Racks and Wrecks: Why I am off my trolley with buses

Will transport companies EVER put in place buses that are designed for passengers AND their shopping, luggage, buggies, children, wheelchairs and so on, to travel comfortably together - I do stress the comfortable bit. Recently, I endured a nightmare journey from Heathrow to the suburbs, on an airport designated bus. Quite simply, I was trying to look after my trolley suitcase, computer bag and handbag. Ravenous, I wanted to consume a sandwich while travelling in comfort. A not impossible feat, you would imagine, but the very few luggage spaces were already occupied when I got on the bus - at the airport, I stress - the craft being no different from a central London bus. I had no choice but to occupy a "normal" passenger seat while holding onto my computer bag and handbag with one hand, and clutching my roving-inclined trolley with the other. Every time the bus turned, lurched or even swayed slightly, I was obliged to become a human octopus, struggling to prevent my possessions from clobbering other passengers. Eventually, another "baggage" passenger disembarked and I was able to occupy his space, but not before I had become an enraged, sweating, humiliated wreck. The irony is - it does not have to be like this. When I lived in central Europe, even town centre buses were long, elegant transport cabins, with one or two seats abreast at one side, a wide aisle for walking up and down, and a floor-level rack along the other side. Suitcases leaved singly into this rack, while the smaller top rack was for lighter baggage. Sways, turns and lurches made no difference; the luggage stayed in place throughout the journey. When whatever passenger disembarked, he could simply retrieve his suitcase without disturbing that of anyone else. Best of all, the rack was bayed at intervals, leaving space for buggies, wheelchairs, walking aids, whatever. This seating arrangement enables the passenger to sit alongside his or her secured luggage or child or invalid companion, and allows him or her to eat, read, listen to music and actually enjoy the urban voyage. Of course, I am aware that in chilly, old Great Britain, any sucker unable or unwilling to pay £50 or so for a taxi deserves every discomfort and humiliation that the system can throw at him. If we have to haul luggage onto those boxy, inflexible, rack-free "passenger" buses, all I ask is that designers leave enough room - in the downstairs deck, at least - between and underneath seats, for suitcases - please.

My Big Fat Greek House

The writings of Vitruvius have always fascinated me – oh, how I love to explore his Ten Books on Architecture, and absorb his instructions on how to build city walls that resist battering rams, and learn how the Roman race has the keenest wit and share his musings on ancient cosmology. I quote: “The heaven revolves steadily around earth and sea on the pivots at the ends of its axis”. Beautiful, Vit; your sound bites rival those of another, 2,000-year-old tome. On a recent perusal of TBOA, I discovered the word “gynaeconitis”. No, it’s not yet another, weird down-there disorder, but the name given to the half of the Greek house where women (and slaves) sit and talk and weave their cloths. By implication, the androiditis is where the men converge and entertain their guests. This knowledge set me a-wondering if the modern house could be gendered? For example, how would you rate the wet and slippery bathroom, the clammy kitchen with its cooking odours, the dry, white and uptight living room, and the soft and lush bedroom with its array of scents and colours? I have my opinion on those, meanwhile, I’m returning to Vit’s TBOA, to explore subjects such as “scamilli impares” and to consider building a hoisting machine according to the principles of Chersiphron.

