Back To Life, Back To Reality

I don’t know if it escaped you but the Beatles broke up over the past few days, prime minister Harold Wilson looks like retiring, and Richard Nixon said he thinks this new fangled flower power thing will die out soon.

This week I felt that I was in a bad Sixties movie, all Albert Finney shouting at Rita Tushingham in the rain and everything available only in black and white, and I would not have been surprised at one point to see Gene Kelly swinging round a lamppost and jumping in puddles. I feel I stepped in to the Tardis and flew back to a time when typists manned customer service desks and filed their nails rather than complaints.

I’ve written about this before, which probably shows I’m becoming an angry old man, but what is it about some businesses that it seems a badge of pride to keep their customer service stuck in monochrome? Twice in the past week or two I have been left wanting to scream, shout, kick the cat and then send the vet’s bill to the companies that have driven me insane with customer service operators who are thicker than Russell Brand’s mattress. If a new tax was brought in on brain cells they wouldn’t pay a penny.

My satellite TV provider and the company who look after the water softener in my house should be shamed, exposed, have custard pies thrown at them, be made to clean toilets at a camel race in the desert and then forced to watch Loose Women. Well, maybe the Loose Women thing is a bit much, but, like the camels, you get my drift.

On a global scale of things to worry about (war, credit crunch and the decline of Coronation Street) I realise satellite TV and water softener employees making me mad is small beer, and that you’re probably thinking anyone who needs a water softener is a great big wuss anyway, but I just hate the rudeness and incompetence of some companies, especially since so many others seem to have smartened up their act and got it right.

Incidentally, I need the water company to stop the pipes in my house furring up with lime and not, as you probably thought when looking at my photo, to keep my amazing baby like skin soft and gentle. They didn’t call me after promising that they would ring back immediately, leaving me to do all the chasing for a whole week, and then didn’t even apologise when I finally got hold of them for the fourth time. The satellite telly company, meanwhile, made me take three different mornings off work to get my box renewed, turning up each time with replacements that didn’t work. And again, as that great philosopher Elton of Pinner said, “sorry seems to be the hardest word”. Apology? You are so clearly kidding that I am now laughing in HD.

These companies are like The Fonz in Happy Days, but without the laughs. Arthur Fonzarelli, memorably, couldn’t ever say “sorry” for anything and the word stuck in his throat so that he’d get as far as “I’m sssssss” before going quiet again. Mind you, at least he tried.

Eventually, the TV people agreed that my taking mornings off was getting ridiculous so they said I should call them the day before on a special number at four o’clock and get a more specific time when the engineer would arrive. So, I did call at the appointed hour. It was an answering machine telling me the office was closed.

None the wiser I waited next day and the bloke, who I had been wrongly promised would phone me, turned up just before lunchtime. When I vented my frustration he, disarmingly, agreed with every word and told me he spends his working day apologising for his employer.

So, I’ve had enough. I can do the rude thing too, just like the head of customer service at the water softener company who was so soft himself he put me on hold and didn’t come back. I’m hoping it was because his car was nicked or his house broken in to and his stamp collection flushed down the toilet.

Behaving badly is easy, but being nice takes more effort. I can act like a badly brought up waste of skin who has never been taught that the word “sorry” goes a long way too. I’m going to stop my payments to these companies and, when they call to ask why, I’ll say that I’ll call them straight back.

And then I’ll go on holiday.

Summer Breeze

Being a Scotsman living in the land of London, I just love Summer. This is the best time of year to see England, and the English, in all their glory as this season seems to confirm all the prejudices people have about the country being stuck in scratchy black and white celluloid and portrayed as the old, infirm, matriarch with a stiff upper hip and vowels more rounded than Beyonce’s sitting gear.

English summers may be quaint, but they work. Back home, this is the time when we Scots have the odd Highland Games meeting in the rain or throw open Edinburgh Castle to rampaging military bands who show off the musical baton twirling and dog acrobatics that have the world’s terrorists trembling in shock and awe. We even put on the Festival to give theatre groups and arty farties a chance to watch each other perform Shakespeare on unicycles for three people in cagoules.

