Monday
It’s funny, isn’t it, how many things we take for granted in life? How many things go wholly unmentioned, even wholly unconsidered in any even minutely conscious way – and yet, when they are suddenly kicked away you realise just how much of your internal organisation, your mental integrity, your structural soundness altogether, rested on these unexamined pillars.
One of mine, it turns out, is the belief – no, surely more than that? The sure and certain knowledge, in my bones if never alas vouchsafed by my mere mortal eyes – that Bruce Springsteen does not wear pyjamas.
This is fundamental, surely? The Boss sleeps naked. This is an eternal verity.
But no. According to what I can only describe as reports, he is a loyal customer of the venerable sleepwear shop Schostal in Rome, which was opened in 1870 by two brothers from Vienna. There’s a photo of Bruce hugging the manager, Shirley Braine – to whom he apparently sends regular postcards – and everything.
So. There you have it. The Boss sleeps in pyjamas. Acceptable province of 1950s boarding school boys, your worst boyfriend, and your dad. Please go carefully about your day and from the fragments of your shattered psyche may you rebuild better soon.
Tuesday
Party conference season is almost upon us – I know! Try to contain yourselves! – and the preparations for fun times are gathering pace. News breaks that Blue Beyond, a young Conservatives group (and I always like to know that they’ve found each other rather than roaming free and confused), is offering as a grand raffle prize a BuzzBallz signed by Kemi Badenoch! I said try to contain yourselves! And not only is it signed, but it is a large BuzzBallz! I SAID TRY TO CONTAIN YOURSELVES.
In case you are not as young as a youngster or as cool as a Conservative, I should explain: a BuzzBallz is a spherical plastic container that contains a cocktail, usually of a lurid hue and unsubtle flavour profile (the inscribed orb itself is Berry Cherry Limeade and whyever not?). They come in two sizes – small, which is a bit larger than a tennis ball, and large, which is a bit smaller than a football.
Tickets are available now. The winner will be drawn at the Tory conference and must be over 18 to collect. Rumours that Michael Heseltine will launch it at your head for a small further fee are popular but as yet unsubstantiated.
Wednesday
I find myself unaccountably drawn to the story of the Hyrox poo-er. Not because of any coprophiliac inclinations, you understand, but because the idea of exerting myself to the extent that I might lose control of my bowels is so out of my realm of personal possibility that I am increasingly intrigued by the question of whether Joanna Wietrzyk and I technically qualify as the same species at all.
Again, for the uninitiated/hitherto and possibly blissfully ignorant, a recap: Hyrox Beijing is an intense indoor fitness event and Wietrzyk one of its world record- holding contestants. About halfway through the insanely difficult competition, which comprises a series of horrendous things – I don’t know precisely what, I passed out after reading the word “burpees” – Wietrzyk suffered what was later termed “a severe faecal event”, which went down her leg but didn’t stop her progress round the course.
Cue a roar of outrage against her and the organisers, who didn’t disqualify her immediately before she touched any other equipment, and eventually an apology from Wietrzyk and a forfeit of her points.
To hell with the critics, say I. Biohazardry be damned! You push yourself so hard you crap yourself and keep on going, you’re a winner in my book. Now, someone unwrap this Mars bar for me. Typing is exhausting, you know.
Thursday
Not all heroes wear capes. Or a light coating of faeces down their legs. Some of them are headteachers who suspend 25 students in the first week back after the summer holidays, including one for the crime of zipping his bag too loudly. The head’s name is Dan Jeffries and, while he denies parents’ claims of suspension for minor infractions, it is clear that whatever measures he has indeed taken, he has no regrets about any of them.
Parents of some of those suspended from Frome college have compared the school to “a military base” and say the strictness demotivates pupils. Whatever, whatever. The world is made up of two types of people: those who want to hear the children’s side of things and those of us who just want Jeffries put in immediate charge of a new government department called The Whole of Modern Life, Starting With Quiet Coaches on the Train and After That I Have a List.
Friday
My mother summons me and my sister home. Apparently she needs to clear out the attic before she dies, but ideally before Sunday.
“What’s happening on Sunday?” I ask.
“Sunday,” she replies.
Deadlines by fiat were a mainstay of my childhood and so I ask no more.
My mother has lived in our house for 50 years. We brace ourselves for a hard 48 hours’ work and climb up into the loft.
Three small cardboard boxes of stuff await us.
“There are – there are just three small cardboard boxes of stuff up here.”
“Yes,” she says. “I can’t believe I’ve let it get this bad.”
We bring them down.
My wedding shoes and some papers – including my first book, The Story of Esmerelda, written when I was nine and some letters home from university – are in the first one. The second one contains my son’s baby clothes. The third has my sister’s childhood attempts at making a working model of Sizewell B and some postcards she wrote to Dad when he went on his first trip to America. “Come hom. Shez insane.” On reflection, she shouldn’t have given them to Mum to post.
“Excellent,” Mum says. “We can bin the lot.”
Ah, fiats. Ah, memories.
