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FIVE
These deeply, deeply unfashionable shoes are made for walking
Lord’s.
Nigel is at Lord’s.
So much for well-drilled trios and mutual respect and support. Pissing off to watch the West Indies and upsetting the delicate balance of the block like this. I haven’t even donned my deeply, deeply unfashionable shoes yet, and already I am thinking negative thoughts about the game. I shake my head and curse my stupidity, dragging myself back into the Zone.
The first home match is always an interesting one. Let’s get some points on the board.
Immaculate, fine grass, mown lovingly once lengthways and then once on the traverse, to create a geometric criss-cross of stripes that makes you want to hug the ground or at the very least stroke it with your cheek. Manicured borders and a white picket fence, with a wooden pavilion constructed simply but in the Edwardian style, with a small verandah. Three elderly men, rooted to the same seats since time immemorial, sit watching the play knowledgeably, smoking clay pipes, whilst a couple of wives diligently cut the crusts off ham and cucumber sandwiches.
I would imagine that some bowls clubs are like this. As for us, we sit outside the draughty builders’ demountable hut that serves as our rain shelter and toilet, waiting for Howard to allocate the score cards for this agricultural square of land. You need a score card before you can move on to the ‘have a good game’s, as this tells you which rink that you’ll be playing on and against whom – and there’s not much you can do until you know that.
This is the key to home advantage. It’s nothing to do with being comfortable in your surroundings, or having a large crowd to roar you on. It’s certainly been a bit less since we were asked to vacate the nice green beside the pub. It’s the fact that by rights it should take the opposition three or four ends to work out that there’s a slight slope up and down, and that when bowling forehand on the uphill you need no angle at all.
Big Andy checks the card. Three – we have been given rink three. The one with the most pronounced hump three-quarters of the way on the downhill, where the skill is to attempt to bring the wood to a halt just on the prow where the grass is barest, so that it might roll gently down the other side vaguely towards the cott. We stroll across the green, up and down, up and down its undulations until we reach the mat. Light brown patches, dark green patches.
But it doesn’t matter.
The Stones, the Beatles, The Who – all the great records from the golden age were recorded on primitive equipment. The Kinks had a cheap guitar and a broken amplifier, and produced ‘You Really Got Me’, whilst even well into the seventies, Pink Floyd were using Sellotape to stick together fragments of master tape to create ‘The Dark Side of the Moon’. But then what happened? Pristine, flat, mown criss-cross stripe technology brought us Jean-Michel Jarre and Cher doing ‘Believe’. The idea that rough-and-ready is by definition not acceptable is not something that needs necessarily to be brought to bowls.
EBA-affiliated greens generally benefit from the slickest production techniques. The English Bowling Association is the national governing body for bowls, although affiliation is voluntary and the association has nothing to do with our own club. We play very occasionally on an EBA green, and the difference is palpable – formal notices, honours boards, professional greenkeepers and flat, flat, flat. It is nice, but alarmingly favours the better bowlers, and most of us are just as happy with a flattish piece of grass and the services of a bloke with a mower.
I remove my Stella Artois beer towel from my bag and wipe my wood with pride.
If non-believers know one historical fact about bowls, it’s that Sir Francis Drake refused to prematurely curtail his game, preferring to complete the final end before engaging and defeating the Spanish Armada. There’s no firm evidence that this is anything other than a patriotic tale, although to anybody who’s been forced by a sadistic enthusiast to play on through howling gales, squalls and electrical storms the story does have the ring of truth about it.
‘We still have time to finish the game and to thrash the Spaniards too!’ is the quote that’s cited. One suspects that, in the remote event that this episode did actually take place, Drake was fortunate that we didn’t go on to lose. Still, it is a good legend, and ‘Drake’s Pride’ is now a well-known brand of wood and bowls equipment, endorsed by – among others – Short Tony.
Drake was a well-to-do sort but when it came to the lower classes, bowls was illegal in England – right up until the midnineteenth century. Henry VIII had worried that the sport would distract workers from their jobs; that they would piss about playing bowls instead of doing an honest hard day’s work. How things change. Subsequent rulers agreed with him, and bowls went underground – becoming known as a sport for drunkards, layabouts and vagabonds, a sport during which violence might occur at any minute. We’ve had none of that, although we did see a little undercurrent of tension at an away match a couple of years back, when the bowls people clashed with a folk club.
