www.paulcoia.com
I guess if you’ve read this blog even once before you’ll have expectations of coming here again this week and finding my spirits up as usual, as I try to find some sort of fun in the things around me, and generally have a good time, even if I have a go sometimes at life’s absurdities. Well, sorry to change the plot line but you find me feeling I may have been wrong all along.
I’ve always banged on in this blog about staying positive and how I hate being dragged down by people who are the “glass half empty” type. I even devoted one blog to several reasons to be cheerful in this awful, world wide, recession. But I confess that I have found this week very difficult. The smile is gone, the spirits low, the voice not as confident and the jaunty walk just a little bit less John Travolta because, for the first time, I have been present when job losses have hit people I like and work with.
I realise I may sound innocent and naïve in saying this but I just wasn’t prepared for the feelings that bubbled up when one company I work with announced last week that, due to the worst recession in living memory, people would have to leave.
I suppose for anyone faced with a similar experience the first thought, selfishly, would be whether they were going to be one of the ones to go, but then this gives way pretty quickly to sympathy and empathy as, one by one, friends are called in and given the bad news.
Ever since I left school I have been freelance, going from one contract to another in a solo fight through the employment battlefield with no security and no possibility of sickness pay, annual leave or fringe benefits. This self obsession has meant me blithely, and self absordedly, moving on from places while forgetting that many people devote their adult lives to one company, putting their faith, and their family’s future, in the hands of a few people who they need to trust.
In the past I have, of course, seen individuals after they have been taken aside and told that they have to walk the plank and it has always been painful, but this week I saw what seemed like a never ending series of calls and meetings as people waited to find out whether they had a future with the company. It was truly dreadful and still, a few days later, occupies my every thought.
Speaking to some of those who had to make the decision I know just how agonising it has been for them and how upset they have felt at breaking the news, so it seems there is misery on both sides. But while those delivering the bad news have been universally subdued and sensitive, I have been surprised, in my inexperienced way, by the different ways people have reacted when receiving the kiss off.
At one end of the spectrum are the ones who are very philosophical and understand it is not personal but simply a way of saving money and keeping the company going in the hope it will prosper after the crunch is over and welcome them back with open arms. But others are bitter and feel betrayed, a natural reaction to their new worry of survival.
So I’m thinking that now I personally know people who are caught up in this mess, how dare I possibly carry on glibly in my weekly musings here telling all and sundry that we should be cheerful? If you had lost your job would you react well to someone saying “well, at least you’ve got your health” or “perhaps this is the kick in the pants you needed to find something you really like”?
In the UK we have currently around two million people unemployed, a rate not seen for twelve years and it is tipped to reach over three million, or ten percent of the population, by the end of the year. Just pause for a moment and think of all the people who currently have no job, and then picture another fifty per cent joining them by Christmas day. The last time we had three million unemployed here was in 1982, and before that, it was the Depression of the Thirties. It’s as if the politicians and economists have learned nothing.
And prospects for new jobs are bleak with vacancies at the lowest since records began. With banks hovering like desert vultures over people who can no longer pay their mortgages the whole economic situation is about to go even more horribly pear shaped. Statistics show that, during periods of high job losses, crime increases and the next generation loses hope of finding work and they then become resigned to the fate of their parents.
So, why should I carry on being positive? Why should I return here every week and try to raise a smile while pretending that I’ve never grown up?
I believe the answer is that it’s because it is my layer of protection from the bad stuff out there, an overcoat against the draught of misery that’s blowing so many away. You may be more practical, mature and capable of dealing with these times but I’m afraid that I’m not. I’m fighting the temptation to disappear, as I do each week, back to the days of my comic books and warm bed time drinks, of real fires, flannel sheets and felted tartan dressing gowns. I want to pretend that I’m being looked after and have nothing to worry about except which premier league football team I’ll play for in my school holidays, which Top Ten band I’ll sing with at weekends or whether I’ll ever be tall enough to reach the pedals of a Ferrari.
Next week it’s back to the frivolity and nonsense that’s usually here but, for this week only, I feel I should grow up. And I don’t like it one little bit.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Love Me Do
www.paulcoia.com
So, that’s another St Valentine’s Day over and I really hope you had a good one. I think I did all the right stuff, ordering flowers and booking an expensive dinner at a posh restaurant. I even managed to write a card and, as a sign of my growing maturity, for once it wasn’t written to myself.
