Diary of a Somebody Read online

  yet each line’s ending sounds different, though,

  best hidden behind a hiccough or cough.

  Was this upsetting to Byron or Yeats?

  Dickinson or Wordsworth? Larkin or Keats?

  Did they see these words as auditory threats?

  Could they write their lines without caveats?

  But does it matter when all’s said and done

  if you read this as scone when I meant scone?

  It’s hardly a crime. There’s no need to atone;

  it’s all baloney to an abalone.

  Don’t mumble these endings into your beard.

  This poem should be seen, rather than heard.

  Wednesday February 7th

  I have crash-landed on a distant planet. It is full of bright, vivid colours, spectacular landscapes and breathtaking sunsets. Its inhabitants, who are both beautiful and courteous, and wear immaculate teeth, tell me that it is called Planet Stock Photography. They smile broadly at me as I insert them into the PowerPoint.

  Back home, I find myself clearing up several of Marvin’s disposable kidney dishes from my front garden. Earth seems so shoddy in comparison: why do we put up with it?

  Thursday February 8th

  I’d forgotten all about parents’ evening.

  Those hours on Planet Stock Photography yesterday must have confused my brain and distracted me from my real-world responsibilities. If only I had some kind of book to write these things down in: a planner, perhaps, or a diary.

  Sophie was fuming, of course. I really need to keep my phone on at all times, she says. Last night’s sequence of texts from her quickly escalated from word-based messages to ones comprised purely of emojis. And not the polite, smiley ones either. :-(

  Friday February 9th

  Snowball

  As soon as I’d opened my eyes, I knew that the world had changed; there was some subtle difference in the curtained light, barely perceptible at first in my half-woken sleep, as it fell upon my dappled duvet. Snow!

  Seizing the day by its snow-encrusted shoulders, I phoned the office to let them know that owing to the treacherous conditions, I’d be working from home. I climbed back into bed to enjoy the slow hypnotic dance of snowflakes through the window.

  The Man at Number 29 had put the right bin bags out on the right day, for once, only for today’s collection to be postponed due to the inclement weather.

  It looks like it’s settling in for a few days. Football must surely be cancelled! Perhaps Dylan and I could have a snowball fight instead? Or we could build a snowman?! I’d love that – and I suspect that beneath the troubled hoodie of adolescence, he would, too.

  Saturday February 10th

  Snowman

  I roughly twisted

  the two lumps of black

  deep into where

  the eyes should be,

  smiling at their darkness

  shining like diamonds.

  A carrot, comically crooked,

  was rammed in, offset

  by a blood-soaked fedora

  and old woollen scarf.

  It had been two hours

  since he’d last made a noise.

  Bored now, I went outside

  to build a snowman

  for the snow

  had freshly settled.

  I suggested to Dylan that we go to the park to make a snowman. He yawned and stretched in response before telling me that he’d prefer a quiet day inside. He looked away shiftily.

  I interrogated him further. He’s exhausted, he eventually told me, having spent the whole of yesterday outside, building a snowman with Stuart. But he wasn’t so exhausted that he couldn’t stop himself from showing me a series of eighty-five photographs documenting its construction. The final one was of Stuart grinning back at the camera, like an Eskimo on Ecstasy, standing proudly next to the snowman. I studied it more closely: the proportions were all wrong; the smile was crooked; it would most likely melt when the sun came out.

  The snowman wasn’t much better either.

  Sunday February 11th

  The theme of the next Well Versed competition is ‘technology’, a sphere of life which I’ve always found to be challenging. I am – at best – a late adopter with a track record of ill-advised flirtations (Betamax, Vic-20, Friends Reunited). By the time I’ve figured out where I should have been all the while (VHS, ZX Spectrum, Facebook), those who were already there have moved on to someplace else.

  This time, I’ve decided to put some proper effort into it, rather than just dash off a few words and hope for the best. I fired up the internet with the intention of doing some research on Ask Jeeves but almost instantly became waylaid by Twitter. My follower count has now swollen to twenty-four; it always seems to increase when I haven’t tweeted and shrink when I have. After lengthy deliberation, I decided to follow Toby Salt. He now has more than three hundred followers. He’s also updated his profile picture to one of him staring intently into the camera, chin resting on his hands. He looks mildly constipated.

  I resorted to more tried and tested means of research. Braving the snow, I headed to the bookshop in search of further inspiration as well as to get this month’s book group choice: Candide by Voltaire. I arrived back home with my bag bursting with books: three titles in a new series on technology and social change; a biography of Steve Jobs; I, Robot by Isaac Asimov; Presentation Skills for Dummies; How to Market Yourself on Social Media; and a book on how ebooks are taking over from print, which has just published in paperback.

  Monday February 12th

  Slush-trudging into work, I slush-trudged on with my Leamington Spa presentation. At the end of the day, I looked back at what I’d achieved.

  It is still mainly pictures.

  I need some words.

  Any words.

  Where are the words? I can’t find the words.

  Who has taken all of the stupid words?