It’s an odd concept now, but pick any era, and you’ll find an interest of the common people that the establishment has identified as a threat. Marilyn Manson, rave music, the Sex Pistols – even the Beatles and the Stones. For a few hundred years, this perceived threat was bowls. The game might be the new rock and roll – but once it was more than that. It was too rock and roll.
Jason has been given Nigel’s place for the evening.
He’s only just left college, which makes him my generation if you look at the big picture, although clearly I am senior to him in life experience. It’s great to see fellow young people playing, let alone taking the important skipper’s role. We shared a block together a couple of years ago when I played in the Monday league, and hopefully have a bit of a rapport. It’s a big responsibility for a youngster, and I’m looking forward to giving him the benefit of my knowledge – be it in hints and tips, or just by getting those good shots in first to take the pressure off him and to allow his game to settle down naturally.
‘Have a good game.’
The away team always bowls first, so I have a chance to lurk behind their lead as he launches his first wood from the mat. Frankly, it is not a good wood – fifteen degrees wider than the optimum angle, and far too hard, coming to rest – I estimate – six feet behind the cott. He grins ruefully, and I give him a sympathetic smile.
Having carefully studied the path of his wood, I step up to take my own. This sets off at about fifteen degrees wider than the optimum angle and I have put too much pace on it – it comes to rest – I estimate – eight feet behind the cott.
‘That’s a good start!’ calls Jason. ‘Just take a little bit off it, and a bit narrower!’
I give him a nod. I am frustrated with myself, but it is good that the boy’s nerves aren’t getting to him too much – keeping the volume up is a key skill for any skipper, and I wouldn’t want him to feel that he couldn’t pipe up to offer me advice.
I take some pace off my second wood, but unfortunately miscalculate the angle adjustment, bowling it pretty well straight at the cott. The natural curve of the wood consequently takes it far to the left, drifting well out of contention for anything. I am cross.
‘Absolutely perfect length!’ calls Jason. ‘Couldn’t be a better length!’
Big Andy’s woods cluster round the cott closer than mine – but he has had the benefit of being able to lurk behind me and watch for the right trajectory. As we cross, I make sure to buttonhole Jason to pass on some important words. ‘Don’t forget it’s slightly downhill,’ I say. ‘Just drop it in there, and you’ll be fine.’
Jason’s two woods drop in utterly adjacent to the cott. Two up. It’s good that he’s got a bit of luck so early. Settle the nerves.
It’s such a simple and ancient sport that it seems that systematic codification has never really taken hold. Not round our way, anyway. I mean, I’m sure there’s a rule book somewhere that the EBA or World Bowls or Barry Hearn or somebody has come up with – but I don’t know anybody who’s read it. ‘Get as close to the white one as possible, and take it in turns.’ Nobody has needed to demand clarification of the dozens of ways that you might get out, or be caught offside, or be adjudged to be interfering with the scrum.
Every rule I have seen has really been a regulation. Where exactly the mat should be placed; the distance away from the cott that a wood must rest within before it can be counted as a score; what happens if you roll the cott too short. I believe that there was a letter once circulated to the league, reminding clubs to ensure that people wore the requisite deeply, deeply unfashionable shoes. But it’s not a game for pedants, for jobsworths or the terminally anal.
‘He’s a fine young player, that one is,’ comments an opponent, as Jason’s final wood takes a wick sideways and drops in to save two points.
He’s right. Annoyingly, Jason is better than me. I am not quite sure how this has happened. When we first started playing, we were much of a muchness. Suddenly, he is streets ahead. Perhaps he has had coaching, or secret practice, or hypnotism.
It hadn’t occurred to me, when I had played those first couple of games, that I might not be much good. I had assumed that it would be the sort of sport that you really only needed to turn up to every week. I was never a natural footballer or runner or cricketer or tennis player – but millions of people aren’t. Now it’s a bit disappointing to start bracketing bowls into that mix. But I can try. I have always been a trier.