I confess that I used to send Valentine’s cards to my own address a lot when I was younger so that I’d look popular at school and, to disguise my handwriting and keep up the pretence, I wrote them with my left hand. To this day I’m convinced my schoolmates believe I was dating a dyslexic with Parkinson’s.
I hope your loved one remembered to give you a card/flowers/hug/dinner this year or that you were as lucky as I was and received a huge chocolate heart. Call me a romantic, but the heart seemed very appropriate because the biggest, and longest living, love interest in my life has always been chocolate. Nothing says I Love You quite like a box of cocoa calories.
If you did have the perfect romantic day then consider yourself lucky because I’m told Valentine’s is not only a great day for love but it’s also one of the biggest days for couples looking afresh at each other and deciding enough is enough. In short, the expectation of waking up next to Brad Pitt, and the reality of seeing his brother Cess instead, makes the day that’s dedicated to love a popular one for break ups too.
Perhaps you are like me. I was always useless at having that final “we’re through” conversation and ended up too often carrying on relationships way beyond their pity and sympathy date, either hiding from the telephone or spending too much time working out where to place the “it’s not you, it’s me” line in my speech. I used to prepare these break ups for days, having once learned an important lesson after I decided that I should hold nothing back and just go with the flow. I got punched.
So I’m with Neil Sedaka - breaking up is hard to do, especially on Valentine’s Day, and I was interested in the newspaper letters pages this week where readers agreed that Valentine’s days are tough for singletons or those who want to be single again. Someone asked if it’s good manners to bin your partner in Valentine’s week or should you wait? The letters of reply suggested the latter but then moved on to the more interesting topic of what happens if you are the one being chucked. In other words, how do you get revenge?
Well, one girl had a novel approach. She used the key to her exes flat while he was at work and removed all his clothes, taking them to several dry cleaners around London and, as she travelled a lot with work, a few cities abroad too. She then posted him the receipts and left him to work out how to get his suits back. Another wrote a letter to her former boyfriend’s mother saying she would miss their talks but hoped she’d understand how expensive it had become replacing the lacy pants and bras from her underwear drawer that her perfect son had been stealing to wear to work.
Yet another handed her key back to her boyfriend only after copying it, and then waited a couple of months for him to go on holiday and sneaked in and soaked his carpets with water. Now, on its own, that’s not clever and it might seem to be simple vandalism, but what raised it above mere pettiness was that she then sprinkled watercress seed all over the top. I would have almost given up chocolate to see his face when he returned from holiday.
I guess anyone can cut the bottom off their former lover’s trousers, hack the sleeves off their blouses or write fake letters to their place of work stamped Clap Clinic Results, but to get a great feeling of revenge it seems to me there must be a bit of thought and intelligence in there.
A friend of mine was very clever at getting his own back on a girl who, if I’m honest, none of us liked. She was a snob and a lawyer but wanted everyone to treat her as a minor royal, expecting everyone to run around after her. She chucked my pal by text, leaving him distraught, but when he calmed down he remembered that he still had a key to her posh flat. He let himself in and sewed a handful of frozen prawns in to the lining of all her curtains where they would never be discovered. I can only guess at the smell after a week or two.
I have only ever taken revenge in affairs of the heart once and, after the initial hilarity, I felt disappointed in myself. I found out that my girlfriend was seeing someone else and, as the rage subsided, I got my own back by hiding her coat and bag. Teacher found me out and made me stand outside kindergarten for the whole of break.
I think that to save hurt in this whole romance thing then, perhaps we would all be better off if our attitude was the same as the young girl who sat near me on Friday. I was on the train going home when a girl of about five or six got on with her mum and they were obviously finishing a conversation about Valentine’s Day. The mum was saying something like “so then you send a card but don’t put your name in it, and perhaps send some chocolates or flowers.”
The girl looked at her as if she was mad, going very quiet while mulling it over, and then said sadly “What, no cake? No balloons? No jelly?”. With a shrug of her shoulders she said, “Is that it?”.
So, that’s another St Valentine’s Day over and I really hope you had a good one. I think I did all the right stuff, ordering flowers and booking an expensive dinner at a posh restaurant. I even managed to write a card and, as a sign of my growing maturity, for once it wasn’t written to myself.