But when we organise these events we always do it with one eye on the tourist dollar and the other on deposit rates. The land of Adam Smith and Andrew Carnegie loves the tradition of making money, and so our tourist traditions tend to be simply functional and cash generating, whereas the English have turned theirs in to an art form that would have Toad throwing his bowler hat in the air with a quick Hoorah while steering his punt away from Toad Hall over a river of pink champagne.

The English are very good at keeping the tourists happy and ignore the ridicule and sniggers. I’m not thinking here of the Changing Of The Guard at Buckingham Palace or the kicking of the guard at the Tower of London to see if he reacts, but I’m thinking more of the summer traditions which are everywhere just now.

We’ve just had Royal Ascot, which for those of you reading this in far off places is where a bunch of horse faced people get very drunk on champagne while watching their relatives race round a course for a few days. The Simons and Ashleys of England take their Taras and Nigellas to the Ascot racecourse each year in a chauffered limo while more cars follow behind with their wallets and hats. The event kicks off with Ladies Day which belongs to the fairer sex and is a highlight for press photographers who look for skirts flying up or hats blowing off, while Simon and Ashley take a back seat in the champagne tent, blowing off too.

Over at the summer Henley Regatta, deckchair manufacturers use off cuts of material to run up blazers and caps for the male spectators who wear them like a Sixth form boarding school outing accompanied by lashings of lemonade and oodles of cake. Foul mouthed cries of “Gosh”, “Golly” and “Cripes” greet any rowing crew which loses, and then it’s back to the picnic and a visit to matron for upset tummy.

Sticks figure heavily in English summers. Morris dancers, who are bearded men dressed in pyjamas and wearing hats stolen from Spanish donkeys, hit each other with bits of wood while their mate stands by ready to wallop the loser with an accordion.

And sticks feature in Cricket too. This is the summer sport invented by the English to confuse Americans, and trying to explain the rules is akin to detailing the complete DNA breakdown of a parasitical mite whilst reciting the periodic table, backwards. Basically someone throws a ball at some sticks while his opponent protects the sticks with a bigger one. After five minutes they break for tea, then start again for a few minutes before stopping for elevenses, lunch, siesta, afternoon tea and tiffin, with any clouds in the sky halting proceedings for a scone and clotted cream break. After a game lasting several months, it can still be declared a draw.

Of course the English tradition the world is watching just now is Wimbledon, perhaps the pinnacle of English summer madness, and when I visited last week the sun was blazing, a chance to see the straw hats and flannels sup their Pimms and eat strawberries with colonial efficiency on the lawn whilst watching the world pass by. Most had probably come fresh from the Hay Festival, a gathering of book people in faded khaki T shirts with thinning hair and beards. It’s not all sexist as some men go too. They exchange recipes for organic pulse lasagne, sign a few copies of their latest book on mediaeval knitting, and then back to the tent for a sing along before bed time.

This is just one of the many festivals over summer and, as I wasn’t made for camping, when I want the authentic pop festival experience, I sit on the grass in my garden with my kids pouring buckets of water on me while I drink Red Bull and squint at a band on my tiny iPod screen which is hanging on a fence a hundred metres away. Occasionally I get up and go in the kitchen where my wife charges me ten pounds for a bottle of water and a jam roll.

I cannot fathom events like the very English Glastonbury Festival which has just ended. At Scottish festivals bands are booked only if their decibel levels directly correlate to their testosterone levels with rock bands competing in bad behaviour and macho posturing. Glastonbury had Gilbert O’Sullivan, Neil Diamond and Shakin’ Stevens and the organisers must have been gutted that they couldn’t get The New Seekers back together to close with a rousing I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing.

So the English, and their summers, are madder than a stalker in sandals but the world would be a sadder place without them. Quaint, bonkers, old fashioned and daft. A great combination.