Why I'm all for the Elf on the Shelf

I have just read Stuart Heritage’s take on that phenomenon, the Elf on the Shelf, (Guardian Newspaper) and all I can say – with due respect – is, Stuart, come off of it! I will paraphrase a few of his soundbites: “the most violently dreadful thing to happen in 2016” – (and I thought that was the triumph of the great Orange Gnome!) – “nightmarish, murderer-looking totalitarian snitch”, “terrifying and cynical”, and “a post-truth doll for a post-truth age”…really, Stuart? What else is the elf but a modern take on the eye in the sky, and on all of the supernatural helpmeets that throughout the ages, parents have called in to help supervise wayward children? I haven’t got my James Frazer to hand just now – curses! – but I do remember reading that in certain European cultures, on the days in advance of the festive season, a fairy in the guise of an old woman goes from house to house, looking in windows and down chimneys to see who’s being naughty or nice. I find that scary, and I do know that at least as many children are as afraid of Santa Claus as of other supernatural creatures. Surely at this time of year, harassed parents are entitled to call in a little extraneous assistance while pulling through the marathon of preparations that define the modern, family Christmas? And as for the parents who move the elf around the house in the dark hours to make it seem to the little ‘uns that said elf is actually alive, well, such people are bound to show scheming and devious behaviour in other matters – and they won’t need any elf in being so. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/18/elf-on-the-shelf-isnt-real-christmas-tradition-post-truth-doll-intimidation

Sweet Dreams!

You’re not exactly unaware of Health & Safety and as the season of goodwill approaches, your defences go up even further. You have read all the warnings about unfused fairy lights and dangerously mobile festive trees. You know better than to undercook the turkey and you take care not to set the house alight along with the plum pudding. Carving knives are kept out of reach of little fingers and none of your guests are overfilled with the Christmas spirit before driving home. Every year you manage to reach the evening of 25/12 without having succumbed to any of the hazards lying in wait for the less aware. You fall asleep that night, the Christmas fairy smiling benevolently upon you and yours. Once again you have bypassed the terrors of the season, haven’t you?

On Boxing Day you visit Aunt Kate, a sprightly, feisty lady who scrimped coupons to keep her family in white flour and treacle during the war. You present your gift and sit down to a sumptuous Christmas tea before returning home. It is all there; the heaped cold turkey and ham, the cranberry sauce and Branston pickle, the bread and butter, the mince pies and slabs of cold plum pudding. The tea is over and you have done yourself proud. You’ve tasted everything on the table and, pleading gastronomic exhaustion, prepare to leave. But Aunt Kate has a wicked gleam in her eye and though you have done everything to avoid it, you know you will not escape tasting her special Rich Dark Fruit Cake. The recipe was in her mother’s family, and her mother’s family before that. Really, how can you not..? Smelling of liquor and boasting a thousand calories per cubic centimetre, raisins winking malevolently beside bleary yellow almond paste and rock-hard white icing, you can hear the theme music of Jaws, the movie, as the dark-brown danger approaches. Aunt Kate urges you on, and on. Finally, determinedly, you bite into a slab. Your tongue curls in loathing, your teeth blench in fear, but it is too late. A myriad of sweet-stuffs descend to your stomach and invades your pitifully pleading cells. You fall into a half-faint… In your diabetic coma the Christmas fairy waves her sparkling wand over a vision of days of yore when fruit picked and preserved during summer months brought welcome sweetness to bleak mid-winters. For older people with memories of wartime rationing Rich Dark Fruit Cake undoubtedly evokes a certain nostalgia. For someone about to expire from cold and hunger on a frozen Arctic waste, it just might be a life-saver. But for a well-fed modern palate and stomach, in overheated surroundings, it is nothing short of medieval torture. Slowly your sugar rush subsides and the world once more slides into focus. But your ordeal is far from over. The gastronomic terrorist is standing in front of you, smiling sweetly, unaware of her assault on your digestive tract. ‘Will you have another piece?’ she asks, moving the plate forward. The Christmas fairy waves her wand manically as your hand reaches out…

It's happened AGAIN...