I confess that I used to send Valentine’s cards to my own address a lot when I was younger so that I’d look popular at school and, to disguise my handwriting and keep up the pretence, I wrote them with my left hand. To this day I’m convinced my schoolmates believe I was dating a dyslexic with Parkinson’s.
I hope your loved one remembered to give you a card/flowers/hug/dinner this year or that you were as lucky as I was and received a huge chocolate heart. Call me a romantic, but the heart seemed very appropriate because the biggest, and longest living, love interest in my life has always been chocolate. Nothing says I Love You quite like a box of cocoa calories.
If you did have the perfect romantic day then consider yourself lucky because I’m told Valentine’s is not only a great day for love but it’s also one of the biggest days for couples looking afresh at each other and deciding enough is enough. In short, the expectation of waking up next to Brad Pitt, and the reality of seeing his brother Cess instead, makes the day that’s dedicated to love a popular one for break ups too.
Perhaps you are like me. I was always useless at having that final “we’re through” conversation and ended up too often carrying on relationships way beyond their pity and sympathy date, either hiding from the telephone or spending too much time working out where to place the “it’s not you, it’s me” line in my speech. I used to prepare these break ups for days, having once learned an important lesson after I decided that I should hold nothing back and just go with the flow. I got punched.
So I’m with Neil Sedaka - breaking up is hard to do, especially on Valentine’s Day, and I was interested in the newspaper letters pages this week where readers agreed that Valentine’s days are tough for singletons or those who want to be single again. Someone asked if it’s good manners to bin your partner in Valentine’s week or should you wait? The letters of reply suggested the latter but then moved on to the more interesting topic of what happens if you are the one being chucked. In other words, how do you get revenge?
Well, one girl had a novel approach. She used the key to her exes flat while he was at work and removed all his clothes, taking them to several dry cleaners around London and, as she travelled a lot with work, a few cities abroad too. She then posted him the receipts and left him to work out how to get his suits back. Another wrote a letter to her former boyfriend’s mother saying she would miss their talks but hoped she’d understand how expensive it had become replacing the lacy pants and bras from her underwear drawer that her perfect son had been stealing to wear to work.
Yet another handed her key back to her boyfriend only after copying it, and then waited a couple of months for him to go on holiday and sneaked in and soaked his carpets with water. Now, on its own, that’s not clever and it might seem to be simple vandalism, but what raised it above mere pettiness was that she then sprinkled watercress seed all over the top. I would have almost given up chocolate to see his face when he returned from holiday.
I guess anyone can cut the bottom off their former lover’s trousers, hack the sleeves off their blouses or write fake letters to their place of work stamped Clap Clinic Results, but to get a great feeling of revenge it seems to me there must be a bit of thought and intelligence in there.
A friend of mine was very clever at getting his own back on a girl who, if I’m honest, none of us liked. She was a snob and a lawyer but wanted everyone to treat her as a minor royal, expecting everyone to run around after her. She chucked my pal by text, leaving him distraught, but when he calmed down he remembered that he still had a key to her posh flat. He let himself in and sewed a handful of frozen prawns in to the lining of all her curtains where they would never be discovered. I can only guess at the smell after a week or two.
I have only ever taken revenge in affairs of the heart once and, after the initial hilarity, I felt disappointed in myself. I found out that my girlfriend was seeing someone else and, as the rage subsided, I got my own back by hiding her coat and bag. Teacher found me out and made me stand outside kindergarten for the whole of break.
I think that to save hurt in this whole romance thing then, perhaps we would all be better off if our attitude was the same as the young girl who sat near me on Friday. I was on the train going home when a girl of about five or six got on with her mum and they were obviously finishing a conversation about Valentine’s Day. The mum was saying something like “so then you send a card but don’t put your name in it, and perhaps send some chocolates or flowers.”
The girl looked at her as if she was mad, going very quiet while mulling it over, and then said sadly “What, no cake? No balloons? No jelly?”. With a shrug of her shoulders she said, “Is that it?”.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Communication Breakdown
www.paulcoia.com
My main problem with Britain being snowed under this week wasn’t that I couldn’t get to work, or that I had to drive too slowly so as to avoid stranded cars and lost penguins. What really annoyed me about the white out was Facebook.
