before, but now that she'd mentioned it, it wouldn't have been too hard to imagine.

That night, I rang Julian at home and told him what the girls had thought. He found it hilarious, and it became a running joke of ours ever after.

He'd walk into the shop and say, 'How are you, son?'

I'd reply, 'Hello, Dad, good to see you. How's stepmother?'

I'm sure at least one of the younger members of staff thought we were on the level, too.

This next case of mistaken identity also involves my father. (My real father, not the one from South Devon). As Dad got older, his eyesight started to seriously deteriorate, and he didn't make things any easier for himself by not wearing his glasses.

Phil (my brother) has worn glasses since school. He used to have fairly long hair, a bit of a beard, and wore faded denims in an old-school rock style. But at the time I'm talking about, that was quite a common look around the Valleys.

Dad called into the Cambrian for an afternoon pint one day. He knew most of our gang, and they knew him. Nobody was especially surprised when Dad approached Leighton L., who was reading the paper by the bar. Leighton was wearing faded denims, had long hair, and a bit of a beard. He was also wearing his reading glasses.

The way Leighton recounted the story, Dad apparently offered to stand him a pint (which Leighton declined). Dad then asked him about his work situation (hit and miss, the odd 'hobble' here and there), his love life (disastrous), his baby daughter (estranged because of the disastrous love life), and various other topics.

After five minutes or so, the penny dropped. Phil's life and Leighton's were running on exactly parallel lines, so every time Dad asked 'my brother' a question, Leighton was able to give an entirely appropriate answer. I don't know if Leighton ever told Dad that he wasn't actually talking to his younger son, or just decided to keep it until he'd seen us.

Years ago, I was in a pub – possibly the Cambrian, but it might have been the Glandover or the Mount Pleasant, when they still had a live music scene – when a chap I knew by sight came over to me. We chatted for a few minutes about the bands, work, girlfriends, people we both knew, life in general, blah blah blah …

'How's your brother doing these days?' he asked.

I told him Phil was doing OK, and then he completely flummoxed me.

'I like your brother. He's one of the best bass players I've ever seen around here. Tell him I was asking about him.'

And he said goodbye and walked away.

Now, I doubt if Phil knows one end of a bass guitar from the other, let alone how to play the damned thing. To this day, I have no idea who this guy thought I was, or who this very talented sibling is. Maybe Leighton is a closet bass player. Who knows? Maybe we should get him together with my guitarist lookalike and form an O'Gorman Brothers tribute act. Answers on a postcard, please …

The Unstarted Trilogy

In which The Author almost leaves a bookshop empty-handed

Yes, you read that correctly.

I've just returned from Pontyclun, where Fay J. and the regulars at the Brunel Arms have managed to raise a very respectable £31 for the Anthony Nolan Trust. This takes the pub's fund-raising total to over ninety quid. It's definitely worth making a special trip across country every six months or so to pay it in. In reality, I won't be able to pay it in until tomorrow, because Barclays no longer have a branch in Pontyclun. I could have walked the two miles or so into Talbot Green, but given the way the 'high street banks' are pulling out of the high streets, there was no guarantee I'd have found that branch open anyway. I'll do it in Aberdare and post the receipt to Fay, as usual.

And talking of well-known high street brands …

I had the best part of an hour to kill in Cardiff, so I walked over to Waterstones for a nose around. There was no sign of Jeff, as usual – he might have been on lunch, or in Newport, or in Abergavenny, or in any other branch within a train ride's emergency cover range. I didn't see any of the old gang, in fact. I headed straight for the Science Fiction section, eager to pick up anything by Paul McAuley, whose forthcoming book I finished proofreading on Monday. Or maybe on Sunday. Or possibly yesterday. It's a long story …

Anyway, Craig L., my contact at Gollancz, had mentioned Mr McAuley's novel Fairyland, which is published in their SF Masterworks series. That seemed a decent place to start exploring Mr McAuley's backlist. Therefore I wasn't especially surprised when I failed to find a single book by him. When Craig first mentioned this upcoming project about six weeks ago, I asked whether Mr McAuley was a new author, as his name didn't sound familiar. (He turns out to be quite the opposite – as a scientist turned writer, he's frequently mentioned in the same breath as Stephen Baxter.)

I emailed Craig back, joking that I never got to run the Science Fiction section because that particular role was always given to someone who never read books. Instead, it was the preserve of people who were into superhero films, computer games, and manga books. Even if they were fairly au fait with the genre (like Scott P. and Gareth M.), they were never given free rein to stock a decent range of backlist titles which would guarantee repeat business.

Now that Waterstones is run almost entirely by computers which decide a branch's stockholding based on the percentage of shelf space allocated to each genre, you can spot the winners and losers a mile off.

Take the History section, for instance. When I was in the shop a few months ago, I amazed myself by being able to find books on the Hundred Years War and the Crusades. Ten years ago I'd have lucky to find anything that general. I didn't want a huge tome on either – just something I could use to double-check names and dates if I get another historical novel to work on – and the two books I found suited me admirably. But I wouldn't have found them when I was working there.

When Louise was running the History section, her pet preferences (the areas she'd studied for her degree and her own personal heroines) decided what we stocked. Yes, of course we tried to take account of the school and university syllabuses. However, by and large Louise's choice of books was determined by a mixture of how interested she was in the topic, and how well she got on with the publisher's rep. When Russell was the rep for Routledge, you could guarantee finding pretty much every new title on the shelves within days of publication. When John took on the role as part of the ever-growing Taylor & Francis portfolio, T&F's titles dwindled almost to the vanishing point. You should never mix business with pleasure, especially when it comes to stocking a bookshop.

The new Waterstones History department is rather thrilling in comparison. Presumably there's enough turnover of titles to justify the increased shelf space and vastly improved depth of range.

I can only assume that Horror is showing the reverse of this trend. It's gone from being an entire island and a couple of bays to barely half a dozen shelves and half a table. It's no great loss, to be honest. The post-Twilight Vampire Romance bubble seems to have burst, thank Goddess, and now the section consists pretty much exclusively of James Herbert, Stephen King and Richard Laymon. It's business as usual. Never been a fan, don't care if they sell or not.

The Artificial non-Intelligence in charge of stocking the Science Fiction section seems to be one capacitor short of a full circuit board, though. I'll give you a theoretical example to begin with.

Would anyone, even in their wildest fantasies, ever stock The Return of the King without also having The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers? Who the actual fuck would start reading a trilogy with the last book?

Yet that's what Waterstones seem to be doing at the moment. Having finished John Hornor Jacobs's Infernal Machines (for pleasure and profit) about six weeks ago, I was pleased to find one of the preceding books on the shelf. Only one of them, though: Foreign Devils. There was no sign of The Incorruptibles, which is where the whole saga begins. I checked the tables to make sure I wasn't just missing it, but it was nowhere to be found.

I moved on. Ben Aaronovitch's occult police procedurals featuring the young Met copper Peter Grant have really made an impact since they were first published. (It was my close reading of Foxglove Summer, the fifth Peter Grant novel, which opened Gollancz's doors to me in the first place.) I wasn't surprised, therefore, to find the series opener Rivers of London face out on the shelf, along with two of the others, but not necessarily in the right order, as Eric Morecambe might have said.