  Tuesday February 13th

  Shrove Tuesday rituals are more of a chore than a ceremony when you have only yourself to make pancakes for but still I persist with its sugary sacraments and lemon-juiced litanies. As my frying pan began to sizzle, I remembered a poem I’d written for Sophie, in pre-Dylan days, when she would still bother to read them:

  Full moon peering through my window:

  there’s nothing that you do not know!

  You guide the tides and human hearts,

  enlighten Science, enrich the Arts,

  make poets weep and lovers croon;

  for love is lost without you, moon.

  Divine disc shining down . . . what’s that?

  You seem to be this side of the glass.

  An ancient memory starts to grow:

  Shrove Tuesday several years ago,

  a zealous toss, my pancake lost;

  I searched all day but time wore on.

  I’d often wondered where you’d gone.

  I was still gently tossing when the doorbell rang. It was Mrs McNulty. She’s having one of her ‘gatherings’ on Sunday and advises me that it might be for the best if I could attend in person. The spirits, by all accounts, take a dim view concerning the absenteeism of those ‘under question’ and regard ignorance as no excuse.

  I do worry about Mrs McNulty sometimes. Dylan finds her scary but I think she’s harmless enough. I suppose I shall have to go. The last time I refused her invitation, I returned home from work the next day to find the grass on my back lawn flattened in the shape of a giant phallus; Mrs McNulty claimed it was a crop circle signifying fertility, most likely caused by some kind of extra-terrestrial craft, but the compressed grass bore all the hallmarks of the tread from her sit-on lawn mower.

  Wednesday February 14th

  The Flowers of the Garage Forecourt

  Budding lovers beware

  of the Flowers of the Garage Forecourt;

  they are not for courting.

  Love will not blossom

  with those blundering bouquets of cellophaned sadness:<
br />
  the slip-road roses and petrol-pump peonies.

  The crushed-dream chrysanthemums.

  All those dahlias of desperation!

  The I-forgot-you forget-me-nots.

  Remember this: would-be patrons

  of the Flowers of the Garage Forecourt:

  romance wilts with lack of forethought.

  Sophie has posted up a picture on Facebook of a huge bunch of flowers that arrived for her at work today, sent by Stuart. It contains all sorts of flowers: yellow ones, red ones, white ones, even some of the purple ones. It must have cost a fortune for all those different colours.

  I fought off the gloom by hosting a romantic, candlelit supper with The Guardian Bumper Christmas Cryptic Crossword. At 7 across, I tentatively pencilled in CURMUDGEON while trying to stop myself from wondering how Liz was spending her Valentine’s Day.

  Not that it is any of my business, of course. I am quite content to leave love and all that stuff to others who possess more expertise in the area; it is a splendid thing indeed that those people have their own day to commemorate such things. But if you’re going to celebrate love, then why stop there? Where are the days dedicated to other just-as-pure emotional states – such as envy and loneliness, panic and anguish? Lovers have it made already, without being encouraged to shake their expensive, multi-coloured bouquets in the faces of the rest of us.

  Thursday February 15th

  Advice for Removing Keyboard Tearstains

  If you happen to notice

  your keyboard is dirty,

  use a water spray can

  and give it a SQWERTY.

  Compassionately wiping the teardrop smears from my keyboard, Tomas asked me what the matter was. I simply shrugged and held up my hands in a despairing, expansive gesture, one which took in my Leamington PowerPoint, my shabby officle, the ridiculousness of the corporate world and twenty-first-century life more broadly. Tomas told me I was worrying unduly about my presentation:

  ‘After all,’ he said, ‘implicit in language is its own limitation. All forms of communication are intrinsically flawed and the worlds that each of us perceive and make for ourselves will forever be different because of this.’

  Before he came over to England and found himself cleaning middle-management officles, Tomas was a Professor of Modern Philosophy at the University of Warsaw and one of the world’s leading scholars of Ludwig Wittgenstein. I asked him how he felt about this reduction in his circumstances.

  ‘As the good Ludwig once said, “If people never did silly things, nothing intelligent would get done”,’ he replied enigmatically before proceeding to empty my bin of its Twix wrappers.

  Friday February 16th

  I think Allen Ginsberg was right when he said that he’d seen the best minds of his generation destroyed by never-ending PowerPoint presentations on branding, social media and value propositions.

  It is 2 a.m. on Saturday as I write this entry. I have been working on the Leamington Spa PowerPoint now for seventeen consecutive hours. It now contains 211 slides. My presentation is supposed to last for thirty minutes. That is an average of 7.03 slides per minute. Or a new slide every 8.53 seconds.

  43 custard creams have been consumed during this period.

  Saturday February 17th

  We traipsed wearily back from football. 0–8. I suggested to Dylan that he might consider forgoing football for Lent.

  ‘Whenever you feel like giving up,’ he said, fixing me with a meaningful look, ‘you need to remember why you held on for so long in the first place.’

  I looked at him with renewed respect. What a mature and positive approach to the world that young man has.