We lose by one single point.
I can’t help reflecting that this is my fault as I stuff my deeply, deeply unfashionable shoes into the burgundy bowls bag. Despite my energy and enthusiasm and trying, I have not had a good start to the season. Jason, who has consistently played a blinder, tells me not to worry.
‘Bah,’ is my considered reply.
Perhaps I am being a bit hard on myself. Form, they say, is temporary – whereas class is permanent. It is probably something to do with the Zone. Nigel! That’s it! It is all Nigel’s fault for missing a game, and thus disturbing the fragile ecosystem that is a bowls block. I know he’s the skipper and everything, but next time I shall have a strong word with him about his commitment.
SIX
I am a lineman for the county, on sabbatical
I miss the next match, as I am away with the LTLP. Meeting up with Eddie in the village pub a few days later, I find out that we had lost badly. But the classic line-up is back together again for the following game, and it clicks immediately. We storm to victory on our home green, winning all but five ends and ensuring that the points tally across all the blocks is well in our favour. This gives us the bonus two points, and Howard is smiling broadly as he tells me ‘well played’.
Consistency. You’ve got to be consistent.
There is a commotion.
Glancing out through the shed window, I can see some activity at the front door. I hasten to investigate. Mrs Short Tony from next door is there with the LTLP; some raised voices are occurring.
The LTLP turns and gives me her Rosemary West look.
‘She’s brought you round some books from the library.’
As soon as I see the titles piled up on the kitchen table, I step back guiltily. I had been meaning to mention something about their subject, but recently all my energies have been diverted elsewhere into concentrating on not mentioning it.
‘So this is why you’ve been pissing about clearing up at the end of the garden.’ She strides indoors and brandishes the books one by one: Practical Chicken-Keeping, Choosing and Keeping Chickens, Hen and the Art of Chicken Maintenance.
‘I had been meaning to mention…’
‘This is another one of your plans, isn’t it?’ she demands. She doesn’t actually use the phrase ‘hare-brained scheme’, but I can see her contemplating having it tattooed on my face so that she can save herself some trouble in the future by just pointing.
‘I thought it would be really nice to get some chickens…have them pecking around…in the country…’
She explodes, like a tin of out-of-date exasperation that has been left in the sun. ‘Can we just get this straight? This week I’m in London on Monday, Bristol on Wednesday, Liverpool on Friday. I’ll be late home on Thursday. I am not spending my weekends cleaning out chickens. I am not spending my weekends feeding them, or watering them, or doing whatever it is you need to do with chickens. Have you got that?’
I stare at her in astonishment. ‘But I’ll do the cleaning out an’ stuff…’
‘You?’ she goggles.
I gaze weakly at Mrs Short Tony for some support. But I gaze in vain. By rights she should be looking sheepish or guilty for her role in creating this unpleasant scene. But, as with all women, all compassion is set aside under the instinct to show solidarity with another female. If men had that sort of blind pack mentality then we would have ruled the world for thousands of years.
The LTLP slams the books back down on the table. I retreat to the shed. ‘You’re bored, aren’t you?’ she shouts after me. She is such a townie. Chickens! I have lived in the countryside for ages now – it is about time I had some chickens. I will be known locally as ‘the man who has the chickens’, and I will take people free eggs, and they will be my friends. If rock superstars like Ian Anderson and Roger Daltrey can have their salmon farms then there is no reason whatsoever why I can’t have some chickens.
Walking out of a highly charged executive role without another job to go to is a powerful statement. Unfortunately, it is a powerful statement that you are unemployed. It is funny how things turn out. One minute you are the undisputed head of a household, the next you have made a principled Nelson Mandela-like stand against Strategic HR Initiatives and found yourself a dependant.
So we had moved to Norfolk and I became an appendage.
No. I had become a househusband.
No. I had gone on ‘sabbatical’.
That is the word: ‘sabbatical’. A ‘sabbatical’ as far as I can work out, is where people stop doing proper work for a bit but get away without being labelled a parasite on society by dint of using a well-to-do phrase (of Latin origin, I would expect) that makes them sound important and in control and not just fucking about wasting their lives because they’ve thrown a bit of a wobbler about Strategic HR Initiatives.
