Zero Degrees Proof

In which The Author doesn't sponsor an acquaintance

About three weeks ago on a Tuesday afternoon, Clare and I were walking to Penderyn. We were bored, it was a sunny day, and she'd never walked up the old Mineral Railway Line from Hirwaun. I met her in the village and we went exploring. As we were strolling through the narrow tree-lined lane, with rolling farmland on either side, she told me about the time she and her older brothers were drinking '100% alcohol'.

I told her that they almost certainly hadn't been drinking 100% alcohol. I remembered our old Biology teacher, the late Terry Smith, correcting one of the lads in our class when he made a similar claim. According to Terry, drinking pure alcohol wouldn't do you any good (to put it mildly). If they had been able to get access to pure ethanol, Clare probably wouldn't have been there to tell the tale.

They'd probably been drinking something which was 100 proof – a rather different proposition. In the UK, measures of proof haven't been used for ages. Instead, we talk about the percentage of alcohol by volume (ABV). Historically the UK and the US used different standards to define alcohol proof anyway, which makes things even more complicated. And in the US they don't use the term 'degrees proof', as we did over here. Stating the ABV avoids this confusion and makes much more sense, doesn't it?

Something like Jack Daniel's (around 80 proof) contains 40% ABV. Absinthe, the infamous tipple formerly enjoyed by the avant-garde set of Paris, can reach an ABV of 74%, or around 148 proof. There is a brand of rectified corn spirit called Everclear available (here and there) in the US, which reaches a staggering 75.5% ABV. At the time of writing, it's banned in Alaska, California, Florida, Maine, Massachusetts, Hawaii, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, Ohio, Washington, North Carolina, New Hampshire, and Minnesota. I bet there'll be a few people in Aberdare making a beeline for the states not on this list once they read this.

But I digress …

As anyone with regular access to social media will know, the calendar is quickly being filled up with special 'Years', 'Months', 'Days', and even 'Hours'. The United Nations seems to have partly been responsible for this, when it declared 1959–60 as 'International Refugee Year'. Quite what this was supposed to achieve in practice is anyone's guess. At the end of 2015, there were an estimated 65.3 million people displaced by conflict throughout the world. So, yeah, they did a bang-up job of resolving that particular issue six decades ago.

There's a full list on the UN website, and they make for interesting reading. Taken collectively, they sound rather like a six-year-old girl's letter to Father Christmas, or the pipe dreams of a Miss World finalist. Since the beginning, we've had (to name a few):

• International Co-operation Year (1965) was another rip-snorting success at the height of the Cold War and in the midst of decolonisation.
• the International Year for Action to Combat Racism and Racial Prejudice (1971) proves my theory that half the people I meet in Aberdare still think they're living in the 1960s.
• World Communications Year (1983) was devoted to 'Development of Communication Infrastructures' – have you tried getting a mobile phone signal in Cwmaman or Penderyn recently?
• the International Year of Peace (1986) – yeah, right!
• most laughably of all, 2001 was the United Nations Year of Dialogue among Civilizations – when it wasn't busy being the Year of the Twin Towers Attacks and the Start of the Last Crusade.

As if these aren't far-fetched enough, 2008 was the International Year of the Potato, and 2013 was the International Year of Quinoa. (I'm not making this stuff up; follow the link and see for yourself.)

Anyway, logging into Facebook or Twitter will produce a welter of similar annual or one-off special days. According to the trending hashtags on the latter site, today is simultaneously the Day of the Girl, National Coming Out Day, and World Obesity Day. That's an obvious (if rather unkind) triple celebration for one of my recent romantic near-misses. It's also Ada Lovelace Day, marking the often overlooked role of women in the development of science and technology.

Yesterday was something else; so was Monday. I can't really remember what the special occasions were. It doesn't matter anyway, because they will have had as much impact on the world as did the International Year of Idealistic Pie-in-the-Sky Hippy Bollocks (1968, in case you're wondering).

It used to be only the Roman Catholic Church that made up a feast day for every occasion, simply to relieve the boredom of poverty, drudgery, near-starvation, plague and premature death. Whenever they wanted a small celebration, an obscure saint could usually be found somewhere to provide an excuse to use red ink on the calendar. (This gave rise to the phrase 'red-letter day'; according to Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 'In almanacs, and more commonly in ecclesiastical calendars, important feast-days and saints' days were printed in red, with other days in black'.)

And, by Goddess, there were some really obscure saints. Try these for size, whom I've found by randomly flicking through The Book of Saints (7th edn, ed. Dom Basil Watkins. London: A & C Black.):

• St Cointha (feast day 8 February)
• Blessed Dominic-of-the-Holy-Rosary of Nagasaki (10 September)
• St Eusebius of Cremona (5 March)
• St Phaebedius (25 April)
• St Mageldisil (30 May)
• Blessed Otto of Heidelberg (28 December)
• St Raphael-of-St-Joseph Kalinowski (19 November)
• St Theophilus de Signori of Corte (19 May)
• St Wulstan (19 January)

See – every day's a potential holiday if you're a good Catholic. It reminds me of a great stand-up routine from early in Woody Allen's career:

I was thrown out of college, and when I was thrown out of college I got a job on Madison Avenue in New York. A real dyed-in-the-wool advertising agency on Madison Avenue wanted a man to come in, and they'd pay him ninety-five dollars a week to sit in their office, and to look Jewish. They wanted to prove to the outside world that they would hire minority groups, y'know. So I was the one they hired, y'know. I was the show Jew at the agency. I tried to look Jewish desperately, y'know. I used to read my memos from right to left all the time. They fired me finally, 'cause I took off too many Jewish holidays.

But back on topic (for a moment): T.S. Eliot was wrong; October is the cruellest month. The autumn in Wales gets going in earnest; it pisses down with rain most days, and when it's not pissing down you're just dodging the showers. You have to put the lights on at five o'clock (if not earlier), and the clocks go back an hour at the end just to make matters worse. You can't even go to the pub for a quiet pint without bumping into a load of bloody students pissing away their first loan instalments. Over the last couple of years, this horrible month has been made even less bearable by hordes of born-again clean-living individuals trumpeting their achievements via social media.