I moved on again. Gavin G. Smith's The Beauty of Destruction was the first proof I ever worked on. I found that on the shelf, but neither of the books which precede it. What's the fucking point of that?

Jon Wallace's Rig, my first copy-editing job, has recently come out in paperback. Craig very kindly sent me the first two as preparation for the typescript, so I was eager to see the finished book. I found it all right – beside Barricade, which opens the story. There was no sign of Steeple, though. Ever get the feeling you've missed something important?

Skimming the rest of the display, I spotted the distinctive yellow jacket of a Gollancz SF Masterwork among the Ps. It was The Prestige by Christopher Priest. There were none of Mr Priest's dozen or so other books on the shelf, though. His first novel, the hallucinatory and terrifying Indoctrinaire, was published 45 years ago. He's generally regarded as one of the elder statesmen of British SF, along with Brian Aldiss and Michael Moorcock. There was one of Mr Aldiss's books on the shelf (got it), and a collection of Mr Moorcock's short stories. Yes, you read that correctly, too. Just the one. Mr Moorcock's published works would take up least two shelves by themselves.

The Prestige first came out in 1995; Greybeard is thirty years older, and Mr Moorcock's short stories were published sporadically through the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Messrs Moorcock and Priest have both had novels published by Gollancz within the past couple of years, and both were acclaimed in the SF magazines. I've got them at home, but only through the good offices of Waterstones in London. If I was relying on the Cardiff branch, I'm sure I could be forgiven for assuming that they'd curled up their tootsies and shuffled off this mortal coil (to quote a line from another classic comedy routine).

I wandered over to the music section. We've recently marked the fiftieth anniversary of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Cub Band, so I was sure I'd find a plethora of books about that musical landmark. Not a fucking sausage. In fact, there was only one book about the Beatles, and I've already got that at home. Does anyone read the fucking papers any more?

I was about to leave empty-handed when I spotted a face-out copy of All the Madmen, Clinton Heylin's recent(-ish) book about the uneasy relationship between British rock musicians and mental health. I say 'recent(-ish)' because according to the title page it's been out since 2012. I've never seen it in Waterstones before. If it hadn't been face out, I wouldn't have seen it today either.

I've necessarily based this entry on a cursory examination of the shelves in one 'flagship' branch of Britain's only surviving national book retailer. I've worked on a small sample of authors whose books I've worked on over the last couple of years, too. It's a reasonable basis for further study, I think. I've been out of the bookselling game for over eight years now, as Facebook reminded me over the bank holiday weekend. It was, as I said at the time, 'the end of an error'.

With the benefit of twenty years' experience at the sharp end – and when I walked away, I went with half a dozen colleagues whose time in post was comparable – I think it's fair to say that Waterstones are missing us more than we miss them. I wonder how long it'll be before the smaller branches start to wither on the vine. There was a time when every town worth its salt had a branch of at least one high street bank. HSBC closed its doors in Aberdare last year. NatWest are going at the end of the summer. They've all pulled out of Mountain Ash already.

In the same way, all but the most piss-poor of towns had a bookshop. Given what I've seen today, I can't help wondering how long it'll be before Waterstones starts going the way of Barclays and the others of the 'Big Four' banks.

Calling the Shots

In which The Author pitches a new Reality TV show

A few months ago, two friends of mine named Simon and Kylie took over a big old pub in Phonicstown Cwmaman called the Boncyff. It's a place I've been to a few times over the years, but it's too far from home to have become a regular watering hole.

It was originally called the Fforchneol Arms. First recorded in 1872, according to Richard Arnold's definitive essay 'The Pubs, Clubs and Breweries of Aberdare' (in Old Aberdare Vol. 2), it's more commonly known as 'the Bonki'. The origin of its peculiar name is – as with so many aspects of Valleys life – a topic for debate, mythology and downright bollocks in pubs and elsewhere. I once read (somewhere) that the boncyff was a large tree stump on Gooseberry Hill, more or less opposite, used as a counting table for the miners' wages. By association the word transferred itself to the pub, and gradually mutated to its current form.

The name 'Fforchneol Arms' seems to have fallen into disuse over the past two decades or so. The side of the building currently reads Boncyff. (I can't tell you what it says on the front. We just dive straight in after getting off the bus, without stopping to look. I took the photo a few years ago, but I doubt if it's changed since.)

[A digression: My friend Florence grew up in Uganda, and occasionally falls into the language gap when she's among fluent Wenglish speakers. A few years ago, she had to go to the old Aman School for a dance class one evening. Being new to the area, she asked her work colleagues how to get there by public transport.

Having been advised to catch the bus and 'get off by the Bonki', Florence boarded the Glynhafod service and asked the driver for 'a return to the Bonkers.' When she told me about it a few days later, we roared with laughter, and I said, 'You're bloody bonkers!'

Anyway, Simon and Kylie introduced Friday night karaoke a couple of months ago. You won't be surprised to learn that Phillip, Clare and I have been up to check it out a few times. In fact, it was – partly – the reason why Clare started going there in the first place.

But it's not just karaoke. It's Karaoke and Shots. Every time you sing, you get a free drink. It's never a free pint, unfortunately, but one of those 'blink and you'll miss it' drinks in a little plastic cup that looks like something a nurse might hand you when you're standing behind a curtain. Still, a free drink is a free drink. They have the same offer at the Golden Cross in Cardiff on Wednesday evenings. As Jade Justine the host/ess always says, 'The more you sing, the more pissed you get for free.'

Clare got royally pissed the first time she did Karaoke and Shots. In fact, she spent most of the Saturday feeling very sorry for herself, drinking soft drinks, occasionally moaning and mopping her fevered brow, and eventually baling out before Lindsay had even set up her gear in the Glandover. Shot to death, one might say.

Later that night, I had an unfortunate incident myself. I'd stayed in the Welsh Harp until closing time, with a nice gang of friends I hadn't seen for a while. When I got home and put my key in the Yale lock, the bloody thing snapped in two. Luckily for me, the mortise lock opened without any problems, and I was able to shoulder charge the door open. (Yeah, I know – is there any more damage I can do to my shoulders?)

On the next Manic Monday, I showed the remaining portion to Phillip and Clare, and suggested that the Broken Key would be the perfect emblem for our karaoke get-togethers. Every time someone makes a hash of a song, we could display the Broken Key on the table in front of us.

Goddess knows I earned it myself on Wednesday night, when I struggled through a very high arrangement of 'Waterloo Sunset' in the Golden Cross. 'Lola' would have been better suited to my voice, but since Jade is a drag queen I didn't think it would go down too well.

However, the very words 'karaoke and shots' gave me an idea. Let me explain …

It seems that half the country spends Saturday nights glued to Reality TV 'talent' shows like The Voice and The X Factor. At least three of my friends have tried out for one of these shows, and failed to qualify. It wasn't because they weren't up to the mark – it was just that there were other people on the day who offered better entertainment value. Take this young lad from Aberdare, who appeared on The X Factor a few years ago, for example. He looks the part; he talks the talk; he certainly thinks he's the best thing since sliced bread. But look at Louis Walsh's face as soon as he starts singing. Cheryl Cole's reaction is priceless, too.

After seeing Clare's pitiful attempt to get through the Saturday after the Friday before, I realised that Karaoke and Shots is actually a brilliant idea for a talent show. I'll pitch it to you so you can see what you think.