You take a holiday. He/she malingers. I have gone on sabbatical.
And when I had embraced and kissed her on her first day at work and my first day at home, when I had handed over the delicious freshly prepared packed lunch, when I had waved through the window at her getting into the car, and then at the back of the car, and then at the side of the car as it turned right out of the gate towards the village, and then just the empty street in general, I took one step back, shrugged my shoulders and wondered what the fuck to do with the rest of my life.
‘Sabbatical’. I was young, I was brainy, I was enthusiastic and I had my whole life ahead of me. This would not just be a new personal dawn; it would be a new personal big bang. A million opportunities, a billion things to do, a trillion chances to do something really special with my life that morning. My time to plan and achieve some things that other men my age could only dream of, stuck in their city-centric nine-to-five drudge routines, prodding away at a keyboard whilst in glass offices, floors and floors above them, faceless managers formulated Strategic HR Initiatives.
I sat down and watched Bargain Hunt.
I really don’t watch a lot of television – I’ve got so much else to do. A bit of the daytime stuff, the news, Prime Minister’s Question Time, very occasionally Countdown. Now it’s the season, I’m looking forward to Barry Hearn’s bowls coverage; the cricket will be on Sky and there are often bands playing on Sky Arts – even if I’m not into the music in question, I like to watch these for professional reasons, to pick up some tips. Repeats of Crown Court are always interesting. But I ration myself carefully – you can waste your life on such stuff. Eggheads is fun as well.
Bargain Hunt is my favourite. I think the thing that I like most about it is the sheer good-naturedness of it. Amiable people accompany amiable presenters around amiable antiques fairs. The amiable winning team is thrilled to walk away with a twelve pound profit; they give big, amiable, enthusiastic hugs to the losers, who are in the red for the sum of two pounds. The presenter wraps it up with an amiable bad joke and the whole thing will be on again tomorrow, just with different people, unless they cannot find any different people in which case they will use the same ones and nobody will notice.
There is a lot to say for good-natured, undemanding television. It is as heart-warming as good-natured, undemanding music is bland. I don’t know why this should be the case. Why should the amiable people on Bargain Hunt make you feel all warm and comfortable and pleased that they’ve done well, when listening to the equivalent sort of music – say, Dido – make you want to kill people with an axe?
I have a theory about this; a theory upon which I have been working for some time and which I think contains a germ of profundity.
That is, when the television is on, people have to focus on it. Accordingly, they get drawn in to the exclusion of all else; watching happy people on undemanding programmes causes viewers to project the scenes on which they are concentrating into a vision of humanity as a whole. We do not resent the mindless friendliness or the clunking set-ups because we know deep down that, whilst an artificial reality, it is a version of reality that might well be better than our own. Put simply, in the case of television, we see two or three amiable people on our screen and momentarily believe that all the world is like that. That is why it becomes reassuring rather than irritating.
Whereas Dido inserts secret messages into her audio recordings, telling you to kill people with an axe.
Lumped in with the antiques programmes are the cookery programmes and the property programmes, and the programmes about going on holiday, and the programmes about going on holiday to find a new property and sitting down for something to eat at the end. The shows are all interchangeable and formulaic, but very watchable. Kirstie Allsopp – the homely, comfortable long-term cottage prospect in the countryside against Sarah Beeny’s wham-bam crash pad in the city – is a particular favourite of mine. Her presenting skills give even the pokiest hovel the warm, welcoming feeling of a breast.
However, as you venture outside the antiques show community, the amiability becomes slightly forced; imperceptibly less genuine. And if you watch enough, sooner or later you will come across Max.
Max and his wife Becca are the subjects of much of the property-, holiday- or dinner-related content in the daytime hours. Stressed by their successful businesses in the City, they have a hankering to move to the countryside with their children, Harry (12) and Amelie (8), and a Labrador. The property must be a cosy olde-worlde period cottage in a very rural middle-of-nowhere setting, with all mod cons and good transport links.