Because October isn't just thirty-one days of misery any more. Oh, no – these days you have to get healthy as well. If you do venture out for a pint, you're bound to be up against someone self-righteously sipping a soft drink and announcing to anyone who'll listen that they're doing 'Sober October'. If you smoke as well, your visits to the outdoor shelter will be greeted by cries of derision by people who are quitting the demon weed.

If you don't already know about these things, Stopober encourages people to quit smoking. Sober October does exactly what it says on the tin (of diet Pepsi, naturally) and encourages you to take a month on the wagon. Stoptober is supported by pharmacies and the primary health care sector, with advice and support available to anyone wanting to take up the challenge. Sober October goes a step further, and encourages you to get sponsored for not drinking for 31 days. The money raised goes towards Macmillan Cancer Support, which is a very worthwhile charity.

A couple of years ago, I asked Rhian if she fancied doing Sober October with me. She laughed in my face. When I asked her about doing Stoptober instead (I've never smoked, and have never been interested in starting) she thought it was an even more ridiculous suggestion.

I thought it was a ridiculous suggestion as well, to be honest. I once – many years ago – decided to spend a year off the booze, apart from my birthday (when it's daft not to go to the pub) and rugby internationals (when it's simply rude not to). I stuck to my word until about this time of year, which surprised everyone I knew, as well as me. But it was the academic season in work, and we were besieged by new students who (Goddess knows how) were even more condescending and less well-educated than the ones from the year before. The brave face was starting to wear a bit thin.

It was coming up to lunchtime one particularly stressful Wednesday when Laurie looked at me and said, 'I think you need a pint, mate.'

I said, 'I think you're right!'

And that was the end of that. Still, ten months and a bit was pretty good going, especially when you consider that bookselling was always a fairly boozy gig anyway. But they only had my word for the fact that I wasn't going home and sinking half a bottle of vodka every night.

You see, these special fund-raising months have one major flaw: they rely on a degree of honesty and trust that's often lacking in society.

Let's take one example of a really good sponsored event – the London Marathon.

You register way ahead of time; you train every evening and every weekend to get in shape for it; you set up a JustGiving page and ask all your family and friends to sponsor you. Everyone knows it's happening, because it's on the TV. You turn up on the day, run 26 miles and a bit, collapse into a foil blanket, get your medal for completing the course, and ker-ching! Anthony Nolan, or MIND, or Macmillan, or Shelter, or the RSPCA, or whatever your chosen worthy cause is, gets a nice cash injection from your efforts.

And that's exactly why it works so well. You might get to be on TV, if you're lucky. Even if you don't appear in close-up, you're somewhere in the mass of thousands of runners, walkers, wheelchair athletes and pantomime horses making their way through Docklands and back into the City, then onto Westminster and the finish line. You've got your medal to show that you've done it. When you get back home, you can go to everyone who sponsored you with a clear conscience.

In preparing the ground for a sponsored event I'm hoping to organise next year, I've taken the difficulty of charting one's progress into account. If all goes well, there'll be a large number of people undertaking a challenge which will take them the length and breadth of the Cynon Valley over the course of a few hours. I'm expecting that a fair number of people will bale out before the end. (I know I certainly would.) With this in mind, I've split the course into ten stages. Entrants will receive a 'token' on completing each stage. It makes the accounting easier all round.

Suppose, for example, that Tom, Dick and Harry sign up to take part. I sponsor Tom 10p a stage, Dick 10p a stage, and Harry 10p a stage. Tom finishes the entire course, so I pay him £1.00. Dick crashes out after Stage 7, so he raises 70p. Harry gets injured after two stages, so he gets 20p. If anyone decides halfway through that they'd rather spend the afternoon in the pub, they simply hand in their five tokens and collect half the sponsor money.

I'd rather do it that way than pay someone in advance to do a challenge that they might not complete (or take it on trust that they've done it). When my good friend Neil R. climbed Pen y Fan (the highest mountain in southern Britain) ten times in one day to raise money for charity, I was happy to pay up. He posted regular updates of his progress on Facebook, and you don't make that sort of thing up anyway. You've got to be pretty damn serious about the endeavour before you sign up for it. On the other hand, I sponsored another friend to do a tandem sky-dive back about this time last year. As far as any of us know, she's yet to leave the ground.

Next month is the even more bizarre Movember, where guys grow ridiculous facial hair (Moustache-November – geddit?) to raise awareness of prostate cancer (and presumably to raise money as well). That's going to be a non-starter in Aberdare, where half the males under forty are already sporting ridiculous facial hair. Maybe we could sponsor girls under the age of 25 to sort their fucking eyebrows out instead.

Which brings us back to Sober October. When one of my friends asked me to sponsor him a couple of years ago, I agreed because I knew he was serious about it. A mate of his had succumbed to a particularly aggressive cancer, and his sudden death had hit all the boys hard. A couple of the others have done sponsored walks or swimming events to raise money in his memory. That's fair enough. But now it seems that everyone is trying to grab everyone they can for sponsorship.

Last week, one of the barbints in Thereisnospoon asked me if I'd sponsor her for Sober October. I said I'd have to think about it – partly because about half a dozen other people had already asked me, and I can't afford to sign up for every appeal that comes my way. If she'd been a good friend, I might not have thought twice about it, but she isn't. We know each other to say hello to, but that's about it. I wonder how many other regular punters she's approached to sponsor her – and, more importantly, how many have said yes. I shouldn't think there are very many names on her form.

The other reason, of course, is that I'd have only Mandy's word that she'd managed to stay off the booze for the entire thirty-one days. Obviously she can't drink when she's in work, but what's to stop her from sneaking to the off-licence on her way home, or catching a sneaky glass of wine over Sunday lunch? It isn't like any of the challenges I've outlined above, where there's some sort of control mechanism in place to make sure people can't cheat. You might as well ring up the Guinness people and tell them you've just broken such-and-such a record. Without any outside agency to measure your progress, it's going to be your word against theirs.

And that, I fear, is where Sober October falls down (no pun intended). Stoptober could yield a definite result, in that someone successfully gives up the habit and makes a positive impact on their health and wealth. If, on the other hand, they head straight to the shop for twenty Lambert & Butler on 1 November, then the experiment was a failure.

The only fair way to determine whether someone has completed Sober October is for him or her to have a full battery of blood tests (including a liver function test) on 30 September. Then they go back on 1 November, have the same blood tests, and you can compare the results. In the meantime, they have to agree to the sort of random testing that people working on the railways have to go through.