Hopeful wannabes with a half-decent voice get to do their party pieces in front of a panel of judges. The successful ones go through to the next stage. So far, so predictable.

But here's the twist.

Instead of just sitting there saying, 'It's a "no" from me,' or refusing to turn their chairs around, each judge is provided with a 9mm revolver loaded with live rounds. If any contestant fails to reach a decent standard, he or she gets blown away live on prime-time television.

See – Karaoke and Shots just got real.

I first outlined this idea on Facebook a couple of months ago. A few of my friends thought it had legs. I also sketched it out in the Golden Cross last week. Jade was horrified, but the barman seemed to like it.

Jade said, 'You can't go killing people live on TV.'

'Not in this country, no,' I agreed. 'But I bet the Japanese networks would bite my hand off for the rights.'

After all, I'm old enough to remember the insane clips from Endurance that Clive James used to feature on his TV show. I'm just taking things to the next level.

I was in the Golden Cross on Wednesday night, drinking with a good crowd of performing arts students from St Paul, Minnesota, for some bizarre reason. Suddenly, a young girl sitting beside me literally launched herself off her stool and into the middle of the crowd. I started laughing and told her, 'It's only the lighting system – that bright red dot on your chest isn't really a laser guide for a sniper rifle.'

But the plot thickens. Phillip and I were sitting in the Lighthouse last night when I noticed that Spanish Steve had a bright red dot in the middle of his back. We looked around and Martin had a bright red dot on the nape of his neck. I told Phillip what had happened in Cardiff the night before. Maybe there really were snipers positioned around the building, ready to take down anyone who murdered 'Delilah' for the thousandth time. Was Karaoke and Shots about to come to life?

Anyway, having kept the proposal to my Facebook friends and my fellow members of the Broken Key Club until now, I'm putting it out there for anyone to buy. It's even got a working title, courtesy of the barman in the Golden Cross, who mentioned that it sounded like a plan for a snuff movie.

How does Can You Come Up to Snuff grab you?

Friends Without Benefits

In which The Author makes a late new year's resolution

A few days before Xmas, Rhian, Steff and I were in Thereisnospoon when the subject – for some unknown reason – turned to the fact that I've been de facto single since March 2001. Rhian, of course, was there when the whole Oz Girl situation imploded a few months later (see From a Land Down Under). Steff was't.

Since then, my 'romantic life' (*snort*) has consisted of a brief unconsummated dalliance with Jenny, unrequitable one-way love affairs with a Dippy Bint and a Nigerian Princess, two 'dates' with a born-again God-botherer and drug casualty, an online relationship with a Russian chick who may or may not have been Russian (or a chick) at all, a couple of drunken flirtations with a beautiful and kinky single mother, and a few snogs with a woman my age for whom the phrase 'as mad as a box of frogs' seems sadly inadequate. I'm not necessarily listing them in the right order …

Steff wondered why I hadn't invested more into furthering any of these potential relationships. I told her I really didn't have the time or energy to spare.

The way I look at it, it's rather like (not) learning to drive.

Learning to drive takes ages, costs a small fortune, and – unless you're in a well-paid job or drive a company car – simply adds another financial black hole to your personal universe. Into that bottomless pit of tax, MOT, running costs, insurance, repair bills, parking charges, and so forth, you watch every single spare penny of your income drain away just as surely as Manic Monday follows Silly Sunday.

Even if you can afford to run a vehicle, your social life suffers; you can't have a pint whenever the mood takes you, because that precious licence depends on your continued sobriety. As well as being the designated driver on days out, you become the unofficial taxi service for family and friends, constantly on call for hospital appointments and so forth.

I didn't go any further down that road after failing my driving test in 1983. Sometimes – about once a decade – I wish I had. The Nigerian Princess said she'd love to see the Gower Peninsula, with its spectacular beaches, quaint buildings and mysterious ruined castles, before she went home.

I replied, 'I'd love to take you there, babe. But on public transport, by the time we got there it would be time to come back again.'

Which leads neatly to my next point. Not learning to drive forces you into the grip of private companies like Arriva Trains Fails Wales, Stagecoach and First Group, or transport authorities such as TfL. You're constrained to go wherever they go, and forced to rely on the oldest form of transport known to our species if you want to go further afield. If you need to travel off the beaten track, or at short notice, or outside the normal operating hours, you are (to borrow a technical term from the urban planning industry) fucked to buggery and back.

But you learn to live with it. My other blog Is Your Journey Really Necessary? came about because of the frustrations of living in a place where, as far as the Powers That Be are concerned, nothing whatsoever happens after 6.00 p.m. or at weekends. Yes, it's annoying when there's something happening in Cardiff – which you simply can't get home from. It's even more infuriating when there's something happening in Swansea – which you simply can't get to in the first place.

After a couple of decades, you begin to realise why most people in Aberdare perceive a universe that's bounded by the corner shop, the pub, the local playing field, the betting shop and the takeaway. You try telling them that twenty miles away there are interesting shops, and a whole range of pubs and clubs and restaurants, and cinemas and shows and gigs and plays and museums and galleries and talks and meetings and all manner of events going on seven nights a week, pretty much the whole year … And after a few minutes, you realise that they're about to phone the police to report an escapee from a locked psychiatric ward. This world you're describing is as alien and unfamiliar as any SF scenario dreamt up by the masters of the genre. They can't even begin to imagine living in that world.

In essence, that's pretty much what I've done with regards to 'matters of the heart' over the past sixteen years or so. I've cut myself off from that world, and no longer take any interest when other people talk about their visits there. When I see my friends pair off, settle down, and start a family, naturally I'm pleased for them. Who wouldn't be? For Goddess's sake, we need some genetic variation in the system simply to fight a rearguard action against the fuckwits.

But I really can't visualise myself in that situation. If it was going to happen at all, it would have happened twenty years ago. It didn't. It's a virtual simulation of a world that simply isn't real for me.

Which puts me in an interesting position, as Steff found out when she pressed me on the subject that evening.

'Not even a one night stand?'

'No.'

'Fuck buddies?'

'No.'

'Friends with benefits?'

'No – plenty of friends on benefits, but that's as far as it goes.'

I only found out the meaning of the term 'friends with benefits' a few years ago. I'd probably overheard it in conversation, but – as with Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead, and so forth – I'd assumed it was some sort of yoof cult thing. Maybe a weird hybrid of a popular US sitcom starring Jennifer Aniston and a Channel 4 exposé of dole fiddlers. How the fuck was I to know it was an actual thing?

But it turned out to be an actual thing.

As far as I can tell, friends with benefits are people of the opposite sex (usually) who occasionally exchange bodily fluids, but with no commitment to a proper relationship and no intention to embark on one. I don't think I know any people who are in that situation. I expect if I paid more attention to the ongoing soap opera Life in Aberdare, I'd find a few people sitting not too far away from where I am now who fall into that category.

But I'm not interested in other people's lives. I'm not in a position to offer a shoulder to cry on when it comes to fucked-up sex lives. Whenever Rhian and Steff have an argument, I'm the one they turn to for advice. Goddess alone knows why. It's hardly my area of expertise. I can help people out with their English grammar and spelling, but why bother asking me about anything else? It's a bit like consulting King Herod for childcare tips.