Max is very tall, due to his successful business in the City, which is probably something to do with portfolios. None of the cosy olde-worlde period cottages with good transport links are quite right, as the ceilings are too low and the rooms are too small, or they are too close to a road. Becca is dead set on having large grounds around the property. These are partly for the use of Harry (12), Amelie (8) and the Labrador, but mainly because she has spotted a gap in the market and wants to set up a small studio in the old converted garage ‘for her art’. Then she will not have to be stressed by her own successful business in the City any more – which is probably something to do with recruitment consultancy – but will make an honest yeoperson’s living selling hand-crafted and beautifully-framed leaf images to a market hungry for such objets.
Max makes some compromises to get the place he wants. The presenter suggests that he can knock through from the dining room to the living room to increase the space available, making the house suitable for modern living and getting rid of all the nice-but-impractical olde bits. A Reliable Local Builder has provided a quote for this. Harry (12) and Amelie (8) are happy enough. They are hopeful of being given a quadbike, and it is fully four and eight years respectively before they discover that there are no jobs, no off-licences, and no places to meet people with whom they might have sexual intercourse but yet not be forced to enjoy a subsequent acquaintance. This causes them to move to the city and set up successful businesses, in portfolios or recruitment consultancy. The Labrador just goes with the flow.
There is a particular scene at the end of every Max-and-Becca programme. This is the ‘dinner party scene’. Max and Becca have thrown themselves into village life, and have been delighted to meet and befriend a group of solid village local types, all extremely happy as they are no longer stressed by their successful businesses in the City. We watch their perfect dinner party, with perfect jollity around a perfect country dining table. There is lots of complimenting Becca on her starter, and probably a toast. It is horrible.
I do not want to turn into Max. If there is one thing in my life that I do not want to be, it is Max. That is my aim in life – non-Maxism. It’s not much, but it is always good to have a goal.
The thing about chickens is that they are a connection to the land. My Auntie Miriam keeps chickens; she is a well-respected organic permaculture farmer and land expert living in the wild part of New Zealand. The chickens peck around her land, devouring grubs and other unwelcome pests. They give her eggs, and every now and again she wrings a neck and enjoys a delicious chicken dinner.
The LTLP has insisted that the chickens keep within a specific fenced-off point, and that should they be found pecking around her land (whether devouring grubs and other unwelcome pests or no) then it will not be their necks that will be wrung.
It is a collaborative project with Short Tony from next door. The chicken enclosure will start at the back of my garden, and then extend in a large ‘L’ shape behind my shed and onto his land. We shall share the eggs and the responsibility of husbandry. It is our first step towards setting up a self-sufficient commune for when society finally collapses in an implosion of racial violence, terrorist outrage and the totalitarian imposition of Strategic HR Initiatives.
Cleaning them out will not be the hardest thing I’ve done. I’ve been cleaning things out ever since day zero, ever since I came to Norfolk, ever since LTLP sent me to Tesco on the very first day of my sabbatical with an instruction to buy cleaning products.
Tesco in Norfolk is nothing like Tesco in North London. There are far fewer people; there is more space and a friendlier atmosphere; you are not worried that if you turn your back as you reach for a new carrier bag then somebody will artfully reach round and steal your Cathedral City. The checkout assistants wait patiently, looking eagerly for customers; they wave at you cheerfully if there is any danger of you having to queue. It is always good to support local retailers like this. And if I leave the house at the same time as the LTLP leaves for work, I can be in Tesco for eight o’clock and have the household shopping done by nine. That is the sort of time management skill that I have brought to my role from my previous successful career in the City, and why my sabbatical is a continuing success.
I am well known in Tesco these days, and always chat to the staff. There are the Eastern European guys who you sometimes find stacking the shelves, a nice chatty middle-aged lady on the tills who is new and just getting to grips with things, and the man with glasses who supports Spurs. A man on the tills! That is not even worthy of comment these days, thanks to Dawn French and her associates. People might criticise Tesco, but it has led the way. It is commendable. He packs at least as fast as the ladies, proving the dinosaurs hopelessly wrong.