And if you're a serious drinker, is just one month off the sauce going to make that difference anyway? The damage has already been done. I knew a man who'd spent four whole weeks 'drying out' at Whitchurch Hospital (see Rehab), only to return to Aberdare and head straight to the pub for a pint. Trebles all round! Another triumph for the NHS! No, not really. The poor bugger was dead a few months later. It seems that all Sober October really gives you is another opportunity for one-upmanship.

With my fund-raising idea, at least you get the tokens to show you've completed at some of the course. If it does come off, it's going to be properly organised and scrutinised to ensure nobody can cheat on the day.

To this cynical mind, however, Sober October is very much like an alcohol-free drink. There's absolutely no proof.

The Lazarus Experiment

In which The Author gets a new lease of life

This blog is sad to report the untimely death of Good Old Steve O'Gorman.

Steve, an eccentric 50-year-old copy-editor, former bookseller, music lover, amateur writer and photographer, lifelong science fiction fan, Doctor Who wannabe, cinema-goer, pub regular and political animal, passed away at Cwmbach Railway Station, a few miles from his home in Aberdare, South Wales, just before 11 a.m. on 25 January 2017.

In recent weeks, Steve's blog had detailed how his mood was being adversely affected by his friendship with two fucked-up young girls. It appears that recent developments had disturbed the balance of his mind. Armed UNIT soldiers confronted him on the station approach and emptied several clips into his defenceless body.

However, eyewitnesses reported that within moments of his death, Steve got to his feet in true Time Lord style. He caught a bus to Aberdare and carried on if as nothing had happened.

Almost nothing …

Let's put this into some sort of context here.

On Friday evening, Clare asked me if I fancied going to the Bonki for Karaoke and Shots. I was in the mood for trying something new. I'd seen the terrific 'jukebox musical' Sunny Afternoon last Wednesday in Cardiff, so I agreed to join her. After all, when you've got so many of Sir Ray Davies's fine songs uppermost in your internal playlist, it would be rude not to attempt at least one of them yourself.

After being fucked around by Gareth for well over two months, Clare had decided to kick him into touch a few days before. She still wanted to go, though, purely so that she could give him the cold shoulder. When we arrived, we started chatting to Kylie by the bar. Clare announced that the reason she'd been missing for most of the week was because she'd been in Ebbw Vale, having 'got back together' with her ex-boyfriend.

That was news to me. I hadn't even had the chance to play my (admittedly weak) hand again. But fear not – it's nothing serious, apparently. It's obviously still more serious than it was with Gareth, because this bloke has been promoted from mere fuck buddy to friend with benefits. Because her phone had died, she spent most of the night using my free texts to chat to him while I sat around like a spare prick at an orgy. Again.

When we returned to town, I decided to return to the Cambrian, where the karaoke was winding down. I made a second attempt at 'Waterloo Sunset', following its debut at the Golden Cross last week. It needs work, but it was something I hadn't done in Aberdare before. Then I headed to Thereisnospoon for a last one, with a nagging feeling that I'd have been better off staying at home on Friday night – rather like the guy in the song, in fact.

On Sunday evening, the Incredible Vanishing Girl 2 made the transition from a disappointing remake of the 2009 original to an ill-judged weekly series.

I was in the house in the afternoon when Chazza texted me, asking me if I fancied going for a pint. I texted her back, saying that I had to go to Trecynon Hall at 4.30. I'd arranged to pick up some posters for the Colstars' forthcoming panto Aladdin, which I was planning to distribute around local businesses owned by friends of mine. It wouldn't take me long to get to the Welsh Harp, so I said I'd meet her there. I warned her to pace herself, because we'd be going on to the Cambrian, and said I'd see her whenever she was ready.

Remember, we're talking about a young girl here. 'Whenever she was ready' could involve anything from simply putting her shoes on right through to a full-blown makeover and shopping expedition in Oxford Street. I was prepared for the long haul.

Anyway, I got to the pub to find Gaz in conversation with Spike. He's an old pal of ours (his grandparents lived a few doors away when we were kids), and he still pays occasional visits to see his family. We had a good chat about our childhood memories of Aberdare, local history (Spike had come across my entry A Pub Crawl to Die For (Part 1)), public transport, the assorted frustrations of modern life, and various other topics. I popped back to the house and brought up the two volumes of Aberdare: Pictures From the Past, which the boys hadn't seen before.

In return, Spike showed me photos of bottles from the former local breweries and soft drinks manufacturers. He's been collecting them since he was very young, and had even unearthed a couple that afternoon while walking around the Country Park. Elfed has lent some of his own stash to Aberdare Library, but Spike's collection dwarfs Elfed's. Look at these lovely old artefacts of Elfed's and you'll see why they're so interesting.

Spike is extremely knowledgeable about the subject, so I tried to convince him to write an article for Old Cynon Valley (first volume in preparation). That led us to an idea Gaz had a few years earlier, about writing an article about the local football scene. (In an area known best for rugby, football seems to have had the lion's share of success in the Cynon and Merthyr Valleys.) I mentioned my two abortive projects for the Cynon Valley History Society as well. Will any of these ideas come to fruition? Watch this space …

'Watch this space' is also good advice when it comes to Chazza, it seems. At about 6.30 Clare rang me, because Chazza had messaged her to ask if anyone knew where I was. Needless to say, I was in the Welsh Harp. Spike had gone home to make tea for his mother, so Gaz and I were still chatting. There's no WiFi in the pub, so I was off-grid to all intents and purposes. According to Clare, Chazza had gone straight to the Cambrian. I said that seemed a bit daft, because she'd have had to pass the Welsh Harp on the way into town. Just after 7.00 Chazza herself rang me. She was walking through Trecynon and wondering where I was.

'Exactly where I said I'd be,' I told her.

She came in a minute later, so I bought her a drink and introduced her to Gaz. The three of us chatted for a while before moving on. I dropped my books and the posters into the house, and Chazza and I walked into Aberdare. When we got to the Cambrian it was fairly quiet, so we grabbed a decent table and waited for the guest musician to arrive.