Far too many of my friends were stuck at home with lots of time on their hands and started to vent their frustrations by going on line and sending messages to anyone who would listen. Forget the motorways, it was my computer that was snowed under tho’, on the upside, I did get sent one good joke.
Stephen Fry disdains Facebook and uses this new thing called Twitter where you blog in real time from your mobile ‘phone, and this week he updated his fans while being stuck in a lift at Centre Point in London. This ability to let everyone know about your every bowel movement is great for the likes of Pixie Geldof who could Twitter at ten o’clock “Getting married”, at eleven o’clock “now standing in front of Father Elvis in Vegas chapel” and by mid day we’d get blow by blow on the consummation. At lunchtime the expected “oops” would arrive followed by “getting divorced” at tea time. England cricket fans could likewise Twitter their teams live scores before losing the match by lunchtime.
As I will never sign up for it, I can wholeheartedly wish Twitter every success in its endeavour to lure the nut jobs away from Facebook and let us get back to normal.
My Facebook screen was jammed on Monday with messages along the lines of “Mary is making herself a cup of tea and wondering why snow is white” and things like “John is going back to bed and trying to carry on his dream with Keira Knightley” though John didn’t say if the actress was actually there. Another asked me to join a group called "Stop Whingeing About The Snow - Its the Winter" which someone with too much time on their hands set up within hours of the cold weather setting in. When they have a bit of slush at the North Pole do explorers start Facebook groups named “Calm down dear. It’s only Spring”? Would Sir Edmund Hilary have started the “While Sherpas watched their flocks by night” thread? What’s the purpose of these on line virtual gang huts?
On Facebook I’m constantly asked to accept and send back pieces of fruit or flowers and even cocktails, and I have no idea why any adult would think it’s a sign of maturity to ask people to send pretend drinks and fruit to each other. If you don’t click on the button then you run the risk of your daft friend thinking that you’ve fallen out with them. And what do they do with these things when they arrive on their page? Do they open a virtual fruit shop or coffee bar?
One boy in America caused uproar this week on Facebook. The poor bloke is still in the closet and, instead of joining the Boy Scouts or embroidering a nice cushion, he opened a web page under a girl’s name using a photo of a female model in her underwear. He then asked guys to send him (or, as they thought, her) photos of themselves in their Y fronts. The poor, confused kid was found out and his mates are in uproar, getting the police involved.
And that’s one of the problems. The photos you use can be of anyone, but people assume it’s you. You are, of course, supposed to only accept friends on your Facebook page who would know what you look like anyway, but I’ve lost count of the number of requests I’ve received from complete strangers to become my friend. If you click on Ignore when the request comes in then you feel mean, but accepting seems just a bit desperate, as if you’re hell bent on getting your numbers up to look popular. When my mum and dad were teaching me manners, they missed out the Facebook etiquette page completely.
Of course, this is all annoying, yet harmless. I’ve renewed contact with many people I haven’t seen in years - some former girlfriends, many work colleagues, a lot of old friends, and an acquaintance named Tony who used to be in the music business but now, to my surprise, owns a chain of lap dancing clubs. I always liked Tony.
But Facebook is constantly abused. Some idiot started a page for people to bet on the day that Jade Goody will die of cancer, with others publishing comments about her predicament that would shame Stalin in their cruelty.
Fifty million people use Facebook, two million of them here in the UK, and most post personal details about themselves which can be used by fraudsters intent on identity theft. Thinking it funny to reveal your tastes in underwear, or swinging, can seem hilarious to your pals who know it’s a joke, but more and more potential employers are checking Facebook, and sites like it, for any hidden flaws in the people they’ve just interviewed.
You have to know the pitfalls as well as the great benefits of this social networking stuff. The various Snow forums and clubs will soon disappear to be replaced by the “Why are Easter Eggs getting smaller” ones and thousands will sign up exchanging views on the best eggs or the nicest freebie that came in the box. Join in at your peril, and if you get a request from a beautiful model asking for photos of you in your underpants, borrow your mum’s big drawers.
But, as I said at the beginning, I did get sent one good joke on the day of the snow so, here it is. I slipped on the ice and got sent to hospital, but the police kicked me out...... they shouldn't have signs up saying 'Stroke patients here'.