Despite their enlightened social policies, I am, of course, aware of this well of criticism, and that Tesco verges on Evil Corporation status. Colin, whose family have farmed in the village since about 489 BC, stringently boycotts them due to their perceived shabby treatment of the farming community – and there is the very real problem of local shops and businesses being forced to close whenever a Tesco moves in nearby, despite the store’s protestations that its presence increases consumer choice. On a wider level, the ‘food miles’ issue is a serious one, the extra packaging used by supermarkets contributes to our landfill surplus, and the ‘big brand’ mentality is a key factor in the homogenisation of Britain. But you have to balance all these factors with the fact that you get points whenever you shop there.
Personally, I have a rule that governs my Tesco use – I try not to buy vegetables, as I can get nicer and better and more local and cheaper ones elsewhere, and for ethical reasons I don’t buy meat there, unless it is heavily reduced in price. Tins, frozen stuff, drinks, cereals – they are OK. And cleaning products. Cleaning products.
It is not as if I had never been in a supermarket before – it’s just that I could not remember ever having been in one on my own. On sabbatical day one I had no idea that I would eventually become close friends with the Eastern European Shelf Stackers, New Middle-Aged Lady, or Man With Glasses Who Supports Spurs, the Rosa Parks of the Tills. It was not my comfort zone at the time. The second sexual revolution was all very welcome and overdue, but you cannot overturn millennia of evolution in eighteen episodes of a thirty-minute situation comedy featuring a girl vicar.
I stared at my list.
‘Cleaning products,’ read the item.
‘Cleaning products.’ Cleaning products. This was typical. How was I supposed to know exactly what to buy? The rest of the list didn’t simply read ‘food’ and ‘drink’ – it was broken down properly, by item. Lettuce. Tomatoes. Low-sugar lemon squash.
‘Cleaning products.’ I noted with irritation that the list wasn’t even properly arranged. When you walk into a Tesco, the first thing you get to is the fruit and veg, and then, after you turn left and progress from aisle to aisle, there are the household items (including ‘cleaning products’), then general groceries, followed by the frozen stuff and, finally, soft drinks and alcohol. Therefore, that is the logical way to structure the shopping list. Yet ‘Branston Pickle’ was right at the bottom, ‘beer’ was in the middle, and salad items were sort of dotted all the way through. I made a note to talk to her about this. No wonder the CD collection was in such a state.
The cleaning products aisle was colourful and shiny and absolutely full of choices. I wandered up and down the planet Og, amazed and enthralled by the options available.
There were things that would clean wooden surfaces, and things that were good for stainless steel. Kitchen dirt was obviously different to bathroom dirt or living-room dirt, so there were different products for each of those rooms. There was special stuff for the windows, for the shower, for the inside of the dishwasher, for the oven, for wooden floors, for vinyl floors, for floors (unspecified), for those difficult-to-reach surfaces, for putting down the plughole to remove blockages, for putting down the plughole to remove stale odours, for putting down the toilet to remove both blockages and stale odours, and for ‘all general cleaning tasks’.
It was difficult to quell my panic. If I inadvertently effected a spillage of, say, coffee on the dining table, some would be likely to drip over onto the floor. I would then get it onto my hands, and need to wring a cloth out down the sink. Several products displayed a ‘helpline’ number, but I was not entirely convinced that their help would be truly impartial.
There were Cif cleaning products. There was Mr Muscle. There was Fairy and Domestos and Tesco’s Own and Weirdy Beardy Ecological Brand that doesn’t cause the creation of grotesquely mutated hybrid monsters in your toilet pipe. I realised that I had never bought a cleaning product before in my life. They all looked super, like they would get things really, really, really clean.
I swung my head from side to side, casting my eyes up and down the aisle. From what I have read in the magazines, if you look a bit lost and helpless when you are on your own in the cleaning products aisle of your local supermarket then an attractive divorcee/single mother will probably sidle up to you and start giving you advice, and before you can say ‘Bang! And the Dirt is Gone!’ you are having sex on her kitchen floor in the half-hour between dropping off for playgroup and morning yoga class. I swung my head and cast my eyes for ages and ages, but nothing whatsoever like this happened. Perhaps I looked too on top of things. That can intimidate women occasionally.
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