Dai C. Thomas (for it was he) is a very talented, charming and eccentric young fellow from Llandeilo, who's played here a few times as a solo artist and as one half of Nomadic Ways. After he'd set up his gear, he joined us for a pint and we chatted about his occasional extra background artist work in TV. He was going to a costume fitting in Bristol on Monday, before appearing as a Frenchman in Poldark. No disrespect to Chazza, who seems to have settled into her job after a shaky start, but doesn't that sound more fun than serving up fast food for minimum wage on a zero hours contract?

Dai played the first half of his set to a fairly small audience, and Chazza went for a smoke (she said). You'll be amazed, I'm sure, when I tell you that she didn't return. I texted her after a little while, to see if she was coming back, and she told me she was in the Prince. I thought maybe she'd gone to look for her uncle Ross, but when she didn't reappear I realised she'd conned me out of another couple of beers again.

Dai finished his second set, we had a brief chat as he was packing his stuff away, and I decided to head for the Prince myself. More than anything, I wanted to try and catch Chazza in mid-lie. When I got there, I asked around but nobody had seen her. I texted her and told her she could take her invisibility cloak off.

I had a last pint there, texted her to say I was giving up on her slowly, and went home.

Clare didn't show up for Manic Monday. She and her friend with benefits had been to the cinema in Merthyr. As I told you in Strange Little Girl, Clare tends to throw herself in at the deep end when it comes to boys, so I wasn't surprised when she told me she was thinking of moving to Ebbw Vale. (Remember last autumn's week-long engagement to the chav from Blackwood? Yeah – so do I!)

It would be the end of our singing partnership, and would also totally put the mockers on everyone who thinks we're an item. There suddenly doesn't seem to be a lot of point in going to look at second-hand guitars this Saturday, as we'd arranged over the weekend. I'd managed to rope in my mate Wayne B. ‒ who's in at least three bands at last count – to come and give them the once-over with us. I messaged him about an hour ago to tell him not to bother. Six-string instruments won't be able to compete with no-strings sex.

Even so, she managed to find time out from her precious bedtime schedule to meet me for lunch yesterday, before we went to Merthyr College for the open evening. (We were supposed to have met for breakfast, but she was running very late. As I said on Facebook, when you come in for breakfast and end up ordering from the lunch menu, you've either walked into a remake of Joel Schumacher's film Falling Down or you're meeting a girl. I didn't see any cameras.) I agreed to stand her lunch in return for her footing the bill today, when she gets her money. That's one offer Chazza has never made, in fairness to Clare.

We caught the train to Merthyr, had a glass of Coke in the Crown, and then walked over to the college. The open evening was getting under way, and one of student ambassadors directed us to one of the tutors. He took us upstairs, introduced us to his colleague, and they told us about the music options they've got on offer. There's the traditional A level, of course, very much focused on classical music and requiring a fair bit of theory, as well as at least Grade 3 proficiency on an instrument. (That rules both of us out. Clare used to play guitar, but I don't know what standard she reached. It was almost certainly higher than mine.)

Alternatively, there's the BTEC. It's far more hands-on and contemporary. The old town hall in Merthyr is now the Red House, a music venue with a growing reputation, and the college uses the basement for their practical tuition. They've got state-of-the-art equipment, more computers than the whole of RCTCBC Libraries, visiting tutors with huge amounts of experience, and a talent base that enables students to network across all aspects of the business. The course covers all aspects of popular music, from playing and singing through to songwriting, production, marketing … It's got to be way more constructive than singing 'Proud Mary' every Friday night to an audience of half a dozen Valleys pissheads, hasn't it? It sounded ideal for Clare, and the more the four of us talked, the more I could see the excitement growing in her eyes.

Clare and the tutor started filling in the application form while we chatted about the scene in general. I explained how we'd met, and how I was slowly weaning her off the backing tapes and onto solid instruments. The whole thing was going very well.

Then we hit the inevitable snag.

Clare doesn't have her certificates from school. She couldn't even remember exactly what exams she'd sat during her rather unpleasant time in the system. Without the paperwork, her application would fall at the first fence.

But (naturally) I know a man who works for the exam board. In fact, I'd had a couple of pints with him on Sunday afternoon. I said I'd ring Gaz in the evening and see how we'd go about getting copies. He'd done the same for me back in September 2009, when I fell back into university, so I knew it could be done.

We shook hands with the guys and went downstairs to the atrium. A young lad with a practice drumkit was demonstrating his skills, and another young lad was setting up a guitar. We chatted and listened to them for a while, then headed for The Works to see if they had any music tuition books. There was nothing at all on learning the guitar (although they had one on stripping down an electric guitar and rebuilding it from scratch). It seemed a bit odd, considering how many young people are into playing music these days. On the other hand, I did find a book of piano chords, so I treated myself to that. I've always fancied playing both instruments, and one of my New Year's Resolutions was to start some serious work on them both.

[A digression: This lunchtime, in their Aberdare branch, I found the companion book for guitar. While I was at the counter, I mentioned to Stacey that I'd found the piano book in Merthyr yesterday, but nothing for guitar. She agreed that the stock distribution across neighbouring shops seems to be haphazard at best. I jokingly commented on Facebook that the next Bill Evans could be in junior school in Aberdare right now, and the next John McLaughlin in junior school in Merthyr, but on the strength of the self-teaching materials on offer, we'll never know.]

Clare and I caught the 1708 train from Merthyr and arrived at Abercynon just in time to find that the Aberdare train had been cancelled. Southbound trains were falling off the board as well. According to Arriva Trains Fails, a passenger had been taken ill and had to be to taken off at Llandaff North. We parked ourselves in the shelter and I texted Gaz to explain Clare's situation, adding 'BTW trains are fucked up big time!' He replied a few minutes later to say he already knew – he'd been on his way home when the disruption started.

I sent a couple of sarcastic Tweets about the trains from the Plaid Cymru Cwm Cynon account to pass the time, and then started chatting to a bloke I know by sight. Clare, meanwhile, spent the hour happily texting her friend with benefits (from her new thickphone) until an Aberdare train finally pulled in. It was packed – unsurprisingly – and we got to Aberdare only about an hour and seven minutes late. On the way, I noticed on Facebook that Chazza had also fallen foul of the trains in Cardiff. It gave me a warm feeling inside, and Clare laughed when I showed it to her.