Old Before I Die

Of course I’d heard about that time of life when you start to notice that you can’t stand up, or even sit down, without a great expulsion of air – through your mouth I hasten to add– making a great “aaaahhh” sound. But I never thought much about it, assuming it would happen in many years time when I was coming back from the Post Office with my pension book and bag of boiled sweets to watch Countdown.

I do find, though, that I frequently make that “aaaaahh” sound like most blokes because it’s a guy’s thing, a way of telling the fairer sex that we are doing manly, strenuous things they couldn’t possibly understand. We guys like to be sympathised with as if we are superheroes who save the planet every day, and I’m told that even getting out of the shower and towelling myself I sound like a cross between a marathon runner and a whale’s blow hole, as if expelling air hard makes my wife aware just how manly I am.

But I’ve noticed that after a visit to the gym now I have started overdoing the gasping bit even when just sitting down, a bit like my grandparents used to do. I think I’m starting to fall apart.

Back home in Glasgow there’s a great Scottish expression for someone who is getting on a bit and suffering the aches and pains of older age. They’re called “fonty”, as in “fonty bits” (falling to bits).

So I have to admit to becoming a bit fonty now, as my various visits to sports injury clinics and MRI machines over the past year will testify. My big problem, of course, is that I think I’m still a teenager and that racing against gym instructors in running classes and trying to beat them is a good idea.

I recently had a medical and was told I had the heart and lungs of someone in their mid twenties but that the rest of my body looked like Rip Van Winkle, two hundred years after he’d woken up. All my running and five a side football has knackered my body and, even if they had the technology to make it good again, the makers of the million dollar man would be looking at rampant inflation to get near rebuilding me.

So this week, for the first time, I bought a Men’s Fitness magazine. To be honest, I was a bit embarrassed as the muscle laden hulk on the front in his gym shorts made me feel I was buying a soft porn mag for middle aged ladies. I fell for the promise of a six pack in six weeks but, having read the exercise regime needed, I feel I’ll have to meet them half way – a three pack in three years.

What really entertained me amongst the articles and vitamin supplement advice was the adverts, with lots of suggestions for treatments to restore my hair. Fortunately I’m not bald but, judging by this magazine, everyone else must be. The before and after photos are hilarious with deliberately depressed looking men showing their shiny heads in the “before” picture followed by them smiling, with make up on, and with road kill balanced on their heads in the “after”.

Another batch of adverts insisted they’d cure snoring, yet more dealt with flatulence, and one was headed The Male Menopause – Your Prostate And You. What had I wandered in to? I thought in was getting a fitness magazine but ended up reading about a lifestyle more suited to a comfy chair staring at a wall while the nice lady in an overall makes me a cup of tea before the Bingo starts.

Delving a bit deeper I did find an ad called Enhance Your Pulling Power. Thinking this would be a bit more vital and vibrant I read on to find it was a face mask for men which had to be pulled off after ten minutes to unblock my pores. I’m as willing to try new things as anyone but a face mask? It’s also blue, so there’s no way you could hide it when the pools man comes for his money or the neighbour drops by for a chat.

I don’t care about enlarged pores, ingrowing hair, revitalising creams, hormone supplements or tummy tucks. I just want to be me, and this feminisation of men’s magazines seems to me to be the first step on the slippery road to us macho types setting the hard drives to record Loose Women.

And then, of course, there are the pages devoted to improving men’s performance in the romantic entanglement area, if you get my drift. A man called Lee Murray, aged 29 and a stand up comedian we’re told, swears by something called Prelox. My first thought was “he’s having a laugh”, but then that’s his audience’s job. He says it has improved his love life, heart, blood pressure, cholesterol and confidence. It hasn’t improved his hair line though, as his photo shows it’s receding faster then the chances of me ever buying one of these magazines again.

So why can’t someone come up with a decent men’s health magazine that doesn’t make us feel old before our time? I’m guessing women must have loads of them but we men are forgotten about unless we’re bald, impotent, spotty fat people with nasal hair and flatulence.

