This week I intend to attempt some small talk. It's that weird sort of non-conversation you have in order to disguise the bigger picture, the deeper 'you', or the issue at hand, if you will. Kind of like a sticking plaster over a gaping wound. Except not as graphic. Or bleedy.
Some of you may be thinking "But isn't that what he does all the time, anyway?", or "Shit the bed, I'm going to navigate off this now and make a cuppa!" but the fact of the matter is that I hate my stupid big fat flapping mouth and yes those words should possibly have a comma between them but I'm trying to emphasise this point without taking a breath, so thanks for ruining that.
My usual blog-writing tools are surrounding me, namely a cup of tea, a chocolate bar, my netbook, and last, but by no means least, my dim-witted, cavernous, empty head. The reason I bring up this topic of small-talk is that I often feel that I can only do big-talk, and I don't know why that is. I can barely get two sentences into an initially light-hearted conversation about, say, getting your trousers caught on a door handle, without going into moon-eyed wistfulness and before you know it;
- The door handle represents the opportunity to start a new life,
- The trousers represent the transcience of our current situation,
- The subsequent A & E trip to reattach your cobblers becomes... um, well, ok I haven't thought that far ahead.
Urinals. How can people use urinals? I have been a toilet-goer for some 31 years now, and have never liked them. Troughs too, don't get me started on troughs, because, quite frankly, you can't. I have found myself in some of the most desperate toilet predicaments that I could possibly share with you, and been unable to, um, muster the necessary gumption to stand at a trough and wee in the un-barriered vicinity of another man. I think it's a subconscious discomfort at the thought of someone I do/don't know having an uninvited peek at, well, you know, coupled with the shame & embarrassment should I accidentally see, well, you know.
And in any case it just seems uncivilised, and an open invitation to just shake & leave without washing your hands (I have seen several people do this, and I really would campaign vociferously for some kind of clean-hand sensor in pubs & workplaces). What sort of base mentality do the purveyors of public conveniences assume the average man to have?
I have just thought about this question for a moment and recalled my last visit to a bar, so please disregard any answer you might have come up with, I've probably just thought of it.
My best friend Mike has a very strict rule, one with which I agree and that I uphold (bad choice of words?), and his rule is this - NO TALKING IN THE TOILETS. He has always been pretty stringent on this, and it brings to mind an occasion a few years ago. He & I used to work for the same company, in the same shop, no less, for four years. Every Saturday, at the close of play, we would shut up shop and spend a merry evening in a fine drinking establishment, The Old Brown Jug. Sometimes there'd be just the two of us, sometimes a bunch of us from the shop would congregate, and sometimes his good wife would join us. (I remember one such evening when I'd drunk more than my customary share of beer, and realised that Sainsbury's was due to shut in ten minutes - prompting a slightly giggly race round the shop where I inadvertently picked up a gallon of milk and some All-Bran - my mornings were ruined for about a week afterwards).
When we went to the Jug, for a time we used to turn up in our work shirts, with logos & such clearly visible. This practice ended quite swiftly after what can only be described as a bell-end stood next to Mike at the trough and quizzed him on the prices of DVDs and the entertainment market in general. From this point on, we got changed before leaving the premises.
I always imagined I would be free of these sorts of exchanges, but it was not to be. One evening at The Full Moon, my then-favourite haunt, I turned up for the acoustic night on a night that England had lost a football match to France (apparently it was due to be a clear victory for England until a killer series of goals - that's all I remember because it was after this much info that my enthusiasm short-circuited). By the time I headed in, it was like the aftermath of the Somme. World Cup paraphernalia scattered about the bar like discarded rifles, and tubby England-shirt-wearers either supporting themselves on the bar-top or slumped over pub tables, like wounded soldiers, or corpses riddled with trivial despondency. It wasn't a great night. Especially when one poor woman picked that night to try and get up to tell jokes (it would have been even better if they hadn't been about shitting yourself on an aeroplane, a topic which resulted in her pleading with the audience "Oh come on, laugh! ")
I usually enjoy bantering with the audience, but that night I played my three songs and scarpered. I knew deep down that a cajoling "Oh come one, it's only a game!" would have resulted in the sound of a bottle being broken on a chair-leg.
Partway through the evening, I visited the gents, and a sozzled lad was stood at the urinal as I entered a cubicle. As I locked the door, a voice floated over the wall of the cubicle;
"That's a big bag you've got,"
"Er, thanks?" I reply.
"What have you got in there?"
"My wallet & keys." [Are we really having this conversation whilst going about our toilet business?!]
"That's a big bag for just them things, in't it?"
"I haven't got a smaller bag."
"Fair play, mate."
[sound of door opening & shutting, then silence]
So there, in a nutshell, is why I don't like public toilets. Oh, and I also can't stand those ones where the door's knackered so you have to try and use the sodding thing whilst holding the door shut with your foot.
I hope we've all learned something here today.
In the meantime (always remembering to keep an eye on 'shop-talk', me) I have had a busy week which involved playing some music with my folks, for a Photography End-Of-Year Exhibition at Staffordshire University. It's always fun to have a good drum on my electric kit, and I manage to adjust the pads so it fel alot more comfortable to play. The one problem i've always had with it is the bass drum pad moving forward during songs, and we managed to find a fix for that - namely moving one of the cross-bars down so that it blocked the path of the bass pad. Testing this last night showed that this almost halted its progress, but did mostly mean that the whole kit went for a wander instead, so after every song I had to bring the kit back home. New suggestions doing the rounds include tying the whole kit to my drum-stool.
I shall now go back to writing songs, buying washing-up liquid & planning my dinner. Enjoy your weekend, and keep talking small and big, in equal measure.
Love,
John.x
P.S: I did it! I made it through a blog without getting meaningful! Except the first couple of paragraphs, but that was pre-amble. Give a guy a break.
P.P.S: Readers of the previous blog will remember that I had been listening to Gemma Hayes' new album, 'Let It Break', and that i suspected my mp3 player has been playing it in the wrong order. I was right, and this afternoon listened to it in the right order. Odd as it sounds, it all makes much more sense that way, it's easy to forget how much the sequencing of an album can affect your view on a particular song. I can't recommend this album enough.