I commented, 'I told you the novelty of commuting would soon wear off, didn't I?'

As we were getting off I spotted Gaz, so we captured him and invited him to join us for a pint. He didn't take much persuading. On the way into town, he spotted a piece of paper lying at the roadside. It was a tenner.

'Might as well spend this in the pub,' he said, which seemed like a decent plan.

We hadn't even got to the pub before Chazza texted to ask if I fancied a pint. Luckily for me, I had a Plaid Cymru meeting in Mountain Ash last night.

In the Cambrian, we sat down and looked at the exam board website. It seemed as though Clare was going to have to jump through hoops again. She wasn't even sure if she'd sat WJEC papers or those set by one of the other boards. Gaz said he could check in the system today, so she wrote down her details and we carried on chatting.

Gaz left at about 8.00; Clare stuck around until about 8.45; I went home on the 9.30 bus. Before she left, I asked her what time she wanted to meet for breakfast today. She suggested Thereisnospoon at about 9.30. It seemed like a plan.

Just after 8.00 this morning, I texted her to say I'd be leaving the house in about an hour. She just replied, 'OK', so I assumed everything was on track. I had a bath, got some stuff together for her, and was on my way into Aberdare when she texted me again. Apparently she was feeling too ill to go out. She'd been complaining of earache yesterday, but it hadn't occurred to her to mention it an hour earlier. It must have been one of those very rapid escalations that get the doctors so worried in Holby City.

I had a flashback to our non-trip to Pontyclun before Xmas (see Just Another Weird Wednesday). That was also a day when she got her money and when she'd woken up feeling like shit. (She'd been all right to go to the Bonki in the evening, strangely enough.) I remembered our last trip to Cardiff a fortnight ago, when she'd baled out early because she'd been feeling like shit. That was a Wednesday, too.

I didn't say anything about that, but told her I hoped she felt better soon, and went for breakfast as planned. My food hadn't even arrived when she rang me to ask if I wanted to go to Cardiff with her and her parents. (Now you know why I've called this entry 'The Lazarus Experiment.' Not even Lazarus made that rapid a recovery.)

I said I was going to the Coliseum tonight – which is true – so Karaoke and Shots in the Golden Cross was out. However, Clare said they'd be coming back at about 5.00. I didn't get where I am today by catching rush hour trains home from Cardiff. (Actually, I kinda did, because I decided I just couldn't fucking do it any more.) It wasn't a nice idea from the start.

I asked her what time they were planning on going. She said they'd meet me in time for the 1052 train. I said OK, finished my breakfast, and headed to the library to chase up Plaid Cymru stuff yet again.

I was by the cashpoint at about 1040 when I spotted Clare heading into Whitcombe Street, away from the station. I called across the road, she shouted something and pointed vaguely along the street, and then I lost sight of her behind a lorry. Because of the traffic noise I didn't know if she was heading to the post office or the pharmacy. There's fuck all else in Whitcombe Street except a dental surgery, a tattoo studio and a plethora of hair salons. None of those are 'in and out in two minutes' jobs. It was too early for fish and chips, even by Clare's standards; neither of the pubs would have been open. I grabbed my money and headed for the other side to wait for her.

After a few minutes I decided she might have gone around the block and towards the station that way. There was no sign of her in the pharmacy or the post office when I looked through the windows. I headed to the station to see if I could spot them on the train. Unfortunately, the hanging around meant that I had only a few seconds to dive through the open doors. Within nanoseconds of the train leaving the platform, Clare texted to ask where I was.

Do you remember when the Tenth Doctor regenerated in 'The End of Time'? Even before he could say his goodbyes to everyone, the energy was already forming a halo around his hand. He turned to Wilf and said, 'It's started.'

Well, I think my recent unexpected regeneration must have started in a similar low-key fashion. I sat in the seat nearest the driver's cab (in other words, furthest from the guard) and sent this reply:

On the fucking train as agreed earlier. Getting off at Cwmbach without buying a ticket and coming back to town.

Which was exactly what I did. Having been shot down by the combined forces of UNIT and Torchwood, I underwent full regeneration in time to reach the bus top at Tre Telynog.

The new Steve looks exactly the same as the old one, I'm sad to say, but (rather like the Master's successive incarnations) his personality has become much darker and far less predictable. And, as usually happens when Time Lords regenerate, his companions are often shocked or even frightened by the sudden transformation.

Clare texted back to ask why I was swearing, and to tell me they'd be on the 1122 from Aberdare instead. The ensuing exchange went like this (bear in mind that she's using a thickphone):

Not in the mood for fucking around today, so I'll see you when I see you.

As in be on 11,22 train

I spent enough time freezing on Goddessforsaken stations yesterday. Nice and warm in library.

Wel [sic] my dad said 11 train but waiting on my step mum x

Yeah, well I'm waiting on the bus back to town.

OK

Good thing I went looking for you in Whitcombe St. At least I didn't have time to buy my train ticket before it left. Never arrange to do anything with me on a Wednesday morning again, because you always cry off sick.

Before I had time to send that last one, my phone rang in my hand. It was Clare. I killed the call, finished composing the text, and sent it before catching the bus into Aberdare. Good Old Steve could quite easily have walked back to the station and met them on the next train.

But Good Old Steve isn't around any more.

This new regeneration is calculated to piss off young people who like the trendy, ironic, eccentric but lovable character, while appealing to hardcore older fans who recognise elements of themselves in his irascibility, cynicism, and unwillingness to suffer fools gladly.

I killed at least three more calls from Clare between getting on the bus and finishing this entry off using proper WiFi. Normally the Doctor carries a companion over into a new regeneration, to give old and new viewers a sense of continuity. The Tenth Doctor didn't, though. Funny how I keep referring back to that one, isn't it, boys and girls?

I'm kinda wondering how the Plaid Cymru Muggles (to mix cult SF/fantasy sagas slightly) will respond to Evil New Steve at the next (actual) branch meeting. After all, it'll have been a month since I asked them all to give me some content for our election campaign website. My inbox remains barren. At least one of the candidates knows what happened to the online presence I established for the Cynon Valley Quiz League back in the autumn. Project No More Nice Guy hadn't even got as far as the drawing board. Good Old Steve was alive and well.

But, as the Doctor's pal Captain Jack Harkness famously said, 'The twenty-first century is when everything changes, and you gotta be ready.'