My main problem with Britain being snowed under this week wasn’t that I couldn’t get to work, or that I had to drive too slowly so as to avoid stranded cars and lost penguins. What really annoyed me about the white out was Facebook.
Far too many of my friends were stuck at home with lots of time on their hands and started to vent their frustrations by going on line and sending messages to anyone who would listen. Forget the motorways, it was my computer that was snowed under tho’, on the upside, I did get sent one good joke.
Stephen Fry disdains Facebook and uses this new thing called Twitter where you blog in real time from your mobile ‘phone, and this week he updated his fans while being stuck in a lift at Centre Point in London. This ability to let everyone know about your every bowel movement is great for the likes of Pixie Geldof who could Twitter at ten o’clock “Getting married”, at eleven o’clock “now standing in front of Father Elvis in Vegas chapel” and by mid day we’d get blow by blow on the consummation. At lunchtime the expected “oops” would arrive followed by “getting divorced” at tea time. England cricket fans could likewise Twitter their teams live scores before losing the match by lunchtime.
As I will never sign up for it, I can wholeheartedly wish Twitter every success in its endeavour to lure the nut jobs away from Facebook and let us get back to normal.
My Facebook screen was jammed on Monday with messages along the lines of “Mary is making herself a cup of tea and wondering why snow is white” and things like “John is going back to bed and trying to carry on his dream with Keira Knightley” though John didn’t say if the actress was actually there. Another asked me to join a group called "Stop Whingeing About The Snow - Its the Winter" which someone with too much time on their hands set up within hours of the cold weather setting in. When they have a bit of slush at the North Pole do explorers start Facebook groups named “Calm down dear. It’s only Spring”? Would Sir Edmund Hilary have started the “While Sherpas watched their flocks by night” thread? What’s the purpose of these on line virtual gang huts?
On Facebook I’m constantly asked to accept and send back pieces of fruit or flowers and even cocktails, and I have no idea why any adult would think it’s a sign of maturity to ask people to send pretend drinks and fruit to each other. If you don’t click on the button then you run the risk of your daft friend thinking that you’ve fallen out with them. And what do they do with these things when they arrive on their page? Do they open a virtual fruit shop or coffee bar?
One boy in America caused uproar this week on Facebook. The poor bloke is still in the closet and, instead of joining the Boy Scouts or embroidering a nice cushion, he opened a web page under a girl’s name using a photo of a female model in her underwear. He then asked guys to send him (or, as they thought, her) photos of themselves in their Y fronts. The poor, confused kid was found out and his mates are in uproar, getting the police involved.
And that’s one of the problems. The photos you use can be of anyone, but people assume it’s you. You are, of course, supposed to only accept friends on your Facebook page who would know what you look like anyway, but I’ve lost count of the number of requests I’ve received from complete strangers to become my friend. If you click on Ignore when the request comes in then you feel mean, but accepting seems just a bit desperate, as if you’re hell bent on getting your numbers up to look popular. When my mum and dad were teaching me manners, they missed out the Facebook etiquette page completely.
Of course, this is all annoying, yet harmless. I’ve renewed contact with many people I haven’t seen in years - some former girlfriends, many work colleagues, a lot of old friends, and an acquaintance named Tony who used to be in the music business but now, to my surprise, owns a chain of lap dancing clubs. I always liked Tony.
But Facebook is constantly abused. Some idiot started a page for people to bet on the day that Jade Goody will die of cancer, with others publishing comments about her predicament that would shame Stalin in their cruelty.
Fifty million people use Facebook, two million of them here in the UK, and most post personal details about themselves which can be used by fraudsters intent on identity theft. Thinking it funny to reveal your tastes in underwear, or swinging, can seem hilarious to your pals who know it’s a joke, but more and more potential employers are checking Facebook, and sites like it, for any hidden flaws in the people they’ve just interviewed.
You have to know the pitfalls as well as the great benefits of this social networking stuff. The various Snow forums and clubs will soon disappear to be replaced by the “Why are Easter Eggs getting smaller” ones and thousands will sign up exchanging views on the best eggs or the nicest freebie that came in the box. Join in at your peril, and if you get a request from a beautiful model asking for photos of you in your underpants, borrow your mum’s big drawers.