Mind you, according to my wife, I’ve just bought the mag a year too early.

Wake Me Up Before You Go Go

I was stuck at a party this week with a man who could qualify for a degree level qualification in being boring. I was going to say he deserved a PhD but, as there is no letter “I” in there, he’d probably refuse to take it. I reckon this bore should have been a policeman as I can imagine him really enjoying a walk around his beat each day, saying to anyone he met “I, I, what’s going on here then?”.

Imagine listening to the most boring sermon, given by the most boring person, about the most boring subject, and it being delivered in a language you don’t understand and you will still not get close to how life defeatingly crass this bloke was.

He had obviously trained hard all his days for this sport of droning on, and believe me he was Olympic standard. As an example, and I’m not kidding here, I mentioned the weather was just a little uncomfortably warm and he proceeded to talk of his hottest ever holiday in Morocco at length, including what he ate, bought, and saw, plus the effect it had on his bowel movements.

Trying to change the subject I asked the lady who was standing with us if she was going anywhere exciting this summer and, before she could reply, Mr B. O’Ring jumped in with facts about his past summer vacations and how surprised he was that no one ever kept in touch with him after a holiday, and he made our eyes roll in their sockets until, I’m sorry to say, I deliberately spilled my wine over him so he had to go and get a towel and I could make my escape.

I was ashamed of my behaviour but it was either that or suicide, and if I’d elected to top myself I just know he would have advised me for hours about the best way to do it. Unfortunately he would not be speaking from experience.

So how do you get away from social misfits at parties? Please let me know because I am lousy at it. I seem to have a sign on my head saying “Over Here for Sympathy” and I even find my mates standing behind these outcasts making faces at me as if they knew it would happen. The thing is, all my friends say I am too nice to nutters. I should tell them to get lost and walk away, but I am a sucker for the underdog and waste hours talking to social outcasts - most of whom are broadcasters.

It’s an easy mistake to make, thinking that people on telly or radio must be interesting, but trust me they’re not. Most do it because nowhere else would put up with them and their ego.

This bloke, for instance, works in the music world and must think that I Tunes was named after him. He told me he felt he should keep a low profile in case the public recognised him. Even I didn’t recognise him and he had already spent two hours reciting his CV. I played up a bit and took the Mickey just to stop me drawing blood as I dug my nails in my wrists. Expressing concern that his fame meant carrying a great burden, I offered him my sunglasses to put on in case he was recognised by the barman. He actually took them and, stupid me, as he ran off to get a towel, he kept them too.

I have met and interviewed many, many stars over the years and the bigger they are the nicer they tend to be. Apart from Madonna of course. It’s the small people who are the bores because they are the ones who are big, big stars in their imaginations.
Worst of all is when they come along to present a prize at some awards ceremony and, no matter how often you tell them just to keep it brief, they always have a “funny” routine worked out involving some “funny” line they’ve delivered. They seem to come with their own laughter track that gets switched on in their head as they believe they are going down a storm and they then walk off stage and hang around hoping someone will ask for an autograph.

One, who shall remain anonymous, owed me a favour and so came to open our local garden fete. He sent a list of demands ahead of time as if he was playing the Albert Hall and turned up asking what security arrangements had been made and where the Press were going to be told to stand. I reminded him this was very local and just a Saturday afternoon summer get together to raise funds, but he insisted a table was set up and people told to stand in line for autographs. As very few bothered with his signature I called in a favour and asked some kids to pretend to be interested. Afterwards they told me he’d been so obnoxious they had gone out of their way to tell him they loved the soap opera he was in. Actually he was a news reader.

So maybe the next time I’m stuck at a party with a showbiz bore I should look for a member of the public to bring them down to size.

I remember one local radio presenter who was asked to open a Christmas bazaar and turned up to be greeted by the organiser with the words “Who are you? We thought we were getting someone famous. Oh well, I guess you’ll have to do.”

It took that radio presenter a long time to get over that. In fact, if I’m honest, I’m still trying.