Are you ready?

A Flashback to 2012

In which The Author finds history repeating itself again

Now that I've relocated my base of operations from Wordpress to here, I'm taking the opportunity to retrofit the disused blog to a consistent 'house style'. Every so I often I go through the original posts, tweaking the text and the HTML to a standard format. I usually call this 'extreme proofreading for geeks', incidentally.

Anyway, this afternoon I've been revising an entry from the summer of 2012, called Courting Controversy. If nothing else, it goes to prove that there's nothing new under the sun …

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 …

No More Mr Nice Guy

In which The Author announces a change to the basic terms and conditions

I told you last time that I was in an extremely unpleasant frame of mind last week. I baled out of the Lighthouse on Thursday evening without singing – for the third week in a row – and without even saying goodbye to anyone.

Well, things haven't improved. The brief spell of fine weather we've had this week has done nothing to lift my mood. I've had precious little sleep because of the pain in my shoulder, which is only responding reluctantly to strong painkillers and industrial quantities of ibuprofen. (Ironically, the only times I have fallen asleep is while watching a film called Oblivion – not once but twice. Talk about the power of suggestion, eh?) Following a phone call from the minor injuries unit at my local hospital last week, I had to go to the fracture clinic at Prince Charles Hospital on Tuesday.

I hate going to that place anyway. A ten minute journey by car takes the best part of an hour and a half by public transport. Even though five buses an hour allegedly come past my house on their way to Merthyr Tydfil, I waited nearly thirty minutes for one. I just about made my connection at the other end, and then went on the now-traditional grand tour of the Gurnos estate. I'm fairly sure it would be quicker to jump off the bus partway into the journey, and walk to the hospital. I'll have to pack my street atlas next time, and try it for myself.

I got to the reception desk a few seconds before my appointment time. I checked in and headed for the waiting area, only to find a notice announcing that they were running approximately fifty minutes behind schedule. I Tweeted about the delay at 12.25, and added – half-jokingly – that I was tempted to go for lunch and come back later. I finally saw the specialist about an hour and a half after I arrived. The good news that the damage isn't as severe as the X-ray had hinted. With time and a few gentle exercises, it should settle down. Oddly enough, that's pretty much what Dr Wardrop told me when I first went to him about my right shoulder, back in the spring of 2001. I've got a feeling this one could run and run.

I was glad to get out of the hospital. I decided not to bother with the bus back into Merthyr. I had my camera with me, and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. I took advantage of a free afternoon to wander around Cefn Coed y Cymmer, filling some gaps in my Vanishing Valleys project. I was hoping to find my way to the spectacular viaduct that spans the Taff, but I had to settle for a couple of fairly decent photos instead. It's another map job, I think.

I walked back into Merthyr, had a quick browse in the Works, jumped on the first bus and got back to Aberdare at about 4.00. I headed straight to the Lighthouse for a soft drink and some more co-codamol. I think I was in there for about five minutes – if that. The barbint, in common with most of her kind these days, was more interested in playing with her phone than in serving customers. In fact, everyone in the pub seemed to be engrossed with their phones. Let me explain …

I'd barely got through the door when Joe grabbed me and demanded, 'Who's singing with Meat Loaf on this song?'

'Don't know, don't care,' I replied.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Meat Loaf is 'rock music' for people who don't actually like rock music. I really couldn't give a fuck who was singing with him on a song I'd be very hard pressed to identify in the first place.

Even more annoying than being expected to recall pointless pop trivia at the drop of a hat was the fact that everyone sitting at the bar – Joe included – had fucking smartphones in their hands. Call me a revolutionary if you like, but if you're connected to the internet, why don't you fucking look it up yourself?

Having eventually managed to get served, I put up a Facebook status to that effect, swallowed two painkillers, drained my can, and left.

[A digression: I'm writing this in the Cambrian, because I needed another couple of painkillers and something to wash them down. One pub bore whose name I can't recall – always assuming I knew it in the first place – has just approached me 'to ask you something.'

I said, 'I'm working, sorry,' and went back to my typing. I don't know what he wanted, nor do I especially care. It can't have been anything too intellectually demanding, because one of the town's many chronic alcoholics was able to give him a satisfactory answer – and he's currently struggling with the Sun crossword. One lovely thing about working from home is that you can play the 'I'm working' card in pretty much any circumstances. It doesn't always work – it has yet to stop the Ancient Mariner in his tracks – but it's usually worth a try.]

I had to go the post office in Trecynon yesterday. I was chatting to my pal Liam online last week, and he asked me what I'd recommend as a good place to start reading Michael Moorcock. That was a tricky one, because so many of Mr Moorcock's books are interconnected (see 'A Head of Steam'). I suggested Mother London, which is one of his few standalone novels, and which I'd borrowed from Aberdare Library back when they still had books on the shelves. I'd passed up the chance to buy a secondhand hardback edition in a shop in Chepstow, when I was there with Pam a long time ago, and have never come across it since. I had a quick look on Amazon, and found a copy on offer for the princely sum of one penny, plus postage. Job done!

I think I've mentioned that Martin,our local postmaster, retired recently, and the dedicated post office closed. In common with a lot of smaller villages, its services have been transferred to the corner shop – in our case, the Spar, a few doors away.

I like the owner and his family, and the girls who work there are friendly and decent types, but he also employs two young lads who can politely be described as chavs. Their grasp of English seems rudimentary at best, and neither of them have the first idea about customer service. My heart sank as soon as I saw who was manning the counter, and I knew I'd have to explain in minute detail about the scheduled redelivery service. As it turned out, the book hadn't actually arrived, and it still took that thick twat about five minutes to find out. I made a mental note to have future deliveries redirected to the main office in Aberdare, where the staff not only know about the services on offer, but they also know how to talk to customers.

Anyway, I was potching with my recent photos in the library when Rowland strolled in. He'd been to see his mother, and needed a pint. I told him I knew that feeling, so I packed up my gear and we headed for the pub. I hadn't intended to have a pint, but since I haven't seen him since before the referendum, it would have been rude to refuse. We went to Thereisnospoon, which was fairly quiet for a Wednesday afternoon, and had a good catch-up over a few pints.