But, as I said at the beginning, I did get sent one good joke on the day of the snow so, here it is. I slipped on the ice and got sent to hospital, but the police kicked me out...... they shouldn't have signs up saying 'Stroke patients here'.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Going Underground
www.paulcoia.com
New York is in a mess. The city is going bust and those goddesses of the Big Apple, the Wall Street wives, have had to start an online blog asking for tips on how to cook and clean now that their husbands have lost their jobs. Their servants, like the Swarovski encrusted nail extensions, are a thing of the past and, where greed was good, surviving is now better.
The fur coat and silk knicker brigade are having to adapt to their downmarket move to the suburbs. They may even, God forbid, have to travel on public transport which they must have assumed in the past was only for the disabled and criminal fraternity. The fragrant ladies will be carrying their soya café lattes underground to catch the subway and, horror of horrors, will have to plonk last season’s Dolce and Gabbana on a grubby seat that may be more used to charity shop jeans.
But these ladies who have lost their Saks appeal won’t be picking up the subway train in a brand new station, as you may have seen in the story from New York this week. In case you missed it, the first underground rail station to be built in the Big Apple for over twenty years opened on Tuesday at South Ferry following many years of development and a spend of over five hundred million dollars. But no one is allowed to use it.
It turns out that the designers, architects and engineers built the platforms too far from the trains, meaning a virtual bungee jump from the concourse to reach the carriage. The Health and Safety police took seconds to declare it unfit for purpose under the Americans With Disabilities Act and it currently sits, days after the opening, alone and unloved.
I think the reason I love this story so much, apart from the thought of the Banking Beauties losing their Jimmy Choos down the gap between the platforms, is that I can see myself as the designer, foreman and workman, all of whom should have spotted the potential problem and fixed it, but were about as useful as a lap dancer in a mosque.
Like these tradesmen I’ve learned over the years that when I get involved in building anything, despite my best endeavours, it will end up looking like broomstick debris after Dorothy’s house has fallen from the typhoon.
I first discovered my lack of design talent many years ago at school when I decided that what my bedroom wall needed was a calendar to accommodate my bursting diary full of homework, piano lessons and reminders of Blue Peter competition deadlines. Not yet having any pocket money I decided to make one myself. After all, how difficult could it be? With all the planning and forethought of spontaneous applause, I set to.
I folded a cardboard box end in half and stapled it at the sides, and then came to the tough part. I should, of course, have mixed and matched months, days and dates making up twelve months, thirty one dates and seven days. A total of fifty bits of paper. But I wasn’t clever enough to see the easy way out. I decided to do one piece for every day of the year - that’s three hundred and sixty five bits of paper with writing on. Thank God it wasn’t a leap year.
Apart from the fact it took me weeks to do it, slowed as I was by several clouts around the ear for wasting my mum’s good Basildon Bond writing paper, the sheaf of paper became so thick that it wouldn’t fit inside the cardboard envelope now tacked expectantly on my wall. Like the New York station, on a slightly smaller scale, it was not fit for purpose.
My next “make” was an Aston Martin James Bond car. I couldn’t afford the official Airfix model with the bullet proof screen and tyre shredders, so I made my own by cutting the sides and roof from a shirt box and sticking a spring from my Little Physics Lab under a folded, L shaped, cardboard seat. I forced the seat down, glued the roof on and only then realised that the seat couldn’t pop up and eject any loitering baddie as the roof didn’t have an opening. So I cut a hole and, sure enough, the spring was activated with the seat popping straight out in to my face, leaving me with a pirate’s patch and watery eyes for a week or two.
I tried making my own clothes, tie dyeing T shirts that ended up looking exactly the same as before. I widened the leg of my jeans and looked like an effeminate sailor from some Tintin story, and I even sewed patches on my brand new Sunday jacket and was grounded, only being allowed out by my mum to get married. You can see why I’m now sponsored by Armani. They pay me not to wear their clothes.
This chaotic approach to making things followed me in to adult life. I’m good with flat pack furniture from Ikea, which is simply a time consuming, but logical, jigsaw but when asked to start from scratch and make it up as I go along, the word that sums up my efforts is “laughable”. I‘ve come to realise that some people are made to create beautiful things and others, like myself and New York’s engineering fraternity, are life’s botchers.
So, a word of advice to Manhattan’s elite designers and transport chiefs. Next time you want a new station, just save a lot of heartache and buy it flat packed. I’ll even fly over with my screwdriver to help.