Fuck buddies are even more mysterious than friends with benefits. I don't even know whether fuck buddies are supposed to be friends, or whether their sexual encounters are as transient as the mating of foxes along the banks of the river. The whole fuck buddy phenomenon seems to be another manifestation of the sex-obsessed culture we've built for children over three decades of music videos, easy access to online pornography (in spite of what the ISPs say), the wide availability of fairly effective contraception (not that everyone uses it), and the general I Want It All And I Want It Now mentality we've been instilling in society since I was a teenager.

I know a number of people who fall into this category whenever they're with the opposite sex. (Or maybe not even the opposite sex – this is Aberdare, remember, where most young people seem content to fuck pretty much anyone.) In fact, I think I was out with one of them on Thursday night.

Oh yes, my friend Barry Normal's summary of The Incredible Vanishing Girl 2 turned out to be amazingly accurate – especially the last bit.

The text I'd been expecting (from a number not in my contacts list) arrived at about 2.30, asking me if I fancied going to the Lighthouse in the evening. In the event, Chazza arrived at Thereisnospoon only about half an hour late. We had a bite to eat, chatted about the latest development in her romantic roller-coaster ride, and then went over the road in time for karaoke.

Phillip was there, naturally, but Clare was at home nursing a cold. The place filled up slowly before Tara arrived to set up her gear, but then the snow started. At first it didn't look as if it would come to much, but by about 9.30 p.m. it was piling down. Tara lives in Tonyrefail, two mountains away. Deb the barbint lives in Maerdy, only one mountain away, but still impossible to get to if the roads are closed. It looked as if the evening was going to be cut off in its prime.

Before we baled out, Chazza had made a point of showing off her latest new phone – not the one she'd had for Xmas, apparently, but a more recent acquisition again – to everyone in the pub. A gang of lads in their twenties had come in – trendy haircuts, beards, beauty products, off-the-shelf 'designer' clothes, cutting-edge gadgets – and Chazza had latched on to them straight away. After taking selfies with them all, she spilled half a pint of beer and decided she wanted to move on to the Bush.

I wasn't keen on the idea from the outset. As I've said previously, there's too much testosterone and way too much white powder in the place for my tastes. But we haven't sung together for ages, so I agreed to call in for just the one. We were in Commercial Street when Chazza spotted two youngsters she knows, one male and one female, ducking into a doorway out of the snow. From what I gathered from the brief conversation, the girl had been involved in a fight in the Bush – I wasn't really listening – and the police were going to get involved and someone's father was coming up to sort things out (know what I mean?) and there was a restraining order in the mix somewhere …

I had a brief flashback to the drug-addled lowlife I met in Aberdare Library five years or so ago (see Not Born Beautiful), so I made my excuses and left. I told Chazza I was going to the Prince for a pint, and that I might see her later on. She started arguing, but I told her I was too old to get involved in an Excerpt From a Post-Teenage Soap Opera.

I left them to it and finished the night in the Prince. It was quiet, unsurprisingly, and Chazza and I had a brief argument online about the way the night had panned out yet again before my battery died. At one point she asked me how she was expected to get home if the snow kept falling.

I replied, 'Same way I am – walking.'

When the snow falls, there are precious few taxis on the road. When two people are heading in opposite directions, trying to share one is a waste of time.

Then the Incredible Vanishing Girl 2 vanished once again. I thought I saw her walking past the window a little while later, but if it was her she didn't call in. Since then, nothing. As usual. Did she go home on her own? Who knows? I certainly did.

Just the day before, I'd been crashed out of bed by Clare, who was trying to smash my front door down at 7.27 a.m. A couple of days ago she'd told Gareth that it was over between them. Even though they'd never been 'a couple' (according to her, anyway), he was fine as a fuck buddy for a little while. Once the novelty wore off, she fell back to Plan A: Good Old Steve. She wasn't feeling particularly well, and she'd had an argument with her family, so she'd left the house at the crack of dawn and landed outside the only place where someone might be awake. I wasn't feeling particularly well-disposed towards her after she'd launched into what sounded like a fucking police raid, but apparently she'd tried ringing me beforehand. My phone doesn't stay on overnight. Now you know why.

After breakfast in Thereisnospoon we caught a train into Cardiff, and went for a walk around the bay to blow the cobwebs away. We crossed the barrage, and I texted Rowland to see if he could recommend a decent pub in Penarth – or, even better, join us for a pint. We walked into Penarth, visited the town's eight (or possibly nine) charity shops, and had a quick catch-up with Rowland before we all caught the bus back to Cardiff. Clare and I went to the cinema, then called into the Rummer for a pint before she decided to head home. I stayed in town for the duration, but I didn't miss a great deal again.

While we were walking around the bay, I wanted a photo of us against a strange alien landscape which the wind and water had carved out of the shoreline. Luckily for us, we met a couple from Tyntetown who were happy to help us out. It was especially breezy on Wednesday, as you can see.

Now, bear in mind that we're just friends. Clare made that perfectly clear a couple of months ago, remember. However, the number of people in Aberdare who think we're seeing each other continues to grow. I don't know how many times since October that Clare and I – or both of us – have been asked if we're an item. People have even started saying things like 'See you, both' when we leave the pub. It's a bit like that running joke in Torchwood: Children of Earth, where Ianto has to tell Jack every time someone sees through the facade and realises they're a couple.

But look at the photo again.

I know she's much younger than me, but most people don't believe how old I really am anyway. Check out the way we're dressed. To all intents and purposes we look as though we're together, don't we? It even looks as though we're holding hands. (We weren't, of course. It was blowing a gale, so Clare kept her hands inside her sleeves.) And – most importantly – neither of us would ever feature in a glamour magazine, never mind a porn shoot.

As I've said before, Clare's an attractive girl, but she certainly isn't the prototype for the Robert Silverberg 'Caliban'-style clones walking around Aberdare every weekend. With her black leggings, black top, black jacket, slightly spiky dyed hair and unusual tastes in music, she's certainly far closer to my type than the rest of the Thereisnospoon/ Rasputin's/ Judges crowd. In fact, before we set off for Cardiff she asked if I could lend her a collar for the day. She didn't put it on until we got to Thereisnospoon in Penarth, but then she wore it quite happily for the rest of the day, and all day on Friday as well. We even found a pair of lace gloves online, which I gave her yesterday as a late Xmas present. When we walked into the Cambrian last night, with Clare going more Goth than usual, everyone assumed that we'd finally bitten the bullet and decided to make it official.

On the way there, we laughed about the number of times we've had to disabuse people of that idea. The last time it happened was in Thereisnospoon on Saturday afternoon. (It still wasn't as funny as a woman in the Lighthouse over Xmas asking me if she was my daughter.) I teased her that maybe we should start saying 'yes' whenever anyone asks us if we're an item. She thought it might be a good idea as well.

Then, of course, we got to the Bonki – where Gareth was DJ'ing – and things changed. Even though she'd said she only wanted to go up there for karaoke, I knew that she was really still hung up on her latest fuck buddy.

In fact, on Thursday night, she'd texted me (when I was in the Prince on my own) to say Gareth was on his way into town.

'Why should I care?' I texted back. 'He's your fuck buddy, not mine.'

A few minutes later she told me he wasn't her fuck buddy any more.