When Rowland went to catch his train, I headed for the Glosters, where Shannon was planning her going away party in style. After that, I called to the Cambrian, thinking I might stick around for the quiz. Islwyn came in, followed shortly by Andrew S. and Rob H. The quiz master was a first-timer, and – without wishing to sound rude – it kinda showed from the outset. I don't know what the fuck has happened to the quiz recently, but everyone seems to try and introduce far too many gimmicks and techie ideas that don't really work in practice. In addition, at least half the questions seem to be based on celebrities, TV programmes and advertising slogans. It's not what my old friend Paul David had in mind when he used to set his fun quizzes, back in the late 1980s. They certainly wouldn't pass muster in an Alan Everett quiz, either.

By the time it got underway I was fairly pissed, and not really in the mood for too-clever-by-half ideas from someone who'd never set a quiz before. I spent a lot of time heckling, and the whole thing made me even more determined to go back to basics when I return to the big chair on 2 November.

But this entry is called 'No More Mr Nice Guy' for a reason. As mentioned previously, I decided last week to have what Facebookers call a 'cull' – pruning the dead wood from my friends list. I hadn't realised how many of my friends had deactivated their profiles until I went into my list and scrolled to the end. That was a fairly self-selecting group, fair play. Then I literally found the dead wood – at least four people on my friends list have passed away, but their profiles are still active. Since I'm not expecting any online activity from them any time soon, I didn't have to worry about offending anyone by unfriending them.

Then I had to get rid of a few more people who fell into the category I mentioned last time. Chazza was pretty near the top of my list – since she'd completely blanked me on Thursday evening, I'd pretty much made up my mind to bin her anyway. Oddly enough, I had a text from her just after midnight on Saturday morning. I didn't reply, and announced on Facebook on Sunday that my phone had crashed, and deleted all my texts and a lot of my contacts. With this piece of shit phone, it's not beyond the realms of possibility, believe me.

Since then I haven't heard from her at all. I noticed from her own recent status that she'd gone to Cardiff one night, and was trying to arrange for someone to bring her home. (What was I saying a couple of weeks about the alarm bells ringing when she suggested we could have an evening down there?) I deleted both her old and new profiles, just to be on the safe side.

And this morning, when I logged on to Facebook, I found a message from Claire S, Gema's pal. She wanted to know why I was so rude to them last week. I told her that I'd been in a lot of pain (which was true) and that the beer wasn't really helping (which was also true). Then I thanked her for reminding me of something I needed to do – and unfriended Gema as well. Nothing personal, you understand, but the whole point about cutting out negative people from your life is to not allow them in through the back door.

So far today I've spoken to Simon in the library, Ian, Sarah, Jimmy N. and Charlie the barbint (all in the Cambrian), and Doz H. in Specsavers. I had to call in because one of my lenses had popped out last night. I said, 'Promise me you won't laugh – but I've got a screw loose.'

And, of course, I've spoken to one of the decent chaps in the Spar/post office. It's nothing personal against the owners, but – as I said earlier – it'll be the last time I have a parcel redirected there. I don't want to have to deal with a semi-literate fuckwit chav every time I have to pick something up.

Everyone else I've dealt with today has either had the brush-off or the metaphorical middle finger. It's a growing trend, and it looks set to continue. In the words of Alice Cooper (another case of 'rock music' for people who don't actually like rock music), it's going to be No More Mr Nice Guy all the way from now on.

I don't think I'll even bother going to the Lighthouse tonight. It's getting too much like hard work trying to get served in there, because all the barbints find whatever's happening on Facebook far more stimulating than serving customers. I'm going to drink up here and head to the Glosters, because the wifi in the Cambrian isn't working (as usual). Then I might head up to Thereisnospoon and see if there's anyone in the beer garden worth talking to. Failing that, I'll take my book home. Michael Moorcock's fictional world is so much more inviting than the real alternative, after all.

The Cold Shoulder (continued)

In which The Author gets some non-prescription pain relief

I had a couple of pints in the Glosters yesterday afternoon, then went to the Cambrian for another couple of pints. Richard Ashcroft was right: the drugs don't work. A sort-of mate of mine was very pissed and/or coked up, and I reflected that he was definitely on the list for my forthcoming Facebook cull. In fact, I announced it while he was ranting at the bar.

There's a cull coming on. I've been putting it off for a long time, but I can't delay it any longer. All you Vaguebookers, bores, drug addicts, neo-fascists, people who have added me simply to make up the numbers, and associated oxygen wasters, please enjoy the next few days of my online offerings. On Tuesday you'll be off my Friends list. Most of you will be blocked as well, so make the most of it.

After a while he stormed out, still raving about his ex-girlfriend. I drank up and headed to the Lighthouse, just before the end of Happy Hour.

I didn't intend to sing, as I've noted previously. I think my singing days are well and truly over. Even if I hadn't been in considerable pain, I probably wouldn't have been in the right frame of mind. However, I was hoping to catch up with Chazza and ask her why she'd suddenly started blanking me.

Since I didn't accept her half-arsed invitation to go to Cardiff last week, she's become decidedly cool towards me. I admit that I wasn't in the mood for company last week – I was in too much pain to be sociable – but I'd texted her the following day to apologise. She didn't even do me the courtesy of texting back. Earlier this week I messaged her on Facebook to ask her if she fancied a trip to London. Again, nothing. She must have seen my message, because she'd posted some pictures the following day. (She must have conned someone into taking her to Cardiff one evening, because there were photos of her doing karaoke in a bar down there.)

Anyway, when I got to the Lighthouse Chazza was already there, drinking with Gema, Wendy, and a young black guy I didn't recognise. Since you can count the number of black people in Aberdare's pubs on your fingers and toes, he was definitely new to the scene. In fact, simply by walking into the Lighthouse on a Thursday night, he'd increased their non-white clientele by exactly one hundred per cent (Huntley being the other one).

I bought a pint, said hi to the girls, and Chazza completely blanked me. She didn't even say hello back, which I thought was rather rude of her. In retrospect, she'd obviously found someone else who would buy her drinks and pay her attention, so she was sorted (as young people say these days).