New York is in a mess. The city is going bust and those goddesses of the Big Apple, the Wall Street wives, have had to start an online blog asking for tips on how to cook and clean now that their husbands have lost their jobs. Their servants, like the Swarovski encrusted nail extensions, are a thing of the past and, where greed was good, surviving is now better.
The fur coat and silk knicker brigade are having to adapt to their downmarket move to the suburbs. They may even, God forbid, have to travel on public transport which they must have assumed in the past was only for the disabled and criminal fraternity. The fragrant ladies will be carrying their soya café lattes underground to catch the subway and, horror of horrors, will have to plonk last season’s Dolce and Gabbana on a grubby seat that may be more used to charity shop jeans.
But these ladies who have lost their Saks appeal won’t be picking up the subway train in a brand new station, as you may have seen in the story from New York this week. In case you missed it, the first underground rail station to be built in the Big Apple for over twenty years opened on Tuesday at South Ferry following many years of development and a spend of over five hundred million dollars. But no one is allowed to use it.
It turns out that the designers, architects and engineers built the platforms too far from the trains, meaning a virtual bungee jump from the concourse to reach the carriage. The Health and Safety police took seconds to declare it unfit for purpose under the Americans With Disabilities Act and it currently sits, days after the opening, alone and unloved.
I think the reason I love this story so much, apart from the thought of the Banking Beauties losing their Jimmy Choos down the gap between the platforms, is that I can see myself as the designer, foreman and workman, all of whom should have spotted the potential problem and fixed it, but were about as useful as a lap dancer in a mosque.
Like these tradesmen I’ve learned over the years that when I get involved in building anything, despite my best endeavours, it will end up looking like broomstick debris after Dorothy’s house has fallen from the typhoon.
I first discovered my lack of design talent many years ago at school when I decided that what my bedroom wall needed was a calendar to accommodate my bursting diary full of homework, piano lessons and reminders of Blue Peter competition deadlines. Not yet having any pocket money I decided to make one myself. After all, how difficult could it be? With all the planning and forethought of spontaneous applause, I set to.
I folded a cardboard box end in half and stapled it at the sides, and then came to the tough part. I should, of course, have mixed and matched months, days and dates making up twelve months, thirty one dates and seven days. A total of fifty bits of paper. But I wasn’t clever enough to see the easy way out. I decided to do one piece for every day of the year - that’s three hundred and sixty five bits of paper with writing on. Thank God it wasn’t a leap year.
Apart from the fact it took me weeks to do it, slowed as I was by several clouts around the ear for wasting my mum’s good Basildon Bond writing paper, the sheaf of paper became so thick that it wouldn’t fit inside the cardboard envelope now tacked expectantly on my wall. Like the New York station, on a slightly smaller scale, it was not fit for purpose.
My next “make” was an Aston Martin James Bond car. I couldn’t afford the official Airfix model with the bullet proof screen and tyre shredders, so I made my own by cutting the sides and roof from a shirt box and sticking a spring from my Little Physics Lab under a folded, L shaped, cardboard seat. I forced the seat down, glued the roof on and only then realised that the seat couldn’t pop up and eject any loitering baddie as the roof didn’t have an opening. So I cut a hole and, sure enough, the spring was activated with the seat popping straight out in to my face, leaving me with a pirate’s patch and watery eyes for a week or two.
I tried making my own clothes, tie dyeing T shirts that ended up looking exactly the same as before. I widened the leg of my jeans and looked like an effeminate sailor from some Tintin story, and I even sewed patches on my brand new Sunday jacket and was grounded, only being allowed out by my mum to get married. You can see why I’m now sponsored by Armani. They pay me not to wear their clothes.
This chaotic approach to making things followed me in to adult life. I’m good with flat pack furniture from Ikea, which is simply a time consuming, but logical, jigsaw but when asked to start from scratch and make it up as I go along, the word that sums up my efforts is “laughable”. I‘ve come to realise that some people are made to create beautiful things and others, like myself and New York’s engineering fraternity, are life’s botchers.
So, a word of advice to Manhattan’s elite designers and transport chiefs. Next time you want a new station, just save a lot of heartache and buy it flat packed. I’ll even fly over with my screwdriver to help.
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