But we still had to haul ass to the fucking Bonki on Friday night, simply so she could sit in the corner with me and smile knowingly at her non-fuck buddy while he tended to the sound system. Then she took a phone call from a 'friend' (with or without benefits, I’m not sure) in Pontypridd, whom she'd met for lunch in the afternoon. She spent about an hour talking to him while I sat there like a spare part at an orgy, and then wondered why I couldn't be bothered to get involved with the karaoke.

We went out for a pint on Saturday afternoon as well, but as soon as we were in a pub with WiFi, she spent the rest of the time on her phone, messaging a string of 'friends' on dating/chat sites. You can probably understand why I'm starting to get a bit pissed off with the entire situation.

Clare's certainly the nearest I've come to meeting a girl who's my type for a number of years. We get on well, we make each other laugh, and we enjoy spending time together. We like the same sort of style, and everyone thinks we would work well together. But – as I said in You Don't Know What You've Got Till It's Gone – I can't possibly compete with the endless parade of tattooed chavs vying for her attention whenever she's connected to the Internet. She's got this idealised picture in her mind of her 'perfect man', and she's not going to be happy until she meets him.

The fact that he's a former rock star who would be about my age now (always assuming he's still alive) doesn't enter into it. Similarly, I could decide to stay single until the remote possibility that Clara from Doctor Who walked into the pub and fell head over heels for me. It's as likely a scenario as Clare's ideal bloke deciding to pop in to the pub for karaoke on a Thursday, after all.

It's slightly different with Chazza, who (in spite of being all loved up) chases anything with an X chromosome when she's pissed. It's sex addiction, pure and simple. I wouldn't dream of giving some random stranger my phone number – much less adding them on Facebook. I don't accept friend requests from people I might know, much less from friends of friends whom I've never met and probably never will.
On the other hand, As far as young people are concerned, simply brushing against someone in a shop doorway is enough to elevate them to instant 'friend' status. I've got about five hundred friends on Facebook, only about half a dozen of whom I've yet to meet in the flesh. Kids have thousands of 'friends' online, and they wonder why they get into scrapes all the time.
(Incidentally, shortly after I'd posted this entry I read this story on the Daily Mirror website: Teenage girl found dead 20 minutes after being reported missing 'had gone to meet man she met online'. Go figure …)

Here's my reading of the situation. Most of the guys these girls – and others – meet online are just looking for another fuck buddy, in the guise of offering true love to a gullible female who's never experienced true love before and who keeps getting short-changed as a result. Then we (i.e. men in general) have to put up with the constant barrage of misandrist memes posted by silly bints who've allowed themselves to get hurt in return for a quick fuck behind Judges at stupid o'clock on a Saturday morning.

In the early hours of that very Saturday morning, I logged into Facebook from the warmth of my bed – with no random bint snoring beside me – and posted the following status:

In an alternative universe not recorded in the Bible, the Garden of Eden scene ended differently. God came to Adam while he was on his deathbed, and said, 'Adam, I created woman from your rib, to be your helpmate and companion, so that the two of you would populate the world. Now you're about to die, and there's still no patter of tiny feet. That didn't go according to plan.'

And Adam replied, 'Lord, you have only yourself to blame. If you hadn't created mobile phones and equipped the garden with free Wifi, I might have had a shot with Eve. Instead, she's spent the last eight hundred years blogging, updating her Facebook status, playing Candy Crush, and posting selfies on Instagram - "Do these fig leaves make my bum look big?" and so forth. I never stood a chance.'

And on Saturday morning I commented on it myself:

Incidentally, Eve's only Facebook friend was this serpent she'd met randomly one day, and she still had a crush on him. She only ever liked Adam as a friend.

When Clare left the Lighthouse just before 6.30 p.m. on Saturday night – going home, apparently – she said, 'See you Monday?'

'Yeah, probably,' I said.

But there's no guarantee I'll see her today.

There's no guarantee I'll even be available to take a message from her. Or from Chazza, for that matter. It's the next stage of Project No More Mr Nice Guy. Progress report to follow …

Just Another Weird Wednesday

In which The Author should have stayed in bed

Yesterday can best be described as one of those days. For a few weeks, Clare and I have been riding the latest wave of chaos to break on the town. I might have accidentally started it (see Be Careful What You Wish For), but Goddess is having way too much fun fucking with our heads now. In fact, we're writing a song to the tune of the Prince/Bangles classic, covering an average week in Aberdare; the seven verses revolve around Silly Sunday, Manic Monday, Trippy Tuesday, Weird Wednesday, Thaumaturgical Thursday, Fucked-up Friday and Surreal Saturday. Well, yesterday was a Weird Wednesday and no mistake.

It's just under a year since I went to the Brunel Arms in Pontyclun to change over the Anthony Nolan Trust collection box on the bar. With Xmas looming, I've been paying in the boxes systematically over the past week, to make sure they're nice and fresh for the busiest time of the year. With this in mind, I emailed Fay the landlady yesterday and asked if it was OK to call over. She said she'd be there in the afternoon, so I said I'd see her early in the session. So far, so good.

From that moment on, the day just kept spinning more and more out of control.

I'd invited Clare to join me, but when I rang her in the morning she didn't pick up. I tried again on the way to town; she answered and sounded like death warmed up. She'd been throwing up all night, apparently. My preliminary diagnosis – mild alcohol poisoning – made her laugh, but since she made a sudden recovery in time to go out last night, it doesn't seem unreasonable.

I caught the train to Cardiff, and texted Chazza to see if she fancied meeting for a coffee, depending on her shifts. I arrived just in time to miss the service to Maesteg, the only one which serves Pontyclun. I was also just in time to photograph the Tower Colliery–Aberthaw MGR passing through Platform 6 – something I've never been able to manage before. Unfortunately, my trusty second-hand Olympus let me down for the first time. The little door which keeps the batteries in place had broken, so there was no way of using it. I haven't yet used the Canon compact Clint gave me a couple of months ago, so at least I've got an incentive to try it out.

I told the guy on the barrier I'd missed my connection, and asked him if I could go for a wander before the next train arrived. It was better than sitting in the waiting room for an hour. I headed straight for Waterstones, where I picked up a few novels and a couple of books on medieval history. If I do get the call to do Christian's next book, at least I'm starting to martial my own forces. I didn't see any of the old gang, but there was a very pretty and extremely pleasant young girl on the upstairs counter, who directed me to the Welsh Interest section.

I should explain that I've been keeping this one to myself until I saw it in black and white on Tuesday night. I'm going to be one of the two Plaid Cymru candidates in Aberdare East in the May council elections. It's an incentive for me to keep a new year's resolution from last year, and start learning Welsh when the next round of classes start in January. With this in mind, I also bought a copy of Cwrs Mynediad, the foundation course for Welsh learners, and a learner's dictionary.

Back in St Mary Street, I tried ringing Mother. It seemed daft to be in Cardiff and not do some Xmas shopping while I was there. She must have gone for a swim, because I tried three times and there was no answer. I made my way over to the station, where it turned out I'd misread the timetable – I'd been looking at the arrival time row, rather than the departure time, so I had half an hour to kill. I shot over to the Golden Cross for a quick glass of Coke, and tried logging into their WiFi. It was not a hotspot, though, and that set the scene for the rest of the day.