On the subject of Things Young People Say These Days …

In The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins makes an interesting observation about the transmission of information, and the way that small incremental changes will give rise to huge variations through time. He points out that a modern reader would struggle to make sense of Chaucer's poetry, even though only about twenty generations have elapsed since it was written. Prof. Dawkins says that a grandfather and a grandchild can communicate (mostly) without any hindrance, because the language they share hasn't changed to any great extent. The grandfather, in turn, could communicate perfectly adequately with his grandfather … and so forth, all the way back to 1400. And yet, even though there's an unbroken linguistic chain connecting them, a person speaking Chaucerian English would find it very difficult to converse with a modern English speaker.

Well, that's all very well, isn't it? But what the actual fuck is a modern English speaker meant to make of this:

Omg life can go ducky big toe hahaha fair play lol

I only ask, because that was what Chazza posted on Facebook at about 11 p.m. last night. English translations will be appreciated.

I must confess that I was rather rude to Gema last night. I was on the way to the bar when she tried to grab my fucked shoulder. I think she was trying to get me to dance – something I never do anyway – and I wasn't in the mood for her nonsense.

I pushed her aside and said, 'I need a pint, and I need you to get out of the fucking way.'

Then I posted another status:

Also included in the cull are pathetic young girls who can't make up their minds whether they're straight or gay, or whether they like white or black, or whether they prefer young or old and will therefore offer themselves to anything remotely human in exchange for beer and/or taxi money. I didn't imagine for more than a few minutes that I had a chance with one particular example of this business model, but she could have had the common decency not to shove her lifestyle down my throat. Then again, all my medical tests are simply showing up musculoskeletal problems, not STIs, so I'm good …

Once again, I didn't bother making my excuses before I left. I noticed Chazza kissing the black guy; then Gema kissed him a few minutes later. I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that they ended up in a threesome somewhere. As I noted in 'Courting Controversy' a few years ago, young girls in Aberdare like to try and get involved in the most socially disapproved relationships possible. A threesome with a black guy would definitely be pushing the envelope.

Purely out of interest, earlier today I added up how much I'd spent on Chazza over the few weeks we'd been out singing, drinking, and sharing taxis together. If I'd kept that money aside I could have spent it on one of those ladies who advertise in phone boxes in Soho (apparently) and got my leg over. There's no fool like an old fool, is there?

The Pash Equilibrium

In which The Author doesn't bother trying to get his leg over

On Saturday afternoon I called in for a pint while trying to get home between downpours. I'd taken a gamble by leaving my jacket at home, and it hadn't paid off.

My pal Joe was outside having a smoke when I got there; Tony A. was in his usual spot; Joan was at the bar; there were a couple of women playing with the jukebox. They had their backs to the room, obviously, so I couldn't tell who they were at first glance. I bought my beer, sat by Tony to download the weekend crosswords, and then heard someone calling my name.

I looked round and realised who the two women were – my friend Lisa E. and her mother. Lisa used to work in a cafe near my house, so I've known her for quite a few years. She's probably young enough to be my daughter, medium height, slim, and very attractive, with wavy black hair. (She ticks most of my boxes, in other words.) She doesn't come into the pub very often, but when she does she tends to push the boat out in dramatic fashion. We've gone out drinking a couple of times – not planned, we just bumped into each other – and it usually turns into a bit of a silly evening. If anything was going to happen with her and me, it would have happened at least ten years ago. The fact that we're just good friends means that there isn't any complicated history between us – no awkward silences when one of us walks into the pub, no hasty departures while the other person isn't looking … in short, none of the things that hung over from my non-relationship with Jenny.

Anyway, Lisa came over to say hello, insisted that I gave her a kiss, and then sat on my lap while she explained why they were out on the razz. It was her mother's birthday over the weekend, so they'd been for a meal the night before and then hit the pubs early on the Saturday lunchtime.

Anyway, by this time Joe had come back in. He gazed in disbelief at Lisa, who was still perched on my lap, and then made a comment along the lines of, 'You lucky bastard'.

Lisa laughed and went back to talk to her mother. After a few minutes they decided to hit the jukebox again. By now, Joe was grilling me about Lisa: how I knew her, and was she single – that sort of thing. He obviously thought he might have a shout with her.

Lisa called me over to their table and demanded that I gave her another kiss. I teased her that she was getting very dominant in her advancing years. She thought that was hilarious, and I told her I had a couple of books she might want to borrow for inspiration. Her mother already knows I've got a warped sense of humour, so the three of us had a good laugh about it.

Unfortunately for Lisa, Ian L., Byron and Rory also thought they might have a shout with her. While she was choosing her music, she was literally hemmed in by horny pissed Valleys lads (one of whom is only a couple of months younger than me), all vying for her attention. When she went to the bar to get the inevitable Jägerbombs, Joe decided to make his play as well.

I felt really sorry for Lisa, who'd only come in for a drink, and who suddenly found herself at the centre of attention. The whole thing reminded me of an alcohol- (and possibly drug-) fuelled retake of one of the key scenes in A Beautiful Mind.

You know the scene I mean: John Nash and his college pals are sitting in the bar when a group of young women walk in. Immediately they all decide to try and hit on the statuesque blonde at the centre of the group, and start arguing about who should try and get her attention first.

At that moment, Nash has his great breakthrough:

'If we all go for the blonde, we block each other and no one gets her.'

If I learned anything at all from that film, it's that there's absolutely no point trying to get off with a girl when at least four other guys are in the running.

In fact, I'd be surprised if any of them made any progress with Lisa. It's more likely that they frightened her off, by leering in her face and trying to grope her when was standing by the bar. Whereas I, on the other hand, had a pleasant conversation, made her laugh, and threw in the odd double entendre for good measure – as I always do whenever we meet up.

So, students of Game Theory, what have we learned from this?

Well, I've seen the Nash Equilibrium in action, exactly as demonstrated in the film. I've seen two friends and two acquaintances make fools of themselves on a Saturday afternoon. I've had a flashback to the exact situation I described in 'Hit and Miss' nearly seven years ago.

And I know when it's time to make my excuses and leave.

I'll catch up with Lisa at some point, and probably have to apologise for baling out after my second pint. But I could see how the situation was developing. Since there's already a history of violence in that circle of boys, I decided that I wasn't in the mood to watch another scrap.

So I didn't get off with Lisa. I wasn't going to approach her in that way anyway, so it's not as if I missed my chance. It's more likely that I missed out on a fight, rather than a fuck. Better single than sorry, eh?