  But it all came out over lunch. It appears that Stuart has a sideline in motivational speaking and Dylan went to see him in action last night. I tried hard to suppress my laugh but Dylan looked at me disappointedly. He told me that cynicism is just another word for giving up.

  We finished our remaining spaghetti hoops in silence.

  After I’d dropped him back home, I resumed work on the Leamington Spa PowerPoint, breaking off briefly to check Twitter. Toby Salt has tweeted that he’s very much looking forward to performing at the Saffron Walden Poetry Festival in July. This golden nugget of information has received fourteen retweets and twenty-six likes. It must have been a slow news day.

  Sunday February 18th

  Mrs McNulty’s face flickered in the light of the seven candles that surrounded the board. In the darkness behind, I saw the curtains billow dramatically in the wind from a fan that had been strategically placed behind them. A soft howling came from the fireplace, although I suspect its true source came from the Natural Sounds: Windy Winter’s Day relaxation CD, whose empty case I’d noticed on the sideboard when I’d entered the room.

  Dave, Martin and Marvin were there. As was Mrs Collingwood from number 47 (Mrs McNulty’s bingo partner) and Mr Paxton, who was introduced to us all as a big wheel in the haberdashery trade. Mrs McNulty looked solemnly at us, recited a protection prayer (which I’m pretty sure was actually just the lyrics to ‘Your Love is King’ by Sade), and ‘because you can never be too careful’, proceeded to sprinkle us all with salt.

  We were invited to place a finger upon the planchette and the farce began. ‘Is anybody there?’ We waited. Not a thing. Mrs McNulty entreated us to vanquish all negative energy from the room and we tried once more. Still nothing. Bored now, my mind began to wander. I thought about the Leamington Spa PowerPoint. I made a mental note to start reading Voltaire’s Candide for this month’s book group. I remembered Toby Salt’s tweet from earlier, in which he’d announced that tickets for his Saffron Walden event had now sold out. I imagined him in one of Saffron Walden’s smaller venues: the back room of the village hall, perhaps. The bay window of a tea shop. A potting shed.

  The planchette was moving across the board. Slowly at first, then more quickly: B-E-W-A-R-E, it said. Mrs McNulty became noticeably aroused. W-H-Y, we responded. There was another pause before the block began to move wildly from one letter to the next: D-E-A-T-H-I-S-C-O-M-I-N-G. More gasps from Mrs McNulty. She couldn’t help herself: T-O-W-H-O.

  It should have been T-O-W-H-O-M but I didn’t like to interrupt. After a brief lull, the planchette set off again to the left – B – before lurching down to the right – R – further along and up again – I – heading back left, and then . . . my phone rang:

  ‘P-P-I’. Had I been mis-sold it?

  I disposed of the caller in summary fashion, but Mrs McNulty was unimpressed. Apparently, I’d ‘destroyed the circle of trust’ we’d established in the room, and the spirit had been frightened off.

  She was still angry with me when I left thirty minutes later, although the look she gave seemed mixed with something else. Fear, perhaps? Or pity? Still, the evening had proved entertaining and I went to bed thinking about all the things beginning with BRI-that might have death coming to it: British industry, Britney Spears’ career, Bristol Cream consumption, briar pipe usage.

  Monday February 19th

  This is just to say

  I have eaten

  the custard creams

  that were in

  my hotel room

  and which

  have probably

  been here

  since last Christmas

  Forgive me

  they were delicious

  so custardy and creamy

  and so soft

  Leamington Spa! Home of the Royal Pump Rooms and Baths! Birthplace of Randolph ‘Randy’ Turpin! Pioneer of lawn tennis! Setting for the 1990s BBC sitcom Keeping Up Appearances!

  That’s what Wikipedia tells me anyway, having had very little chance to explore the town since I arrived at the Royal Oak Hotel five hours ago. For me, this Warwickshire spa town comprises of no more than this: a room which smells of mothballs, a migraine-inducing floral carpet which must have felt dated back when Charles and Di were getting hitched, the compulsory Corby trouser press and packet of stale custard
creams, a shower that drips metronomically and these slides, these endless PowerPoint slides.

  I have now managed to cut thirty-six of them, creating thirty-two new ones in the process. In spite of this, I’m not sure they reveal much about how we might leverage the power of social media to brand-manage our value proposition. After all this time I still don’t know what that means.

  Tuesday February 20th

  The Onboarded

  We have been here before.

  We who slouch at formica tables

  and fish adeptly in sea-green bowls

  for cellophaned sweets to the music of fizzy water.

  For

  We who drowse in PowerPointed twilight,

  as time slides slowly past, fearful of break-outs

  and the tyranny of role play.

  For we

  We who doodle on hotel-headed notepaper

  and listen distractedly to the motorway’s distant hum

  which leads to other places.

  For we are

  We who leave money so carelessly on the table

  and grab greedily at the pendulous fruit

  that hangs so low.

  For we are the

  We who wait in shabby expectation

  of the all-too-brief respite of bourbons

  and tepid coffee.

  For we are the awayday