Talk about hope triumphing over experience: another bunch of eager parents have paid £7 a pop for the greater seasonal enjoyment of themselves and their little ‘uns. And yet another clutch of puzzled, disappointed children find themselves in a sea of mud and chaos with about as much Christmas cheer as a derelict seaside town. This time, the culprit is the Bakewell Winter (so-called) Wonderland in Derbyshire. Apparently, even Santa didn’t show up and among the reasons trotted out by the purveyors for the lack of festive brio was that “the reindeers had gone to bed”. Hmmmm… Once more, I take pains to explain that Christmas – as we know it – is but a consumerist construct, one that cannot be created in the wilderness. And once again, I explain that the best place to find Christmas is – on the high street. It’s an unfair transaction but a valid one that the store-owners are best qualified to construct this annual festival of consumption. They have the venues, the props and the personnel, the years upon years of experience of selling luxury goods, of creating atmosphere with artificial greenery, glittering baubles and piped carols a-singing, electronic bells a-ringing, cash tills a-bleeping, many lords a-leaping, five thousand gold rings in the jewellery department, French perfumes in cosmetics & toiletries, and roast partridge and pear tart on offer in the store restaurant. In the grotto, the on-duty elves point in the direction of the mechanical, nodding reindeer and the talent-agency Santa, who patiently asks every transfixed little ‘un what he or she wants for Christmas – aaaaaaaah, what’s not to love? Perhaps it’s all too easy for certain people, just hopping on a bus and going to a place that you can visit any day of the week all year round – and all free of charge? But the seasonal, magical transformation of these colloquial emporia never ceases to fill me with wonder; I’ll be celebrating Christmas in the high street this year – how about you?

Lighten up!

Chuck out the chintz, they said, and so I did. I threw out all frills and florals, furbelows and fancies. If I did not have a use for it (cooking, cleaning, lounging, leaning, etc), out it went with the rest of the trash. Modernism eschews pattern and colour in favour of functional form and the muted tones and textures of fabrics like Hessian and undyed wool, natural wood and leather. Ah, by the aroma of tanning shall ye know the fellow sophisticates. And I was one of the initiates - until a wonderful light-shade in the Argos catalogue caught my eye, a dangly, jangly confection of cascading, crystalline beads and pendants. Mine is pale pink, and it is also available blue, clear and champagne. At £9.99, it won’t break the bank; it will send sparkles of light and joy scudding to all corners of your living space. To modern miserablists and miserable modernists, I say – time to lighten up!

They laughed as I howled at the moon...

Make no mistake; I can take anything that the vampire world has to offer. Bring on crucifixes and coffins, and juicy garlic necklaces adorning Ruritanian cottages. I thrill to rising mists in overgrown graveyards, bats a-flapping against church roofs, and wolves howling as a black-clad count lauds his cheel-dren of the naaaaa-ightt….aaaaaaah! What’s not to love and when I saw the jaw-dropping, heart-stopping, head-spinning, sense-dimming Vampire roller coaster wheeling across the mock-Transylvanian town at, er, Chessington World of Adventures, I was sold.
It began well; queuing in the atmospheric forest with snippets of bat lore posted along the way, cartloads of screaming rollers coasting overhead at intervals. I simply couldn’t wait to get up there and experience a gentle fantasy of flying bat-like over rooftops and about the trees. Presently, we entered a darkened tunnel and descended to a subterranean terminal bathed in red light, a grey-haired automaton drawing subsonic sounds from the mock-organ – cool, oh so cool… At last, Elder Niece and I attained our carriage. Secured in our seats by plastic cages, the ride began - and my gentle fantasies blew away in the giddying, nauseating and utterly terrifying experience that followed. As the ground yawned underneath and trees and rooftops veered ever closer, I lost it. I wept and howled, shut mine eyes and prepared to die. Once, I opened them, only to see a pine trunk moving ever closer.
It’s all over, I sobbed.
My life was about to end in an ignominious splat on the side of a tree in a hokum, amusement-park forest. I wept and howled and wept and howled again, and waited for the smash. Every moment turned to infinity, my only connection with the real world being the reassuring grip of Elder Niece on my hand, like a nurse bringing a psychiatric patient through a bad dream. Eventually the whirling stopped and the carriage came to a halt.
Are we alive? I whispered, as we arrived in the subterranean terminal. We climbed out of the shadows and into the sunlight, my jelly legs aided and abetted by the staircase railings and indeed, terra firma had never looked so beautiful. Sitting outside and recovering, the overhead hollering alerted me to a cartload of screaming rollers coasting overhead…oh, my gosh…I want to go up again....