Monday:
There’s a funny story about the film director William Wyler. When he was making his epic, Ben Hur, he was running way over budget. He had one great scene left to shoot. The famous chariot race. This involved thousands of extras, many horses and some dangerous stunts. Preparations and rehearsal were lengthy, until he was completely satisfied that everyone knew what to do on the day. As a precaution, he had three cameras set up to capture the event, so that at least one of them would get just what he wanted. The moment arrived for the race to begin. Every spear carrier, centurion, slave girl, sweetmeat seller, strumpet, acrobat, stray pig, acrobat, chancer and charioteer were in their allotted places. Wyler called for silence and the cast of thousands stood poised. He called “Action”and the pageant began.
It went very well. The whole cast did as they had been trained to do. The chariots crashed into each other and Charlton Heston, the star of the movie, almost escaped the paper bag in which his acting ability had thus far had been confined. Finally, one of the greatest scenes in cinematic history was over. Wyler mopped his brow and turned to the nearest cameraman.
‘Did you get it, Al?’
Wyler then called to the next cameraman who told him that there was too much dust. Wyler was beginning to perspire again. So much hung on this scene. He was under a lot of pressure, particularly from the studio number crunchers. He took up his megaphone and called to the third cameraman.
‘Did you get it?’
There was a short pause, then the cameraman shouted back.
‘Ready when you are, Mister Wyler.’
I was reminded of this story today, because I had an appointment at the audiology clinic at the local hospital. After negotiating my way through coffee shops, burger joints and a phalanx of school kids getting their first glimpse perhaps of where they might eventually die from thirst or neglect, I found the right department, handed in my appointment card to the receptionist and took a seat in the waiting area.
Sitting opposite was a glum looking old guy who was staring at his feet. As there were just the two of us, I thought I ought perhaps to make an effort at conversation.
‘Weather’s looking up,’ I said.
No response. He continued to stare at his feet.
‘It’s a bugger getting old, isn’t it?’
Nothing. Then it dawned on me. Of all the departments in the hospital, audiology and the morgue must be among the ones where sparkling repartee and bon mots are futile or inappropriate.
A young man appeared and called my name. He introduced himself as Doctor Aziz. I immediately thought of Passage to India, It Aint Arf Hot Mum, corner shops and call centres. It’s the accent that does me in. Any accent. There’s a terribly nice Polish girl who works at the minimarket. I can’t understand a word she says. I nod and smile and sometimes wonder whether I might just have agreed to a cut price coach tour of Krakow and Auschwitz.
Doctor Aziz was dressed as if he was about to go to the pub with his mates. It’s old-fashioned I know, but I expect hospital doctors to wear white coats and have a bit of gravitas about them. I don’t want them to be matey in mufti. I want them to be serious and not regard their profession as a leisure activity, or an opportunity to prove their street cred.
After a few preliminary questions about my general health, Aziz fitted me up with some headphones and a press button device to indicate when I could hear the sounds he was going to play me. After a while and hearing nothing, I took off the headphones.
‘Ready when you are, doctor,’ I said
‘The test began thirty seconds ago,’ he said. ‘Put the headphones back on please.’
Not good news.
Tuesday:
So, after my dismal performance at the audiology clinic, I’m reconciled to the idea of having to wear hearing aids, at least on social occasions. I might be selective in their use on gigs with some bands I can think of and I suppose I can always retain the option of turning them off when faced with some tedious bore.
Doctor Aziz told me that I might have some problems with feedback to begin with until I find the right levels. I told him that feedback from sub-simian guitarists probably caused my problems in the first place. He didn’t appear sympathetic and I wondered whether he might be a closet Deep Purple fan and think that Ritchie Blackmore had a soul, or knew finesse from a horse’s arse.
Wednesday:
All quiet in the block. The flat below me, once occupied by the Bellowing Brat, remains empty. The Mouse, the disgraced cop’s wife, is keeping a low profile. Action Man and the Basilisk can occasionally be seen polishing their camper van and Eugene and Sandy are still away somewhere on tour. Pru, the counselor, is rarely seen. Pity – I quite fancied her at the residents’ meeting. At least she had the good humour to vote for my Owl as chairperson.
Thursday:
The local council recently gave itself planning permission to build some flats on the site of one of its car parks. There were some objections from nearby residents, but after a nanosecond of careful consideration and having regard to the clamour of the stoats and weasels aka developers and estate agents, the council ignored these. The plan includes a small proportion of what they call “affordable housing”, presumably to salve the council’s social conscience – if it has one.
I have taken very little interest in this project, because it will take shape about six hundred feet below the hill on which I live and I’ve long since given up getting worked up by the machinations of the local parasitic mafia and their continuing efforts to blight a pretty market town. However, I was delighted to read an article in the local newspaper that the preliminary groundwork on the site has uncovered a number of skeletons. Further work has been suspended while archaeologists try to determine the age and origin of the bones. They apparently think that it might have been a medieval plague pit, or an Anglo- Saxon burial ground.