I made the Maesteg train by seconds, and didn't enjoy the twenty-minute journey to Pontyclun. It's beautiful, running through the Vale of Glamorgan, past St Fagans, and looping around the river Ely much of the way. There wasn't a cloud in the sky. However, there was a small child in the seat behind me who kept flicking the seat-back tray up and down relentlessly. He studiously ignored his mother's instructions to 'Stop that!' from the moment I got on to the moment I got off. I was actually tempted to Gibbs-slap him myself, to be honest.

Anyway, I got to the Brunel, where Fay was behind the bar and a handful of locals were having a chat by the bar. I didn't recognise her at first, because she's dyed her hair and looks really great after having her baby. She stood me a glass of Coke, we unhooked the collection box, and I poured it out on a table near the window. Some daft bugger must have poured some drink into it, because the bottom of the box was really sticky, and a lot of the coins were also sticky and a bit discoloured. I ended up rinsing both box and cash under the tap before I could even start counting.

In the meantime, a pleasant guy named Geoff and I started chatting across the little bay window. Fay fed the baby, wrapped Xmas presents, she, her boyfriend, and two of their friends had a really bizarre conversations about orgasms during childbirth, among other things.

I said, 'Well, this beats the usual Aberdare pub afternoon crap about immigration and coal mining.'

Fay laughed and said, 'It's always like this in here.'

'If it didn't take all bloody day to travel fifteen miles as the crow flies, I'd come over more regularly.'

That's true. From the bay window of the pub, you get a great view of God's Wonderful Railway. Passenger and freight services hurtle past at all hours of the day. As a matter of fact, considering the size of Pontyclun, Llantrisant, Beddau, and all the surrounding new-build developments, one train an hour seems barely adequate. Factor in the number of trains that shoot through the station every sixty minutes without stopping, and once again it seems that the Powers That Be are missing a trick here. Frequent stopping services on the Cardiff to Bridgend section would take a hell of a lot of pressure from the road network, which is close to gridlock most working days.

On the way out, we'd zoomed across the level crossing at St Fagans, only a mile (if that) from the Museum of Welsh Life. Surely a station in close proximity to the country's leading visitor attraction would attract considerable footfall and generate a fair amount of revenue. I'm not talking about rebuilding Bristol Temple Meads here – just an island platform adjacent to each running line, a little shelter, and a ticket machine. Is it just me …?

Anyway, our collection box had raised a very healthy £27.00, plus some shrapnel and three foreign coins. I fed the shrapnel back in, changed the rest with Fay, and then tucked it away to pay in today. In line with many Valleys towns, Pontyclun has lost its Barclays Bank within the past few years. I didn't fancy walking two miles to Talbot Green and back, to be honest.

With my secondary plan to add Pontyclun to my Vanishing Valleys portfolio well and truly buggered, I bought a pint and settled down to send the updated spreadsheet to Melissa at Anthony Nolan. And Goddess stuck her oar in again. The router in the pub is broken, so I couldn't access the Internet at all. I used a bit of mobile data to update Clare on the day so far, and then settled down to do some work on Project XXXmas (of which more in due course).

The music was a very pleasant change from the Aberdare jukebox staples of Elvis, Engelbert, Stereobloodyphonics and awful thrash metal, too. Out of the blue came Jimi Hendrix's legendary destruction of the US national anthem; shortly afterwards, I recognised the unique style of John Coltrane. The last time I tried going down the Modern Jazz route in Aberdare I was lucky to escape with my life.

Yes, indeed, if the public transport in the Valleys ever does get dragged kicking and screaming into the last quarter of the twentieth century, I think the Brunel will be on my itinerary more often.

I had another pint, texted Chazza to say I was on my way back, then headed for the 1745-ish departure. As I reached the platform the destination board was flickering up a message. I read it quickly, turned on my heel, and made my way towards the pub. As I was crossing the car park, a young chap was making his way towards the station. This is how the ensuing conversation went.

'Train's been cancelled,' I said.

'What – the Cardiff?' he asked.

'Yeah.'

'Shit!'

'Pretty much what I said.'

'Bollocks!'

'That as well'

'Are there any buses?'

'I couldn't tell you, sorry, I'm not from this area.'

(I wouldn't have banked on it, mind you. We were, after all, heading into the Twilight Zone.)

'Neither am I.'

'Well, good luck. I'm going back to the pub.'

He laughed and we parted company. I found a cashpoint outside the Co-op, drew out some more money, and headed back to the Brunel.

Fay thought it was hilarious when I strolled back in and ordered another pint. A chap about my age came in just after me, and the three of us had a long conversation about Differentiated Public Transport.

In fact, it was such a long conversation that I didn't notice the time slipping away. I glanced at the clock, and I still had nearly half a pint. I'd never have finished it and made it to the station in time. I texted Chazza to tell her it would be more like eight o'clock until I was back, and carried on chatting to my new friend at the bar.

I finally left in time for the 1945-ish departure and walked over to the station. It had been delayed, so I found myself in the greatest joke set-up ever: Two Mormons, a lesbian and a Discordian are waiting for a train.

Seriously.

The two lads – one from California, one from Mexico – were doing missionary work in the Valleys. The girl works as a groom at a large stud farm nearby, and lives with her partner in Studentland in Cardiff. We had a very interesting conversation before the train came in, which continued until we parted company in the concourse at Cardiff Central.

By now my phone had died, and there wasn't enough juice in the Netbook for me to jump start it. I had no way of contacting Chazza, but I'd mentioned the Golden Cross in my earlier text, so I figured I might as well stick around and see if she called in. I headed back to the pub, and was quite pleased to learn that karaoke has shifted back to Wednesday evening.

I started chatting to a couple of lads in the bar. One was Scottish, the other from Coventry, and they were in town for a gig by renowned US rock group the Pixies at the Motorpoint Arena, just a few minutes' stagger away. We had a good chat about politics in our respective countries, the history of Cardiff, the Welsh language, and life in general, before they shot off to catch the main band of the evening.

The host(ess) – one of the pub's resident drag queens – started canvassing for singers. I was wondering whether to throw my hat into the ring when the door opened and my old pal Adam L. strolled in. He was with a guy I hadn't met before, but whom I was sure I recognised from my days in the book trade.

As it turned out, I was half-right. Lee used to work in Dillons, and left just before I started working there. I suppose I must have seen him when he called in for a catch-up now and again.

The three of us chatted for a while, until Adam (who's a pain in the arse when he's had a few) decide to chat up two young girls sitting on the other side of the room. I nudged Lee and said, 'Does he realise it's a gay bar? I think he's barking up the wrong tree with those two.'

Anyway, the five us went into the main room to watch the karaoke. The hostess started things off, and then started canvassing again. Fed up with Adam's half-cut nagging, I chucked a couple of slips in to see what would happen. After the busy year of proofreading and copy-editing I've had, 'Paperback Writer' is very much on my playlist. With Chazza in mind (on the off-chance she'd come in), I went for 'Is She Really Going Out With Him?' by Joe Jackson. And for Adam himself, I debuted a song by the Beautiful South: 'Old Red Eyes is Back.'

