I was in the Scouts, yet most of the descriptions I read about the movement are alien to me. I don’t know the words to ging-gang-gooly. I do know what a reef knot is, but that only means I would score one out of ten if you were to set me a knot tying test.
More importantly, I do not recognise the earnest, God-fearing, royalist, regimental movement that is being eulogised as the scouting movement celebrates its 21st World Jamboree. My memories of the activities invariably involve grime and general unhigenicity, coupled with criminal deforestation and subsequent unfettered, unnecessary bonfires. It is not the lessons of teamwork or civic responsibility that I remember, but rather an every-boy-for-himself sense of self-reliance (Swiss Army Knives can fuck off, by the way – what you really need is a nice sharp Opinel Number Seven).
I remember torrential rain on the Brecon Beacons and Bodmin Moor, and the chronic agony of trudging thirty miles overnight through muddy farmers fields (my toenails have never really recovered). I remember hauling a green trek-cart up the hill at Ceasars’ Camp, near Aldershot, and the deflating realisation that we had made a navigation error and the effort had been worthless. When I think back to those Friday nights (before I discovered that I could gain admission to pubs) I am amazed I could summon the will and the energy to complete whatever task was presented.
I was reminded of those dark nights during this past weekend at WOMAD, where the mud made any journey a workout, and made keeping clean and dry impossible. Yet not one squeak of complaint could you have heard pass my lips. That, for me, is a cause for smugness and self-congratulation. More than anything else, I think that scouting taught me stoicism, the virtue that above all others, we British like to claim as our own.
Tag: Diary (Page 21 of 30)
“You drive me round the bend, Thomas” she would say, her voice dripping with distain. “You never do anything for yourself.”
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She was wrong of course, but I never argued back. I never once raised my voice to drown out hers. I just let her speak. It didn’t matter to me that she was chastising me like a mother scolds her child. Just to hear her was to know that she was there, that I was with her, that she was mine.
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“I’m having a breakdown, Thomas” she would say, her voice quivering like a car running over a cattle grid. But I knew she was being melodramatic. She was an actress after all. An attention seeker. I would listen to her, and obey her in silence.
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She had a pointed, slender beauty. Perfect for the stage and screen. The directors loved her poise, her calm. But I loved her voice, the way her lips formed her vowels. No trace of an accent. No hint about where she had come from. She was always ‘here’.
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She was my must-have accessory. After a show, she would be on my arm, and I would open the car door for her. Just sitting on the leather seats turned her on, and she would whisper in my ear all the way home.
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“I have a new job, Thomas,” she said one evening. It was voice-over work, she said. She would be recording her voice for other men. “We have gone as far as we can go,” she said calmly, and stepped out at the traffic lights.
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I feel as if I have been driving ever since. The flat no longer felt like home without her voice wafting through the rooms, without her constant nagging and ordering and complaining about where I had gone wrong. I never spend time there now. Instead I sleep in my car, and take long journeys through the busiest cities and to the farthest beaches. So long as I keep driving, and I keep my sat-nav switched on, she will always be there, telling me where to go.
I think my eyes have trained themeslves to ignore banner adverts. Any animated oblong bar is ignored. It is as if I have a blind spot. It was therefore quite improbable that I noticed (only just, mind) the advert on FaceBook for a free credit report, courtesy of Would you beleive it was via F that I discovered the Credit Expert website.
Some banner adverts do yield useful information, it seems. I was surprised to discover the amount of information that a company can gather on you if it wishes. They do need a fair amount of information from you – date of birth, name and address, which more than I would normally give to a website for any other kind of service – but it is still surprising how much information those standard details will yeild. The exact amount of my mortgage and monthly payment is in there, as is (amusingly) a store card which I signed up for a few years ago, and forgot I even had.
Quite interesting, was the presence of The Camelot Group, who run the National Lottery, on the list of people who have seen part of the report. I signed up to their site a few months ago in order to buy a lucky dip ticket worth £1. I was indignant that they should see this as an excuse to ruffle through my records… but I suppose gambling sites are a prime place to launder money. I could load up my account with thousands of pounds of drug money, then deposit it back into a different account as ‘winnings’.
Most satisfying, however, is the fact that the credit report missed off an entire bank account in my name that I used in my student days. If ever I am on the run from the cops, perhaps for refusing to carry an ID card, or perhaps for laundering money through the lottery website, then I’ll know which account to use as a springboard for my series of Robin Hood style adventures.
I have made some subtle changes to the design of this blog. I was getting slightly annoyed with my handwritten title, the enormity of which always ran the risk of being pretentious. I’ve replaced it with some half-hidden lettering instead.
A few more alterations are on their way. I had hoped to do them all together, and launch the new design to much fanfare. However, I really don’t have the time to make a concerted effort. Eventually I snapped and began making tweaks – expect a few more in the weeks to come.
I pulled a drunk out of the road yesterday. He had fallen there through some roadworking bollards. Such was his stupour, he thought I might be mugging him or, indeed trying to engage him in some kind of sexual relations. Or both. So he tried to kick me, before collapsing again and going to sleep on the pavement, outside Waterloo station.
Aside from the sheer wonder that someone could drink so much, I was struck by just how many passers-by stopped to ask whether the guy was OK. Indeed, during the fracas, at least five other people stayed to check that both he and I were alright. Including a tramp. This is a stark contrast to the stereotype of Big City London, where (the myth has it) commuters stare down at their feet and walk past burning stab victims.