In the newspaper article, a local estate agent, who probably scraped through a Woodwork O Level and whose knowledge of history could be written on a fag paper, was quick to play down the plague pit idea. I can see why. The idea that one’s dream home might be located above a hole in the ground that was once used to dump festering cadavers is hardly a unique selling point. On the other hand, “Anglo-Saxon” has a comforting ring to it. It’s redolent of the roast beef of Olde England, Robin Hood, plucky resistance to the Norman bastards, the fun of the ducking stool, dancing around a maypole and Arthur burning the cakes. I can already anticipate the estate agent’s prospectus. “Built on the site of an important Anglo-Saxon settlement, Ethelred Villas lie twixt the ancient parish church and the historic town centre.”
However, I can imagine a young married couple who have scrimped and saved to buy their first home. Let’s call them Jordan and Apple. He is in IT, of course and she is in marketing. They are the first to move into the Villas, little knowing that the flats might have been built over a plague pit. At the end of the day, weary from the effort of moving in, they settle on their DFS real mock leather sofa and order a pizza to be delivered. While they are waiting, Jordan arranges their Ikea plates and cutlery on their Ikea Siberian pine dining table. After putting on a CD of Barry White’s greatest hits, he uncorks a bottle of Fair Trade North Korean Chardonnay. They make a toast to each other.
‘Happy, darling?’ he asks.
‘Oh, yes,’ Apple replies, ‘but I’ll be even happier once I get you into our Ikea reindeer herder’s double futon.’
They giggle. Barry warbles on. The doorbell rings.
‘I’ll get it,’ she says. ‘It’s probably the pizza man.’
Before she can open the door, something wafts through. It has a vaguely human shape. There’s a smell of sulphur and putrefaction and the texture of the visitor’s skin is like a four cheese pizza topped with chopped salami and sun blushed tomatoes. Apple swoons. The spectre moves into the lounge, where Jordan is pondering on the next CD selection. He decides on Michael Jackson and as Wanna Be Startin Somethin kicks in, the suppurating ghoul grabs him and forces him into a macabre dance routine. Apple drags herself from the hallway. All she can see now is a bug-eyed Jordan pogoing around the lounge like a liberated jack-in-the box.
Meanwhile, a Somalian asylum seeker putters toward Ethelred Villas on a clapped out scooter. He has Jordan and Apple’s pizza in a box on the back of the machine. He has to take care because the road is full of potholes. The council has been promising to fix these for some time, but staff bonding sessions in Disneyland and mayoral junkets have eaten into available funds. Coming from a Third World country, the pizza man is well used to such roads. Arriving at Jordan and Apple’s flat, he rings the doorbell. There is no response. He rings a few more times then shouts through the letterbox.
‘Hello, hello. Is pizza man.’
Inside the flat, Jordan and Apple clutch each other in terror. Eventually, Apple shouts out in a quavering voice that they don’t want the pizza now thank you very much. As it has already been paid for, the Somalian returns to his scooter and begins eating the pizza. As he munches away, he surveys Ethelred Villas and imagines that one day he might live in such a place. Just as he’s finishing the last slice, a greenish mist rises from the base of the building. His jaw stops working and he gives a shudder. He might be a simple son of the desert, but he knows a jinn when he sees it.
Once their terror has subsided, Jordan and Apple decide that the episode was probably the result of the stress of moving house and the Korean Chardonnay. They have a hot chocolate and an early night. The Somalian, replete with pizza and the fear of Allah, makes his way back to base for his next assignment. On the way, he is mown down and killed by a speeding car driven by a local planning officer on his way to a Round Table meeting with like-minded philanthropists.
Friday:
As part of my plan for a last minute effort at self-improvement before I completely lose my marbles, I decide to return to basics and practice some scales on the saxophone. I begin with the majors and then turn to the minors, harmonic and melodic. I soon become bored and remember how tedious I found these exercises in my youth. So I abandon this idea and just blow what pleases me. I no longer have to eat broccoli.
Resolve has never been one of my strong points.
Saturday:
My weekly shop at the supermarket. Many of the staff are dressed as clowns, furry animals and harlequins. For a moment, my head swims and I wonder whether I might be hallucinating. Then I realise that it’s all to do with Comic Relief. I know that it’s all for a worthy cause, but this forced hilarity doesn’t relieve me from feeling grumpy about it. When I get to the checkout, the cashier is wearing a red nose. Consequently, she sounds like a Dalek with a heavy cold and I can’t understand a word she says. She might be telling me a joke, or warning me that my arse is on fire. Maybe when the hearing aids arrive, I might be able to participate more fully in social intercourse. This may, or may not be an advantage.
Sunday:
A steak for my dinner, washed down with a perky little Cote de Rhone. And no bones about it.