I got called up to sing the Joe Jackson first, and I think I made a pretty decent fist of it. Another few people sang, then we had a break and Lee bought us a round. Adam was getting fairly pissed by this stage, and I really didn't fancy having to travel all the way home with him. Time went by; we chatted to the two young lesbians; I sang the Beautiful South song and told the hostess that the next time I came down, I'd try and bring a real singer with me. It'll be a nice change from the Lighthouse and Cambrian every so often.

At about 10.30 I decided to make my excuses and leave. I said goodbye to Lee and the girls, and legged it when Adam went for a piss. Even if he followed me to Cardiff Central, there was a good change I'd give him the slip on the train itself. In the event, for some bizarre reason, he got on at Queen Street, walked straight past me and parked himself in the other carriage.

I read as far as Mountain Ash, when the bugger spotted me and staggered into the seat opposite. I sort-of kept him company until Aberdare, when he wandered off to the taxi rank and I walked up through Robertstown. I got in just after midnight and went straight to bed.

And that, boys and girls, is what I call a Weird Wednesday.

Strange Little Girl

In which The Author imports some content from his secret blog

About a year or so I was in a pub in Aberdare, chatting to Phillip, a mate of mine who's a regular at every karaoke bash. He's an Elvis tribute act, a fine singer and a very good bloke. Then a young girl named Clare came in, whom I also knew from the scene. She's short, a little bit chunky, rather attractive in a punky/goth sort of way, and about half my age. She was dressed from head to foot in black and sported a nice new spiky hairstyle, as well. The omens were propitious. She joined our little gang and we all chatted for a few minutes before she got the call to the mic. She was tearing a song from Grease 2 a new one when I leaned over to Phillip.

'Your friend's bloody good, mate.'

'My sister,' he replied.

'Your sister?' I said in amazement. I didn't even know he had a sister.

Anyway, when Clare came back over I complimented her on her performance, and we started chatting.

And that was where the whole thing started.

Since then we've sung together fairly regularly; we've been on a few drinking sessions (most recently on Monday); we've been to Cardiff to see a film; we've been to Pontypridd, Treorchy and Merthyr; we're planning a day in Bristol before Xmas, and a little excursion to London in the spring. We've also had a bloody nightmare trying to sort out ID for her, so that she can come to the pubs when we do go further afield. We've spent a fair bit of time together, and chat regularly on Facebook.

And I've found out quite a bit about her. Clare's family is fairly unconventional, to say the least. She's a bright kid, but she didn't have a good time in school. As a result, she suffers with anxiety and depression. Relateable statement, as we say on Facebook. She had children when she was quite young (as did a few friends of mine), but they're in foster care. She still lives with her father and Phillip, but she's got a string of ex-boyfriends – and, being a young person, a couple of ex-girlfriends – all over the Valleys.

[A digression: The most recent romance was less than a month ago. She met this young lad from Blackwood on a chat site, announced their engagement on Facebook a few days later, brought him to Aberdare for karaoke to meet her friends the following Friday, and kicked him into touch on the Sunday afternoon. On the Friday, her brother and I were joking that it would all be over by Xmas. In the event, it was over by Halloween. I mean, come on! Even Britney Spears has had longer relationships than that.]

A couple of months ago, we were chatting on karaoke night when Clare announced that she was moving 'back' to Ebbw Vale. (The home of another ex-boyfriend, naturally.) I said I thought it was a good plan. I know it's on its arse as a town, but my pals maintain a strong music scene. Clare would be right at home there.

When Jocelyn asked me what I wanted to sing, I had the perfect song straight away: 'We Gotta Get Out of This Place' by the Animals. Not only did the subject matter dovetail with our conversation; it also includes the words 'Now, girl, you're so young and pretty' ‐ the most subtle way of throwing her a compliment I could think of.

Anyway, the Ebbw Vale plan seems to have run into the sand for the time being, so she's still on the local scene.

But there's more …

When we were in Cardiff, I took her over to Rebel Rebel. It's a modern head shop run by two gay pals of mine named Rick and Tim. Clare was fancying the studded leather accessories while I chatted to Rick and topped up my phone. I told her that I had a nice collar she could have, which was cheaper than buying one. She bought a little wristband in the meantime. She'll love Camden Market when we get there in the spring.

But there's more …

I've met Clare's father in the past couple of weeks. I'd made an appointment to give blood, and advertised the session on Facebook. Clare persuaded her father to go down as well, and the three of us chatted over squash and biscuits afterwards. You can see why I thought maybe she was just making an excuse to be in the same building as me at the same time.

On Sunday morning, I rang Clare and asked her if she was going to the Remembrance service in Hirwaun. We'd talked about it the day before, but I said I'd check out the weather before I committed myself to walking up. In the event it was dry and bright. I met Clare on the edge of the village, and walked with her to the church and thence to the war memorial, where Phillip's St John Ambulance group were laying a wreath. Then we repaired to the Glancynon for soft drinks before the buses started running, and ended up in the pub.

In the evening we had a singer and guitarist in the pub. We were sitting at the opposite end, and our ex-army mates were in the middle, extremely pissed and rowdy. Before our guest started his set, I went over to chat to him, leaving Clare in the half-pissed hands of the Two Helens. In the meantime, Phillip parked himself at the end of the bar so he could take photos. When I looked back, Clare was talking to Charlie (Charlotte), one of the part-time barbints.

Their father picked them up towards the end of the evening, and Charlie and I ended up chatting by the bar. Charlie knows Clare, and she dropped a very heavy hint that I might have a chance of taking things to the next level. I didn't press her on it, but Charlie seemed to think that Clare was keen on me, too.

Anyway, this was going through my mind when Clare strolled into the library on Monday and asked me if I fancied some lunch.

As I told you last time, chokers are back in fashion in Aberdare, but Clare definitely pushed the envelope by wearing her wide studded collar into town. I was wearing a collar, too, just by coincidence. We were both dressed in black when we went to the pub. She mentioned that we were getting some attention from the other customers. I took a photo of her and posted it on Facebook, adding something like, 'We're sure the guys on the next table think we're on our way to a fetish night.' She thought that was hilarious.

(Talking of Facebook, I posted this lovely meme on her Timeline a couple of weeks ago. It's often quite difficult to get a smile from Clare unless there's food involved. I just wanted to give her another little compliment. I had no idea at the time that her nickname in school was 'Wednesday' – but luckily she saw the funny side. )

From there, we headed over the road for afternoon karaoke (or Performance and Cock-ups, as I call it). Phillip came in after work and the three of us had a good laugh, as always. Karen came in later on, and a splendid time was had by all. When the karaoke wound down, Phillip went to meet his father as arranged.

However, Clare decided that she'd rather join Karen and me for a late drink. We strolled down to the Prince and found a nice spot by the fireplace. While Clare was phoning to arrange a lift for the end of the night, Karen came to the same conclusion that Charlie had the previous evening.

In fact, she went a stage further and told Clare outright that she'd be far better off dating me than she would be hooking up with yet another very young and good-looking no-hoper.

Interesting suggestion, isn't it? Let's look at it in detail.

It certainly wouldn't be the first time I've had a significantly younger significant other. It wouldn't be the first time Clare has had a boyfriend who's years older than her, either. It wouldn't be the first time I've gone out with a girl who isn't conventionally attractive; it's the personalities that do it for me, not the looks. We get on well, we make each other laugh, we enjoy each other's company, and people are used to seeing us together. And I think she'd be sexually adventurous enough to tick my boxes.

But how do I go about broaching the subject directly? After all, if I had a quid for every time a girl 'just liked me as a friend', I'd be a very wealthy man by now.

Answers on a postcard, please …

The Not-so Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle

In which The Author has the feeling he might have been cheated

I won't go into too much detail about this latest adventure. Suffice it to say that the other person concerned has been mentioned a couple of times in this blog already. I don't know whether she reads it – but if she does, well …

This story begins a few Thursdays ago, when I was out for karaoke in the Lighthouse. The usual gang were there, and we were drinking and chatting in between songs. One of the girls had just split up with her (female) partner after being cheated on, so she was feeling rather tired and emotional. Towards the end of the evening she asked me if I'd take her home in a taxi, as she didn't want to wait on the rank on her own.

I asked her where she lived, and she told me 'Aberaman.' Now, I spent quite a bit of time exploring Aberaman for the Vanishing Valleys and Street Names Projects, so I know that it's much bigger than you might imagine from the map.

I asked, 'Is that the Curre Street end or the Chapel Street end?'

'Maes y Deri', she replied.

I said, 'Good God, that's almost Pontypridd!'

It's a slight exaggeration, but it's pretty much as far south as you can get and still remain technically within Aberaman. But I agreed all the same, and rang a couple of numbers I had stored in my wallet.

We ended up getting a car off the rank at about midnight. Because the driver lives not far from me he didn't charge me for the return leg.

I didn't feel too bad about picking up the tab for that, to be honest. If I'd caught a taxi on my own it would have cost me nearly four quid. An extra pound to make sure my friend got home safely seemed like a decent investment.

The following Thursday we were both rather pissed by the end of the night, having gone from the Lighthouse to the Bush for the karaoke there. There was a decent gang out that night – Gema, Thi Nga, Mair H., Wendy, and another few people I haven't seen for a while – and for once the Bush was fairly bearable. We stayed out until closing time, and once again we jumped in a taxi to make sure my friend got home okay.

Anyway, the Saturday after that I was in London. On the Sunday my friend and I had pencilled in a visit to the Harlequins Bowls Club, behind the Coliseum in Trecynon. The Colstars were auditioning for Hairpsray; as I've previously mentioned, I think my friend would enjoy the Colstars. Even though she's missed out on the casting for the forthcoming show, I invited her along to meet some of the gang and see what it's all about.

I messaged her on Facebook on the Sunday afternoon, but she was skint and couldn't even afford the bus up to Trecynon. I couldn't sub her, either, because I was pretty much cleaned out after London. We said, 'Never mind, these things happen,' and agreed to go along another time.

The following Thursday I didn't go out at all, because I've been suffering from frequent dizzy spells over the past fortnight or so. My GP reckons it's just a touch of vertigo, and nothing to worry about. In fact, we had a bit of a laugh about it when I was in the surgery.

'Ironic, isn't it?', I said. 'Last weekend I climbed the Monument in London and didn't bat an eyelid. Over the weekend I could barely get upstairs without wobbling.'

On the Monday I was in town when I bumped into my friend. We went to Thereisnospoon for a coffee, and then embarked on a mini pub-crawl. (Actually, a full-scale pub crawl in Aberdare only takes about two hours these days.) All the time, I was waiting for her to put her hand in her pocket, as she'd just been paid, but it didn't happen.

When we were in Prince of Wales, I put some songs on the jukebox. I've been hunting for male/female duets that we might want to try out on a Thursday. Halfway through one of them, she said, 'This is so gay!'

I said, 'You can talk!'

'I'm bisexual,' she objected. I remembered Lawrence Durrell's line about bisexual people just wanting the best of both worlds, but I didn't mention it to her face.

On Wednesday evening last week I was in the Cambrian. It was quiz night. As an old friend of mine was in town for a few days, I'd decided to stick around and catch up with him and the other lads. I'd been there for about five minutes when I had a text asking if I around. Guess who it was from …

She asked if she could come over, so I invited her to join me. When she arrived I'd only really just started my first pint. (I was looking through a little bit of copy for another friend of mine at the time.) She got a drink, and I finished what I was doing while she looked through Facebook on her phone. We chatted for a little while, and then her phone rang.

It was her brother – allegedly – asking her to meet him off the train in Aberdare. She drank up, said she'd be straight back, and headed off to the station. By 9.30 it was fairly obvious that she wasn't coming back. The quiz was a bit of a shambles anyway, so I texted her to say she wasn't missing a great deal, apart from our sparkling company.

I didn't go to karaoke last week either, so I haven't seen my friend since last week. However, this lunchtime she texted me out of the blue to see if I fancied going to Cardiff tonight. She didn't say what venue she had in mind, but apparently the drinks are a quid each. I dare say you have to pay about ten quid to get in, though. (I didn't work in Cardiff for nearly twenty years without learning a thing or two about the nightlife down there.) I said that if we went to Cardiff tonight, I wouldn't be able to go to karaoke tomorrow as well.

She replied that she wouldn't be out tomorrow anyway.

I asked her what time she was planning on going.

When she told me she'd be getting the last train from Aberdare, and returning at about 2 a.m., the alarm bells started ringing very loudly in my head.

Since Dai the Shit Engine has to be safely tucked up in bed by midnight every night, I thought 'taxi!' immediately. The last time I caught a taxi home from Cardiff, Waterstones paid for it and didn't get much change from fifty notes. That was over ten years ago. Go figure …

But no, apparently, we'd be able to have a lift back with her brother's girlfriend. Now I've never met her brother, but I've seen him around town and on her Facebook, and (jumping to conclusions, I know) I don't like the look of him. I doubt if we'd hit it off somehow. I certainly wouldn't want to rely on complete strangers for a lift home at stupid o'clock.

Especially if – as is quite possible – my friend meets someone her own age, and with an active sex life, and vanishes halfway through the night.

So I didn't even leave before making my excuses this time.

I waited a little while, then texted her back. I told her I'd arranged to go out early with my good friend Alwyn the artist, to scope out possible locations for paintings. Since then, silence has fallen.

I was talking to another couple of friends the evening before last, and her name cropped up in conversation. They told me that she's got a bit of a reputation as a user – not of drugs, remarkably for Aberdare, but of people. I'd kind of suspected this for myself after the past few weeks, but I'd decided to let it go for the time being.

However, sharing a taxi to the arse-end of Aberaman, and subbing her a couple of pints beforehand, is one thing. Going to Cardiff on what might well be a fool's errand is a hell of a leap from there.

It's not as though we're even going to end up in any sort of relationship. She's quite literally young enough to be my granddaughter. The only way we're ever going to get 'together' is with mics in our hands on a Thursday evening. She knows it; I know it; everyone else knows it. She's a nice girl, and she's undeniably a talented singer. She's attractive and quite bright, but that sort of age gap is totally absurd. I had my fingers burned too many times with girls of that age when I was still young enough to be considered a viable prospect.

In fact, the more I think about it, I'm really glad I decided to listen to my Inner Sensible Person, instead of being led around by my prick, as usually happens on these occasions. Even if my Inner Sensible Person did sound surprisingly like Johnny Rotten leaving the stage at the Winterland Theater, San Francisco, on 14 January 1978 …